The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

The next evening the python comes again to the turtle and asks his help against the leopard. The turtle says to the python: “Go hide in the thicket and keep still for a while.”

Then the leopard comes to the turtle and asks his help against the python. “Go hide in the thicket,” says the turtle.

Then the leopard ran into the thicket and walked on top of the python.

“Now,” says the turtle to the python and the leopard, “you can settle your own palaver.”

Another man tells why it is that the leopard has no friend among all the animals, but walks always alone in the forest. Once upon a time a chief made a great trap to catch animals. First a gazelle fell into the trap. Then he cried and cried to his companion (the story-teller imitates the cry of this and the following animals to a critical but delighted audience) but the gazelle’s companion did not hear and he died there, for the chief was away on a journey. Then a wild boar came and was caught and he also cried to his companion. Then an antelope came and was caught. They all died in the trap. Then came a leopard and was caught, but before the leopard died a turtle came; and the turtle felt pity for the leopard and released him. Then the leopard wanted to kill the turtle which had released him. So the turtle crawled inside of a hollow tree. The leopard followed the turtle into the tree, but he got fast in the tree and could not get out.

Now this was a tree that bears fruit upon which monkeys feed. So after a while there came a blue-nosed monkey to eat the fruit of the tree. Then there came a white-nosed monkey; then a red-headed monkey; then a black monkey. When the leopard heard the noise of the monkeys he begged them to come and release him. Then the monkeys all came and got the leopard out of the tree. But no sooner did the leopard find himself safe than he fought with the monkeys, and he killed the white-nosed monkey and the red-headed monkey and ate them. Then the black-haired monkey, who had escaped up a tree, said to the leopard: “You leopards are rogues and treacherous. We helped you and saved your life, and as soon as you were helped you turned on us and began to kill us.” So the leopard to this day has no friends, but walks alone in the forest, for he cannot be trusted. And there are men who cannot be trusted any more than the leopard; therefore they live without friends.

“Oh,” cried the audience, “men do not know the language of the leopard and the language of the monkey.” “No,” replies the story-teller, “men cannot speak the language of either of these animals; but some men have fetishes by which they can understand the language of all animals when they hear them talk.”

A man tells “a true story” about a slave who lives in his town, and who frequently turns himself into a leopard and eats the sheep of the town. He has also, in the form of a leopard, attacked men and women of the town, who had offended him. Everybody in the town knows this to be true.

This suggests to another the story of a magic fight. A certain stranger coming into a town walked rudely against a man, wishing to quarrel with him that he might get his goods. The man said nothing, but expecting that the stranger would return and try to provoke a fight he prepared himself by making medicine; for he had great knowledge of medicine and magic, though he never used his knowledge except in self-defense. The stranger returned as he expected and again walked rudely against him. The man said to the stranger: “Do you want to fight with me?”

“Yes,” replied the stranger, and he cursed the man’s mother, at which the man struck him.