Where Animals Talk: West African Folk Lore Tales

by Robert Hamill Nassau

When the mother had planted a third garden, and it had grown, a herd of elephants came to destroy it. She cried out, “Ah! Njâku! what shall I do? You have come to destroy all my gardens! Shall I die with hunger?” The son brought out his Spear, and shouting at the elephants, threatened to kill them all. But the herd laughed and said, “When you throw that spear, only one of us shall fall.” He threw the spear at the one that spoke. It struck him and all the elephants in succession; and they all died. The Spear kept on in its flight into the forest. The young man cried after it, “Spear! Spear! come back, come back!” And it came to him again.

Each time that the Spear had thus gone through the forest, it had mowed down the trees in its path; and thus was made the clearing which the mother had at once utilized for the planting of her successive gardens.

After the elephants, mother and son sat down again in their hunger; they had nothing to eat but leaves. These she cooked; and they ate them all at once.

Then she planted another garden, thinking that now there were no more beasts who would come to ravage. But she did not know that there was still left in the forest one very, very large Elephant that had not been in the company of the herd that the son had killed.

There was also, in that forest, one very, very large Ox. When the gardens had grown, that Ox came, and began to destroy. The young man hurled his Spear at the Ox. It was wounded, but did not fall; and it went away into the forest with the spear sticking in its side. The young man pursued the Ox, following, following, following far away. But he did not overtake it.

On his way, he reached unexpectedly a small, lonely hut, where an Old Woman was living by herself. When she saw him, she said to him, “Do not follow any longer. That Ox was a person like yourself. He is dead; and his people have hung up that Spear in their house.”

The young man told the old woman that he was very hungry. So she cut down for him an entire bunch of plantains. He was so exceedingly hungry that he could not wait; and before the plantains were entirely cooked, he began to eat of them, and ate them all. The old woman exclaimed, “What sort of a person is this who eats in this way?” In her wisdom, thinking over the matter, she felt sure it was some disease that caused his voracity.

The man, being tired with his journey, fell asleep; and she, by her magic power, caused him to hear or feel nothing. While he was in this state, she cut him open. As she did so, his disease rushed out with a whizzing sound; and she cut away, and removed a tumor, that looked like a stone of glass. That was the thing that had caused his excessive hunger all his life. By her Power, she closed the wound.

When he awoke, she cooked food for him, of which he ate, and was satisfied with an ordinary amount like any other person. She then told him what she had done, and said, “As you are now cured, you may pursue that Ox. You will reach his town, and you will obtain your Spear. But, as you go there, you must make a pretense. You must pretend that you are mourning for the dead. You must cry out in wailing, ‘Who killed my Uncle-o-o! who killed my Uncle-o-o!’” Thus he went on his way; and finally came to a town where was a crowd of people gathered in and about a house of mourning. Beginning to wail, he went among the mourners. They received him, with the idea that he was some distant relative who had come to attend the funeral. He walked up the street of this town of the Ox-Man, and entering into the house of mourning, said, “Had not the way been so long, my mother also would have come; but, I have come to look at that Thing that killed my Uncle.” They welcomed him, commended his devotion, and said, “You will not go today. Stay with us. Sleep here tonight; and tomorrow you shall see and take away with you, to show to your mother, that Thing.”

So, the next day, they gave him the Spear, and said, “Go, but do not delay. Return for the closing ceremony (the “Washing”) of the mourning.” He went away, and came again to the Old Woman. She said to him, when he showed her the Spear, “I told you truly that you would obtain it. But, go with it and this bundle I have made of the tumor of your disease, and show them to your mother.”