Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa. Dayrell Elphinstone

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ principle of a fine in atonement for an offence.

      XXII. The Affair of the Hippopotamus and of the Tortoise.—A very curious variant of the Whuppitie Stoorie, or Tom-Tit-Tot story, depending on the power conferred by learning the secret name of an opponent. These secret names are conferred at Australian ceremonies. Any amount of the learning about secret names is easily accessible.

      XXIII. Why Dead People are Buried.—Here we meet the Creator so common in the religious beliefs of Africans as of most barbarous and savage peoples. "The Creator was a big chief." The Euahlayi Baiame is rendered "Big Man" by Mrs. Langloh Parker (see The Euahlayi Tribe). The myth is one of world-wide diffusion, explaining The Origin of Death, usually by the fable of a message, forgotten and misrendered, from the Creator.

      XXIV. The Fat Woman who Melted Away.—The revival of this beautiful creature, from all that was left of her, the toe, is an incident very common in folk-tales, i.e. the Scottish Rashin Coatie. (The word "dowry" is used throughout where "bride-price" would better express the institution. The Homeric ἕνα is meant.)

      XXV. The Leopard, the Squirrel, and the Tortoise.—A "Just So Story."

      XXVI. Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes.—A lunar myth; not a poetical though a kindly explanation of the habits of the moon.

      XXVII. The Story of the Leopard, the Tortoise, and the Bush Rat.—A "Just So Story."

      XXVIII. The King and the JuJu Tree.—This is a fine example of Ju Ju beliefs, and of an extraordinary sacrifice to a Ju Ju power located in a tree. Goats, chickens, and white men are common offerings, but "seven baskets of flies" might propitiate Beelzebub. The "spirit-man" who can succeed when sacrifice fails, chooses the king's daughter as his reward, as is usual in Märchen. Compare Melampus and Pero in Greece. The skull in spirit-land here plays a friendly part, in advising the princess, like Proserpine, not to eat among the dead. This caution is found everywhere—in the Greek version of Orpheus and Eurydice, in the Kalewala, and in Scott's "Wandering Willie's Tale," in Redgauntlet. Like Orpheus, the girl is not to look back while leaving spirit-land. Her successful escape, by obeying the injunctions of the skull, is unusual.

      XXIX. How the Tortoise overcame the Elephant and the Hippopotamus.—A "Just So Story," with the tortoise as cunning as Brer Rabbit.

      XXX. Of the Pretty Girl and the Seven Jealous Women.—Here the good little bird plays the part of the popinjay who "up and spake" with good effect in the first ballads. The useful Ju Ju man divines by casting lots, a common method among the Zulus. The revenge of the pretty girl's father is certainly adequate.

      XXXI. How the Cannibals drove the People from Insofan Mountain to the Cross River (Ikom).—This professes to be historical, and concerns human sacrifices, "to cool the new yams," and cannibalism.

      XXXII. is unimportant.

      In XXXIII. we find the ordeal poison, which destroys fifty witches.

      XXXIV. The Slave Girl who tried to Kill her Mistress is a form of our common tale of the waiting-maid who usurps the place of her mistress, the Bride. The resurrection of the Bride from the water, at the cry of her little sister, occurs in a remote quarter, among the Samoyeds in Castren's Samoyedische Märchen, but there the opening is in the style of Asterinos and Pulja (Phrixus and Helle) in Van Hahn's Griechische Märchen. The False Bride story is, in an ancient French chanson de geste, part of the legend of the mother of Charlemagne. The story also occurs in Callaway's collection of Zulu fairy tales. In the Nigerian version the manners, customs, and cruelties are all thoroughly West African.

      XXXV. The King and the 'Nsiat Bird accounts, as usual, for the habits of the bird; and also illustrates the widespread custom of killing twins.

      XXXVI. reflects the well-known practices of poison and the ordeal by poison.

      XXXVII. is another "Just So Story."

      XXXVIII. The Drummer and the Alligators.—In this grim tale of one of the abominable secret societies the human alligators appear to be regarded as being capable of taking bestial form, like werewolves or the leopards of another African secret society.

      XXXIX. and XL. are both picturesque "Just So Stories," so common in the folk-lore of all countries.

      The most striking point in the tales is the combination of good humour and good feeling with horrible cruelties, and the reign of terror of the Egbos and lesser societies. European influences can scarcely do much harm, apart from whisky, in Nigeria. As to religion, we do not learn that the Creator receives any sacrifice: in savage and barbaric countries He usually gets none. Only Ju Jus, whether ghosts or fiends in general, are propitiated. The Other is "too high and too far."

      I have briefly indicated the stories which have variants in ancient myth and European Märchen or fairy tales.

      ANDREW LANG.

      Footnote

       Table of Contents

      [1] See the Platonic dialogue, Minos, 315-6, and Athamas in Roscher's Lexikon.

FOLK STORIES

       FROM SOUTHERN NIGERIA

       Table of Contents

I

       Table of Contents

The Tortoise with a Pretty Daughter

       Table of Contents

      There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.

      Now about this time the tortoise and his wife had a daughter who was very beautiful. The mother thought it was not safe to keep such a fine child, as the prince might fall in love with her, so she told her husband that her daughter ought to be killed and thrown away into the bush. The tortoise, however, was unwilling, and hid her until she was three years old. One day, when both the tortoise and his wife were away on their farm, the king's son happened to be hunting near their house, and saw a bird perched on the top of the fence round the house. The bird was watching the little girl, and was so entranced with her beauty that he did not notice the prince coming. The prince shot the bird with his bow and arrow, and it dropped inside the fence, so the prince sent his servant to gather it. While the servant was looking for the bird he came across the little girl, and was so struck with her form, that he immediately returned to his master and told him what he СКАЧАТЬ