African Myths and Folk Tales Read online

  DOVER CHILDREN’S THRIFT CLASSICS GENERAL EDITOR: MARY CAROLYN WALDREP EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: SUZANNE E. JOHNSON

  To

  My Sister

  Bessie Beryl Woodson

  Bibliographical Note

  This Dover edition, first published in 2009, is an unabridged republication of the text with a selection of illustrations from African Myths Together with Proverbs: A Supplementary Reader Composed of Folk Tales from Various Parts of Africa, Adapted to the Use of Children in the Public Schools, originally published by The Associated Publishers, Inc., Washington, D.C., in 1928.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Woodson, Carter Godwin, 1875–1950.

  African myths and folk tales / Carter Godwin Woodson.

  p. cm.—(Dover children’s thrift classics)

  Originally published: Washington, D.C. : Associated Publishers, 1928.

  9780486114286

  1. Tales—Africa. 2. Readers. I. Title.

  PE1127.G4W7 2010

  398.2096—dc22

  2009033829

  Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

  47734701

  www.doverpublications.com

  Preface

  The folk tales of a people are a guide to the understanding of their past. If you want to understand people of today you must find out what they have been. If the wealth of beautiful African legends is indicative of the early civilization of that continent the natives must have reached a high level of culture. To appreciate the African, then, we must hear him speak for himself in the charming stories handed down from sire to son.

  Folk tales, as a rule, deal with the terrible and formidable, telling of animal ancestors, dwarfs, and monsters; but in African stories one often discovers “tender and gracious touches.” Some of these legends have a fine sense of humor. Many of them present a point of view and emphasize a moral. Taken as a whole, they show the wit, wisdom, and philosophy of the people. In this way primitive man undertook to account for the natural, moral, and spiritual world in which he moved.

  Story-telling in Africa is almost an institution. Certain persons, largely old women, specialize in telling the youth interesting stories. Here and there are found professional story-tellers, those who go from place to place, devoting all of their time to this sort of occupation. They are the literary group of the tribe. They thus hand down to posterity the traditions of the fathers.

  The story-teller passes as a respectable person in the community and figures especially in its social functions. In certain parts, however, story-telling is a daily performance. At the close of the day when night comes to make easy the doing of mysterious things, the group gathers around the narrator in the village street or camp to listen to a charming story.

  The story is told with a wealth of descriptive detail, in a sort of dramatic, recitative chanting and crooning very much like a song. The actors in most cases are beasts; but they speak and live sometimes “as human beings in a human environment” and sometimes “as human beings in a beast environment.” The narrator imitates the voice of the characters and speaks with gestures, often followed by a shriek or howl. Observers generally agree that the African story-teller does his task well.

  The stories herein published are merely a few legends from different sources. Most of them may be found in varying forms in any large collection of African Folklore. These are presented here without modification of thought but in the simplest language possible to reach the minds of children of the lower grades of public schools. The glossary at the end will be helpful.

  WASHINGTON, D. C.,

  November, 1928.

  CARTER GODWIN WOODSON.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  DOVER CHILDREN’S THRIFT CLASSICS GENERAL EDITOR: MARY CAROLYN WALDREP EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: SUZANNE E. JOHNSON

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Preface

  Creation

  Why the Sun Shines by Day and the Moon by Night

  How Animals Came into the World

  The Origin of Lake Tanganyika

  The Beginning of Death

  Why Children Belong to the Mother

  The Ingrate

  The Jealousy of the Blind Man

  The Race for a Wife

  The Deer and the Snail

  Ohia and His Sorrows

  Why Some Women Never Eat Mutton

  The Fairy Wife

  The Disobedient Daughter’s Marriage

  Kindness Misunderstood

  The Dog and the Leopard

  How the Dog Became the Friend of Man

  The Cats and Fowls

  Why Chickens Live with Man

  Why the Hawk Catches Chickens

  African Words of Wisdom

  The Fox and the Goat

  Why Goats Live with Man

  The Lion, the Leopard, and the Dog

  The Leopard, the Tortoise, and the Bush Rat

  The Lioness and the Cow

  Why the Hippopotamus Lives in the Water

  Why the Bush Fowl Calls up the Dawn

  Why the Cat Catches Rats

  The Crocodile’s Relatives

  The Reward for Honesty

  The Squirrel and the Spider

  The Toad and the Kite

  The Antelope and the Jackal

  The Leopard and the Hare

  The Rabbit and the Antelope

  Beware of Bad Company

  The Partnership of the Elephant and the Rabbit

  Three Rival Brothers

  The Legend of Ngurangurane

  Self-pronouncing Words

  Creation

  At first there was no earth. There was Okun, the ocean, stretching over all things. Above the ocean was Olorun, the sky. Okun and Olorun contained all and possessed all things that there were.

  Olorun had two sons. The elder’s name was Orisha. The name of the younger son was Odudua. They were living together in the sky.

  Olorun called Orisha to him. He gave him a handful of earth and a hen with five claws. Olorun said to him, “Go down and make land upon Okun, the ocean.”

  Orisha went. On the way he found some palm wine. He drank some of it and became drunk. Then he fell asleep.

  Olorun saw this. He then called Odudua and said to him, “Thy elder brother has become drunk on his way below and has fallen asleep. Go thou, take this handful of earth and the hen with five claws and make land upon Okun.”

  Odudua went. He took the handful of earth. He went down and laid it on the ocean. He put the hen with five claws on it. The hen began to scratch and spread the handful of earth about and forced the water aside. Much land then appeared.

  The ocean grew less and less at this place and ran away through a small hole. From this small hole came holy water. This was the source of the holy river, the water of which heals and never fails.

  Now Orisha was very angry because he himself had not created the earth. He and his brother fought for a long time and then both went underground and were never seen again.

  Why the Sun Shines by Day and the Moon by Night

  In the beginning of the world the king called the people together to be given their tasks. He sent out messengers for them. He sent the dove to call the moon, and the bat to call the sun. Each messenger was given a certain time to go and return, so that they might all arrive together.

  The dove went to call the moon and brought her, and the king said, “I will give you, then, the office the sun should have had, namely, that of shining by night. When you first shine people will beat their drums and blow their trumpets; they will also bring out their fetishes for you to see them, and the fetishes of twins. These
are the honors I give you.”

  The King tells the Sun that it is too late.

  After giving the moon her office and honors the king waited for the bat to bring the sun; but as the bat did not come the king sent the dove to look for her and bring her.

  The dove went and returned with the sun. Then the king said, “Because you have stayed so long I have given to the moon the office I meant to give to you. Now I will give you the office of showing people the way to walk about.”

  It was on this account that the sun hated the bat, because he loitered on the way when sent to call him, and stayed longer than the time given by the king. And very soon thereafter the sun had a chance to be even with the bat.

  The bat later lived at a place with only its aged mother. Shortly after their settling there, the mother suddenly fell sick unto death. The bat called for the antelope, and said to him, “Make some medicine for my mother.” The antelope looked steadily at her to see what her disease was. Then he told the bat, “There is no one who has the medicine that will cure your mother, except the sun.” After saying this, the antelope returned home.

  The Bat

  On another day, early in the morning, the bat arose to go to call the sun. He did not start until about seven o’clock. He met the sun on the road around eleven o’clock. And he said to the sun, “My journey was on the way to see you.”

  The sun replied, “If you have a word to say, speak!”

  So the bat requested, “Come! make some medicine for my mother. She is sick.”

  But the sun replied, “I can’t go to make medicine unless you meet me in my house; not here on the road. Go back; and come to me at my house tomorrow.”

  So the bat went back home. And the day darkened, night came, and all went to sleep.

  At six o’clock the next day, the bat started out to call the sun. About nine o’clock, he met the sun on the path; and he told the sun what he had come for. But the sun said to him, “Whenever I leave my house, I do not go back, but I keep on to the end of my journey. Go back, for another day.” The bat returned home again.

  He made other journeys in order to see the sun at his house, five successive days; but every day he was late, and met the sun already on the way of his own journey for his own business.

  Finally, on the seventh day, the bat’s mother died. Then the bat, in his grief said, “It is the sun who has killed my mother! Had he made some medicine for her, she would have become well.”

  Very many people from afar came together that day at the mourning for the dead. The funeral was held from six o’clock in the morning until eleven o’clock of the next day. At that hour, the bat announced, “Let her be taken to the grave.” He called other beasts to go into the house together with him, in order to carry out the corpse. They took up the body, and carried it on the way to the grave.

  Quadrupeds at the funeral of the Bat

  On their arrival at the grave, these beasts said to the bat, “We have a rule that, before we bury a person, we must first look upon the face to see who it is.” They then opened the coffin.

  When they had looked on the face, they said, “No! we can’t bury this person; for, it is not our relative, it does not belong to us beasts. This person looks like us because he has teeth. And it also has a head like us. But, that it has wings, makes it look like a bird. It is a bird. Call for the birds! We shall leave.” So they departed.

  Then the bat called the birds to come. They came, big and little; pelicans, eagles, herons and all the others. When they all had come together, they said to the bat, “Show us the dead body.”

  He said to them, “Here it is! Come! look upon it!”

  They looked at it very carefully. Then they said, “Yes! it resembles us; for, it has wings as we have. But, about the teeth, no! We birds, none of us, have any teeth. This person does not resemble us with those teeth. It does not belong to us.”

  And all the birds stepped aside.

  During the time that the talking had been going on, ants had come and laid hold of the body, and could not be driven away. Then one of the birds said to the bat, “I told you, you ought not to delay the burial, for many things might happen.”

  Birds at the funeral of the Bat

  And all the birds and beasts went away.

  The bat, left alone, said to himself, “The wicked sun alone is to blame for all of my troubles. If he had made some medicine, my mother would not be dead. So, I, the bat, and the sun shall not look on each other again. We shall have no friendship. When he appears, I shall hide myself. I won’t meet him or look at him.”

  “And,” he added, “I shall mourn for my mother always. I will make no visits. I will walk about only at night, not in the daytime, lest I meet the sun or other people.”

  How Animals Came into the World

  Famine in a strange land had lasted nearly three years. In that land lived a man called Kweku Tsin. As he was very hungry, Kweku Tsin looked daily in the forest to find food.

  One day he happened to see three palm kernels on the ground. He picked up two stones with which to crack them. The first nut, however, slipped when he hit it, and rolled into a hole behind him. The same thing happened to the second and to the third. This annoyed Kweku very much, and he determined to go down the hole to seek his lost palm kernels.

  When he reached the hole, however, he was surprised to learn that it was the entrance to a town, of which he had never before even heard. When he entered it he found deathlike silence everywhere. He cried aloud, “Is there nobody in this town?” And soon he heard a voice in reply. He went in that direction and found an old woman creeping along one of the streets. She stopped and asked why he had come there, and he quickly told her.

  The old woman was very kind and sympathetic; and promised to help him, if he would do as she told him. “Go into the garden and listen attentively,” said she. “You will hear the yams speak. Pass by any yam that says, ‘Dig me out, dig me out!’ But take the one that says, ‘Do not dig me out!’ Then bring it to me.”

  When he brought the yam, she directed him to remove the peel from it and throw the yam away. He was then to boil the rind, and, while boiling, it would become a yam.

  The Old Woman creeping along.

  It turned out as she said, and they sat down to eat some of it. Before taking the meal the old woman requested Kweku not to look at her while she ate. He was very polite and obedient, and kept his head turned.

  In the evening the old woman sent him into the garden to get one of the drums which were there. She told him, “If you come to a drum which says, ‘Ding-ding,’ when you touch it, take it. But be very careful not to take one which says, ‘Dong-dong.’”

  He carefully obeyed her orders. When he showed her the drum, she looked pleased and told him, to his great delight, that he had only to beat it if at any time he were hungry. That would bring him food in plenty. He thanked the old woman very much and went home.

  As soon as Kweku Tsin reached his own home, he called his household together, and then beat the drum. All at once, food of every kind came before them, and they all ate and ate until they wanted no more.

  The next day Kweku Tsin called all the people of the village together in the public square, and then beat the drum once more. In this way every family received sufficient food for its wants, and all thanked Kweku Tsin very much for thus giving them what they so much needed.

  The Magic Drum

  Anansi, Kweku’s father, however, was jealous of his son who was able to feed the whole village. Anansi thought he, too, should have a magic drum. The people then would be grateful to him instead of to his son.

  He asked the young man, therefore, where he had found the wonderful drum. His son at first refused to tell him, but Anansi gave him no peace until he had learned the whole story.

  He then immediately went off toward the hole leading to the town. He carried with him an old nut which he pretended to crack; but he threw it into the hole, and jumped in after it, and hurried along to the silent village.r />
  When he came to the first house, he cried, “Is there no one in this town?” The old woman answered as she did when the son came, and Anansi entered her home.

  He was in too much haste to be polite and spoke to her very rudely, saying, “Hurry up, old woman, and get me something to eat.”

  The woman politely asked him to go into the garden and choose the yam which should say, “Do not dig me out.”

  Anansi laughed at her and said, “You surely take me for a dunce. If the yam does not want me to dig it out I would be very silly to do so. I shall take the one which wants to be dug out.” And so he did.

  When he brought the yam to the old woman she told him, as she had told his son, to throw away the inside and boil the rind; but he refused to obey.

  “Who ever heard of such a silly thing as throwing away the inside and boiling the peel,” said Anansi.

  He did so, and the yam turned into stones. He then saw that it was better to do as he had been told, and boil the rind. While boiling the rind turned into yam.

  Anansi then turned in anger to the old woman and said, “You are a witch.”

  The Garden

  She took no notice of his words, but went on putting the food on the table. She placed his dinner on a small table, lower than her own, saying, “You must not look at me while I eat.”

  He rudely replied, “Indeed, I will look at you if I choose. And I will have my dinner at your table, not at that small one.”

  Again she said nothing, but she did not touch her dinner. Anansi ate his own and hers too.