Our Town Life
Streets are irregular--Houses small and draughty--Their reception,
dining, and drawing rooms are in the open air--Their many charms and
fetishes--Routine of the day--Bakula tells a story: “How the Sparrow
set the Elephant and the Crocodile to pull against each
other”--Tumbu, a slave, relates the tale of “The Four Fools”--And
Bakula tells: “How the Squirrel won a Verdict for the Gazelle.”
As soon as the funeral festivities were over, our many visitors returned
to their towns and villages, and I soon became interested in the normal
life of the natives. Our town was not very large, and its houses were
not in regular streets. A person would build to suit his own
convenience, and in walking from one side of the town to the other you
were obliged to wind in and out among the houses. As a rule there was
plenty of space between the huts, but here and there they were crowded
together and surrounded by grass fences. These enclosed places belonged
to the chief and his head men.
The houses were built with grass walls and roofs, all the work being
very neatly done. When new they were rain-proof, but very draughty. The
walls were only four feet six inches high, and the ridge-pole was about
seven feet above the ground. The people cooked their food, ate it, and
sat outside their houses. In the open air they held their receptions,
their social meetings, their palavers, their courts of justice, and
every other town and domestic function. The houses were simply for
sleeping, for storing their goods, and for sitting in on cold, windy,
stormy days. There was no privacy about the native manner of living, but
everybody knew everything about everybody else, and a little more
besides.
A great number of charms and fetishes were to be found in the town, and
it seemed as though they had a charm for every imaginable circumstance
of life. One man possessed a charm to protect his goods, and another had
a charm to help him steal successfully; one owned a charm to bring him
good luck in trading, and another wore a charm to aid him in cheating on
the markets the folk with whom he traded. One man whom I saw had a charm
to render him invisible that he might, unseen, hear conversations, and
enter forbidden places to his own advantage; and many had bought charms
to keep evil spirits from jumping down their throats.
My owner, Bakula, wore many charms about his person. One maintained him
in good health, another helped him in hunting, a third made him a
favourite with the women and girls, and a fourth brought him good luck
in his trading transactions with the other folk in the town. On the
appearance of every new moon, Bakula would at sunset catch a chicken,
and, cutting its toe, drop a little blood on each of his charms to keep
them in good humour, or otherwise they would not act on his behalf.
Every morning soon after sunrise the women and girls went to work on the
farms, carrying with them their hoes, baskets and babies; and then the
men and boys went to the bush and forests to hunt for game, to tap the
palm-trees for wine, or to gather materials for house building and
repairing. Others went to the markets with their pigs, goats, fowls,
saucepans, native woven cloth, or any other article they had for sale,
or desired to exchange for some needed goods.
Towards the middle of the afternoon the women and girls returned laden
with food, firewood and water, and at once set about the preparations
for the evening meal--the principal one of the day. Then later came the
men and boys firing guns in their jubilation, if they had been
successful in the hunt, and the female population would rush out
shouting vociferously their congratulations to the hunters, and passing
remarks on the bush pig or antelope being carried into the town
ignominiously on a pole between two or more bearers. The other men
arrived from the markets with the results of the day’s trading, or from
the forests with the building materials they had collected.
At five o’clock the inhabitants would all be back, and the town would be
very lively--the children laughing and playing at their various games;
the men lounging about reciting, with more or less boasting inaccuracy,
their doings during the day, and awaiting with keen appetites the
evening meal. Over all the noises of the village would be heard the
angry voices of the women quarrelling; but as such disturbances were of
daily occurrence among the women, very few took any notice of them,
except to put in an occasional word to incite the women to greater
efforts with their tongues.
Soon after sundown the food was ready, and the women turning it out into
baskets and wooden platters, carried it to their husbands, hiding a
portion for themselves. If you, my reader, had walked through the town
then you would have seen the head of each family, together with his
sons, male visitors, and friends, sitting around the vessels containing
their food, helping themselves with their fingers, their hands and
mouths having already been washed. At some little distance the women and
girls would be eating their portions, for they were regarded as inferior
creatures, entirely unfit to eat with the men, so they ate in a
half-shamefaced, apologetic fashion out of sight of their lords and
masters.
As you stood looking at them one of the boys would ask you to have a
piece of his pudding, and if you accepted the invitation and took a
piece you would find it stick to your teeth like toffee.
“Ah!” the lad would laughingly say, “that is not the way to eat our
pudding (_luku_).[15] This is the proper way.” And he would pull off a
piece, roll it in his fingers, dip it in some soup, and opening his
mouth let it roll down his throat without any chewing; afterwards
remarking, with a twinkle in his eye: “You white boys may be very
clever, but you certainly do not know how to eat pudding.”
Footnote 15:
See note 13, p. 346.
It was quite dark by the time the meal was finished, and the numerous
fires flared and flickered before the houses, lending an air of
cheerfulness to the scene. The elders gathered around the fire in front
of the chief’s house, and discussed the politics of the day with much
earnestness and eloquence. The lads were allowed to stand silently
around, listening; and while my owner, Bakula, was there, a pompous man
made a long, wearisome speech, in which he showed that he thought more
of himself than his hearers thought of him.
The speech was full of bombastic platitudes and boastful words, so the
chief at last pointed at him, saying: “Here is a little fowl trying to
lay a big egg.” Such was the effect of this proverb that the pompous man
collapsed, whilst his audience chuckled and shook their sides with
laughter. And amid the laughter Bakula ran off, and we soon joined a
group of young folk who were telling stories round the fire.
Bakula was received with shouts of delight, for he was a merry lad, and
appeared to have among them the reputation for telling good stories.
Hence he was soon called upon for one, and in a lively, pleasant manner,
and with much dramatic force, he gave them the following account of
“How the Sparrow set the Elephant and the Crocodile to pull against
each other.”
“While the elephant was searching for food one day he happened to pass
near a sparrow’s nest, and accidentally knocking against the branch,
nearly threw the eggs to the ground. The sparrow thereupon said to the
elephant--
“‘You walk very proudly, and not looking where you are going, you nearly
upset my nest. If you come this way again I will tie you up.’
“‘Truly you are a little bird,’ the elephant laughingly replied, ‘and
are you able to tie up me--an elephant?’ ‘Indeed,’ the sparrow answered
him, ‘if you come this way to-morrow, I will bind you.’
“‘All right,’ said the elephant, ‘I will now pass on, and will come back
here to-morrow to look upon the strength of a sparrow.’ So the elephant
went his way and the sparrow flew off to bathe in a neighbouring river.
“On reaching the river and finding a crocodile asleep at her favourite
bathing-place, the sparrow said: ‘Wake up! this is my bathing-place, and
if you come here again I will tie you up.’
“‘Can a little sparrow like you tie up a crocodile?’ the crocodile asked
her.
“‘It is true what I tell you,’ retorted the sparrow, ‘and if you return
here to-morrow I will fasten you up.’
“‘Very well,’ replied the crocodile, ‘I will come to-morrow to see what
you can do.’ And with that the crocodile floated away, and the sparrow
returned to her nest.
“The next day the sparrow, seeing the elephant coming, said to him:
‘Yesterday I told you not to come this way again, because you endangered
my nest. Now I will tie you, as I warned you.’
“‘All right,’ said the elephant, ‘I want to see what a little thing like
you can do.’
“The sparrow then brought a strong vine rope, put it round the neck of
the elephant, and said to him: ‘Wait a moment while I go and have a
drink of water, and then you will see how strong I am.’ To which the
elephant replied: ‘Go and drink plenty of water, for to-day I want to
see what a sparrow can do.’ So the sparrow went and found the crocodile
basking in the sun on the river’s bank.
“‘Oh! you are here again,’ she said, ‘I will tie you up as I warned you
yesterday, because you do not listen to what you are told.’ ‘Very well,’
sneered the crocodile, ‘come and tie me up and I will see what strength
you have.’
“The sparrow took the end of the rope and tied it round the crocodile,
and said: ‘Wait a moment, I will go a little higher up the hill and
pull.’ So away she flew up the hill on to a tree, and from there she
called out: ‘Pull elephant, pull crocodile. It is I, the sparrow.’ So
the elephant pulled and the crocodile pulled, and each thought he was
pulling against the sparrow; not knowing they were pulling against each
other. All the day long they pulled, until the evening, but neither
out-pulled the other. And during the whole day the sparrow was crying
out: ‘Pull, elephant, you have the strength; pull harder, elephant.’ And
in the same way she addressed the crocodile.
“At last the crocodile said: ‘Friend sparrow, I cannot pull any more,
come and unfasten me, and I will never come to your bathing-place
again.’ ‘Wait a little while,’ said the sparrow, ‘I am going up to my
village.’ And the elephant said, as she drew near: ‘Now I know you are
very strong. Please come and undo me, and I will never come again to
shake your nest.’ So the sparrow loosened the elephant and then went and
removed the rope from the crocodile’s neck; and from that time the
sparrow has never been troubled by either the elephant or the
crocodile.”
At the close of this story there were many comments on the ’cuteness of
the sparrow, and some sage remarks. One little fellow said that,
although the sparrow was small, she had more wit and sense than either
the big crocodile or the bigger elephant. Therefore we should not
despise people because they are small.
They begged Bakula to tell them another story; but he said he could not
remember another just then. They, however, pleaded with him, and at last
he said: “If Tumbu will now tell one of his stories, I will try and
recall one of mine by the time he has finished.” Tumbu, who was sitting
at the back, was pushed forward to a place in the centre, near the fire;
and as the light from the fire fell on him, it revealed a sad face lit
with large, intelligent, but pathetic, eyes.
I knew the boy and his sad story. He was a slave who, in a time of
famine in his district a few years ago, had been sold by his parents for
a few roots of cassava, and he was forced from his mother, his village
acquaintances, and brought to this strange town. The boys and girls
twitted him with being a slave, and to make matters worse they taunted
him with the miserable price that had been paid for him.
His sensitive spirit brooded in his loneliness over the insults poured
upon him, and the marks of his deep sorrows were seen on his sad face.
He shrank from the gaze of the many eyes that were now fixed upon him;
but Bakula had been kind to him, and had often defended him, and he was
ready to bear anything for his hero. Therefore in a glad, shy manner he
related the following adventure, called
“The Story of the Four Fools.”
“A wizard out walking one day met a boy crying bitterly. He asked him
the reason of his tears, and the boy said: ‘I have lost my father’s
parrot, and if you can find it I will pay you well.’ So the wizard
called a hunter, a carpenter, and a thief, and told them about the loss
and the reward, and they decided to search for the parrot.
“‘Before starting let us show our skill,’ said one of the four. ‘You,
thief, go and steal an egg from that fowl without its knowledge.’ The
thief went and stole the egg, and the fowl did not move. The hunter put
up the egg as a mark, went a long distance off and proved his skill by
hitting the egg. After which the carpenter showed his cleverness by
putting the egg together again. Then they turned to the wizard for him
to give a proof of his smartness, and after a little time he said: ‘The
parrot has been stolen by the people in that vessel.’
“All four entered their glass ship[16] and after a time caught up to the
vessel. The thief went on board, and waved his charm, then he took the
parrot, laid the table, and had a good feast; and when he had finished
eating he picked up the parrot and returned to his glass ship.
Footnote 16:
See note 14, p. 346.
“When the people in the vessel found the parrot gone, they gave chase to
the glass ship. The captain of the vessel sent down the rain and it
broke the glass ship, but the carpenter mended it, and the hunter fired
at the rain and killed it. The captain sent the lightning and it broke
the ship, but the carpenter mended it again, and the hunter fired at the
lightning and killed it. So they eventually reached the land and took
the parrot to the chief’s son, and said: ‘Here is your father’s parrot.’
“The lad was so glad to receive it that he told them to select what they
liked from his wealth, ‘even to the wonderful fowl which lays beads, or
anything else you desire.’[17] They chose the fowl and went their way,
but they had not gone very far before the wizard said: ‘It is my fowl,
for I told you where the parrot was.’ The thief said: ‘No, it is mine,
for I stole the parrot from the vessel.’ And the carpenter also claimed
it, as he had twice mended the broken ship. Moreover, the hunter said:
‘Of course it is mine, for I killed the rain and the lightning.’ Thus
they argued long and angrily, and as they could not agree, they at last
did a thing that was amazingly stupid. They killed the wonderful fowl,
and divided it into four pieces, each taking his share. Now who out of
these four foolish ones should have had the fowl?”
Footnote 17:
See note 15, p. 346.
This story excited a great amount of discussion. Some argued that this
one should have had the fowl, and others argued with much gesticulation
that another should have taken the fowl. Each character had his
supporters; but all agreed that they were four fools not to let the fowl
lay plenty of beads and share them.
Bakula was now asked again to give his promised story; and he told
them--
“How the Squirrel won a Verdict for the Gazelle.”
“When the leopard and the gazelle were living in the same town each of
them bought a goat--the leopard a male and the gazelle a female. One
night the gazelle’s goat gave birth to two kids, and the leopard, being
very greedy, went and stole the two kids from the gazelle’s goat and put
them with his own goat.
“In the morning the leopard called the gazelle and said to him: ‘My goat
has given birth to two kids.’ The gazelle was very much surprised at
hearing this, as male goats do not have kids, and he told the leopard
so; but the leopard said: ‘All right, you don’t believe me. We will call
the judges and hear what they say.’ So they carried the case to the
court of animals, who acted as judges, and they said: ‘The kids belong
to the leopard’s goat.’ For they were very much afraid of the leopard,
and thought that if they gave the verdict against him he would kill
them.
“The gazelle went and told the squirrel all his troubles and how he was
cheated out of his kids. ‘To-morrow morning,’ said the squirrel, ‘put a
rope across your town for me to run on.’ So the next morning the gazelle
put a rope right by the leopard’s house and courtyard, which were full
of the folk who had judged the case in favour of the leopard. And by and
by the squirrel came running along the rope at a great rate.
“‘Where are you going so quickly,’ asked the leopard, ‘that you cannot
rest a little?’ ‘I am in a hurry to fetch my mother,’ said the squirrel,
‘for my father has just given birth to twins.’
“‘Ah! ah!’ laughed the leopard; ‘can a man give birth to a child?’
“‘Can a male goat give birth to kids?’ retorted the squirrel. Whereat
the leopard was so angry and felt so much ashamed of himself, that he
went right away from the town and never returned, for fear of the
animals laughing at him. And the gazelle carried the kids back to his
own goat.”
When this story ended appreciative remarks were made on the wit of the
squirrel, and contempt was poured on the clumsy leopard who so foolishly
threw away the verdict given in his favour.
By this time the moon, full and beautiful, was riding high in the sky,
flooding the village with its soft, silvery light, so Bakula proposed a
dance.
Up jumped the boys and girls from the different fires; drums were
carried out to an open space, seed rattles were tied round the ankles
and wrists of some of the dancers, and very soon the rhythmic tap, tap
of the drums were heard and answered by the clap, clap of the dancers’
hands as they formed two lines--one of girls, and the other of lads, and
began a dance that only ended in the early morning, and when the
performers were thoroughly exhausted with their exertions.