Tales from Africa Read online

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  The Rebirth of Andriambahoaka

  The Jackal and the Lion

  The Frog’s Wedding

  A Tortoise Named Ununile

  Marimba, the Mother of Music

  Um Bsisi’s Milk

  The Kokonsa of Asanteman

  The Cheetah’s Whisker

  Where the King Washes

  Read On

  NII AYIKWEI PARKES is a writer and Senior Editor at flipped eye publishing. A 2007 recipient of Ghana’s national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy, he is a former International Writing Fellow at the University of Southampton and author of the acclaimed hybrid novel Tail of the Blue Bird (Jonathan Cape, 2009), which has won awards in three countries, including the Prix Laure Bataillon in France. Nii Ayikwei writes for children under the name K. P. Kojo and spends his time in the United Kingdom and in Ghana, where he is director of the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing.

  Also in Puffin Classics

  TALES FROM THE CARIBBEAN

  by Trish Cooke

  TALES FROM INDIA

  by Bali Rai

  and by Roger Lancelyn Green

  TALES OF THE GREEK HEROES

  MYTHS OF THE NORSEMEN

  TALES OF ANCIENT EGYPT

  For all my kiddies, the world’s best nieces and nephews: Omara Okailey, Quinceo Fifi, Della Okaikor, Jerome Ayitey, Cameron, Jean Ayikailey, Sarah Marie, Carmen Akuyea, Jodelle Ayikaikor, Jeremiah Kwaku, Leona Ayikaikai and Yaa Aseda. But especially for my little editor, NaaNaa.

  Author’s Note

  Compiling and writing Tales from Africa has been a hugely entertaining adventure. A Ghanaian with family roots in the Seychelles, Sierra Leone and beyond, I have friends and family all over the African continent and working on this collection gave me licence to call them and be a questioning child again without shame.

  In my early childhood, I often pestered my parents for stories. My impatience for new tales probably fuelled the rapid development of my ability to read. By the age of three, if I wanted a new story I could read one myself.

  With hindsight, my fascination with stories is rooted in a desire to know the unknown, to surpass the familiar, to discover the new. I believe that urge exists in all humans to some degree. For that reason, I resist trends towards making stories familiar for readers. What is important, to my mind, is that stories are understandable (not to be confused with familiar), relatable and teach us something new.

  Rather than simply retelling very well-known stories from familiar corners of Africa – such as South Africa and Nigeria – I spoke to friends and family from places like Libya, Madagascar, Angola and Mauritius. Inevitably, kingdoms with strong storytelling traditions such as the Zulu, Akan and Igbo are represented, but I have either found more marginal stories from those traditions, or retold the stories in ways that renew them. For example, the Igbo fable of the tortoise and the birds, made famous by Chinua Achebe, is retold here as ‘A Tortoise Named Ununile’, incorporating Uri, the Igbo custom of body painting, and making it central to Tortoise’s deception. In keeping with the culturally expansive upbringing I had in Accra, I try to respect the place of local traditions and norms in the stories, retaining indigenous names and customs.

  There will be words that an untutored tongue might find difficult to pronounce initially, but, as I say whenever I visit a theatre, library or school to read, every word is made up of small units; if you break it up and put it back together you’ll usually get it right.

  Ultimately, of the dozens of stories that I read or heard while researching this collection, I decided to retell nine that I absolutely loved. They cover a range of attributes and failings that come into play in all animal (for animals are vital in storytelling) and human life: jealousy, greed, love, forgiveness, ambition, humility, anger, selflessness and grief. Some stories, such as ‘The Rebirth of Andriambahoaka’ and ‘The Frog’s Wedding’, were completely new to me and it was a real delight to discover them over and over again as I spoke to more people. It is truly stunning how many versions of each story exist in the communities that share them. It proves that even when we don’t know of them, even when they are not widely published or translated, stories continue to live and enrich their communities in new ways.

  Because the origins of stories lie in kingdoms that run beyond the borders of what we now recognize as countries, I have largely identified stories by their cultural origin rather than by borders that have come into existence over the last century. I encourage readers to find out about the kingdoms as they have fascinating histories outside of the stories that they used to entertain and teach their citizens. In addition to respecting cultural rather than geographical borders, I have sought to subtly address wildlife and environmental concerns as I reshaped the stories, by highlighting the beauty and harmony of rural life. The Sudan cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus soemmeringii) that appears in ‘The Cheetah’s Whisker’, for example, is now listed as a vulnerable species. It once roamed the East African savannah in large numbers. It’s a truly magnificent cat that should not be hunted simply to provide pets and pretty foot rugs. It is my hope that its role in the story will encourage more people to get involved in protecting it.

  I have had some very important guides and companions during this storytelling journey. For every story I have had to check for versions, corruptions and adaptations – all of which result in great stories in case you were wondering. However, without my international crew of researchers, friends, fellow writers and oral historians, I would never have managed to find the essential starting points for retelling these stories. I would particularly like to thank NoViolet Bulawayo, who pointed me in the direction of Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa’s Indaba My Children: African Folktales as a research source; Hisham Matar, who connected me to Adam Benkato, a researcher on Libyan khurafat (sayings/tales) and currently a Humboldt fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, who provided the bones of ‘Um Bsisi’s Milk’; Brian Chikwava, who translated some reference material from Zimbabwe for me; North Kaneshie area crew, especially Kofi Oppong, for all the ‘tooli’ when we were kids; Ian Hussain and Shelina Permalloo for getting me thinking about Mauritius; and Jean Luc Raharimanana, who did the same for Madagascar. Yet, in the end, the stories would not have been as fun to write without my ever-present reader and critic, my daughter NaaNaa, whose frowns and laughter were indispensable editing prompts. She has my unreserved gratitude. Never in the history of literature has an eight-year-old been so powerful.

  Finally, of course, I’d like to thank the team at Puffin who have had to endure my erratic bursts of writing and my unyielding defence of names and norms from the African continent. My sincere gratitude to Alex Antscherl, who commissioned me, and to Helen Levene, my editor, who has been as sensitive, open and responsive an editor as one could ever hope for.

  I sincerely hope you enjoy these stories, which are but a minute sampling of the thousands of stories that enrich the everyday lives of children and adults across all the countries in Africa. I am proud to share these nine with you in the English language – in print.

  The Rebirth of Andriambahoaka

  A Sakalava tale

  In the days before we were, the days before today, the earth’s creatures were all mixed up. You could be a crocodile and a grasshopper – a crochopper, or a snail with the red blood of a lion – a snaion. It was hard to tell what a creature was just by looking, because a snaion, for example, looked just like a snail, although it could roar at night. However, it was possible to tell which creatures stayed on one land – onelanders, and which ones lived on many, as birds do – birdlanders. This tale is about both – a bird with a human heart called Ivorombe and a human king with the eyes of a lemur called Andriambahoaka.
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br />   Mother bird, Ivorombe, was a large and unusual bird. She had an orange-red bill that weaved through trees like a flashing light when she passed through a forest. She had white tail streamers that drew loops as she flew, and a streak of pink on her back. Her eyes were particularly striking, with black eye patches over her white feathers that made it look like she was wearing spectacles. Her bill wasn’t just colourful, it was big, with a large bottom for storing food and other useful things – a bit like a pelican’s bill. In fact, Ivorombe is the grandmother of herons and tropicbirds and pelicans.

  One day Ivorombe was flying home from a visit to her cousins in a far-off continent when she felt her eggs grow heavy in her. She needed to lay them right away so that she wouldn’t lose them in the ocean. Luckily, there was an island close by and she flew there, swooped around to find a safe place in the forest, far from the humans who lived on the island, and made a strong nest of twigs, grass and leaves.

  She laid her eggs, tucked her tail streamers beneath her and sat on them.

  For weeks, Ivorombe stayed on top of her eggs. Her body kept them at just the right warm temperature to hatch and she fed herself from food she had stored in the large bottom of her bill.

  She had corn.

  She had fish.

  She had rice.

  She had worms.

  She had beans, oysters and she had insects.

  Each day she would pick two to mix and swallow them from the pouch below her bill. Her favourite mix was beans and fish.

  Some days a human would come into the forest to pick from the beautiful flowers that grew there in bursts of purple, orange, indigo, white, red, blue and yellow, or to check traps that they had set to catch meat. Ivorombe would keep very still and silent until the person left, which wasn’t easy because she was a very large bird, the size of a human and a bit more. But Ivorombe was not really a singing sort of bird, so she didn’t attract too much attention.

  Also, the other birds in the forest, who understood Ivorombe’s desire to protect her eggs, helped her. They were the singing sorts, a bunch of lively birds who had the kind of music and chatter that humans tried to catch and hold on to: rainbow cockatoos, green finches, chameleon parrots, violet vangas, moon-bright starlings and four-toned flufftails. One of the birds, a beepoe, became good friends with Ivorombe and some evenings the odd couple would natter until the moon framed the small beepoe sitting on the shoulder of Ivorombe, who remained unmoving on her eggs. The beepoe was Ivorombe’s main source of news. That was because he was a flittering sort – in fact he was the grandfather of the hummingbird. The beepoe was really a hoopoe with the muscles of a bee and he loved sucking nectar from the abundant flowers close to where humans lived. As he flittered he gathered both nectar and news.

  It was the beepoe who told Ivorombe that the island she had laid her eggs on was ruled by a king called Andriambahoaka. He had been a good ruler, but he had no children. Almost all the young women on the island had been married to him before but, when no children were forthcoming, after a while they left him. The strange thing was that when they married other men they had children in no time. So the old women now said that Andriambahoaka was cursed and they tried to keep their daughters from him, but because of his liquid lemur eyes nobody could say no when he stared at them. The gold ring that ran around the pitch black of his pupils seemed to contain a spell that caused people to do his bidding.

  Weeks later, two of Ivorombe’s eggs hatched, but the third did not. When it showed no signs of cracking, it was the beepoe who suggested that something should be done.

  ‘You need to leave the third egg so you can care for the two chicks,’ said the beepoe. ‘If you stay there, the two babies you have will die, and we don’t know if that last one will hatch.’

  ‘Well, if I don’t sit on this it won’t hatch.’

  ‘What if it takes too long?’

  Ivorombe was quiet, her bright bill tucked against her wing.

  ‘You need another bird to sit on this one,’ said the beepoe.

  ‘It might hatch in two days.’

  ‘You need a big bird – one that can cover the egg properly.’

  ‘I’m sure it will hatch in two days,’ insisted Ivorombe.

  ‘What if it doesn’t? These two will starve; you don’t have enough food left in your bill.’

  The bird friends pondered in silence until the sky darkened and the crickets and crochoppers started their sawing and whistling. It would take the beepoe four days to fly to Ivorombe’s land to ask one of her family to come and sit with the egg. With one of Ivorombe’s kind, coming back would take two days. That was four days to go and two to come back, making six days – but six days was too much.

  ‘I have an idea,’ said the beepoe. ‘We can pay a human to do it.’

  ‘A human?!’

  ‘Yes, a human. A human will be big enough to sit on the egg.’

  ‘But won’t they destroy it like they destroy everything?’

  ‘They won’t if you pay them. I know of a good maiden.’

  ‘But what can I pay with?’

  ‘The pearls left in your bill from eating oysters. Humans like those. We can pay with those.’

  Ivorombe was not completely sure, but she felt she had no choice. She counted fifteen pearls and gave them to the beepoe.

  There was a woman from the village who could sit on the egg for Ivorombe. She was one of four maidens on the island who had not been married to King Andriambahoaka before. This was because she was short and the king’s lemur eyes could not look down, so he had never noticed her. Her name was Iangoria. The beepoe knew her because she had been kind to him once when he was injured near the village. She was skilled at counting backwards, balancing, wrestling, weaving, climbing, catapault shooting and running. Her ability in climbing and balancing made her a perfect caretaker for Ivorombe’s egg, as the mother bird’s nest was high up on the largest ebony tree for miles.

  As soon as Iangoria arrived in the forest with the beepoe, she tied her hair into five tufts on top of her head, climbed to the top of the tree and took over from Ivorombe. While Iangoria was on the egg, Ivorombe fed her two other chicks and flew them over to her land.

  When after four days the egg still hadn’t hatched, Iangoria began to feed on the ebony tree’s jackalberry fruits, which were sweet and filling.

  On the seventh day, while talking to the beepoe, Iangoria heard a crack …

  She shifted off the egg a little and saw a clear zigzag line in the shell. The beepoe hovered excitedly, flapping his wings faster and faster.

  There was a second crack …

  Then a cry …

  Iangoria tilted her head and the beepoe slowed his wings down, because the cry sounded like a human cry. The maiden crawled away from the egg, stood in the nest, and watched as a human baby girl, the darkest, most beautiful, chubby baby girl, emerged from the egg.

  Iangoria rushed forward and picked her up, wiping the egg white off the baby’s body, while clasping her with her strong climbing hands. The beepoe fluttered around them, checking to see if the baby had any feathers or wings, or if her mouth looked anything like a beak. The baby cried louder and louder until Iangoria held her close to her breast. She stopped crying and placed a five-fingered hand on Iangoria’s chest.

  ‘Maybe she’s fully human because you hatched her,’ said the beepoe.

  Iangoria looked up. ‘What will her mother do?’

  The beepoe flitted from left to right. ‘I don’t know. She can’t fly … A bird’s baby that can’t fly is a problem … We’ll just have to wait for Ivorombe.’

  When Ivorombe did not return that evening, Iangoria fed the baby from her own breast. The next day the beepoe helped Iangoria build a platform lower down the ebony tree to protect the baby from the sun.

  The platform became the baby’s home. The beepoe made her a blanket from elephant grass and Iangoria wove a strong bed from bamboo shoots. They took turns foraging food from the jungle for the baby. They fed her ba
obab pap, hibiscus nectar, red bananas and a drink made from four o’clock flowers and coconut water, which helps with singing.

  Ivorombe’s journey back home took longer than she expected. By the time she had settled the two hatched chicks and introduced them to her family, two weeks had passed. When she returned, her third child was already sitting and imitating the songs of warblers and violet vangas. Ivorombe was, of course, stunned, astounded, astonished – she was stun-stoun-dished! But the baby smiled and sheltered under her wing immediately.

  ‘She will be called Imaitsoanala,’ said Ivorombe proudly. ‘She is my heart come alive.’

  The giant bird turned to Iangoria. ‘Since she cannot fly I would like you to be her companion and look after her when I am away.’

  Iangoria nodded. She had already fallen in love with baby Imaitsoanala and would have stayed to look after her even if Ivorombe was not giving her pearls as a reward.

  The beepoe excitedly flitted back and forth, left and right. ‘One big family,’ he chirped.

  Imaitsoanala grew fast on the ebony tree platform. Her mother taught her to hunt and weave and how to land safely when jumping from a great height. When she got jealous of the perfect-pitch singing of the green finches, Ivorombe told her not to get jealous; ‘You learn from creatures that are better than you,’ she told her. ‘Jealousy doesn’t teach you anything.’

  From Iangoria, Imaitsoanala learned wrestling, counting, climbing, clothes-making, balancing and running. From the beepoe she learned about all the poisonous fruits to avoid in the forest, and how to sow seeds and help plants grow better. By the time she was twelve, she was as much part of the forest as the orchids that clung to the tops of the high trees. Her mother, Ivorombe, came and went every six weeks and every so often she brought Imaitsoanala’s bird brother and sister from the other two eggs to visit. But she loved Imaitsoanala fiercely and each time she left her behind she would say to Iangoria: ‘Keep her away from people, please. I don’t want her to be taken from me.’