Author: Patrick

There was a time when Bat had no wings, and he was considered one of the most beautiful of all animals. He was a small creature who walked on the ground and climbed trees, and for many years he was content to live like this; but when he experienced the misfortunes of life common to all people he became dissatisfied.

When Hungry Season came and he could not find enough to eat he began feeling sorry for himself.

“I wish I had wings.” he thought. “It must be nice to be a bird.” But then he reflected that birds also had their misfortunes, and decided he would like to be both bird and animal. He went to God and asked for wings, and God gave them to him.

From that time Bat flew in the air like a bird; when Hungry Season came to animals he would live with the birds, and when Hungry Season came to the birds he would live with the animals. Bat was quite content with this existence, but finally he died, as people will.

When his death was known, the birds came to claim his body and bury it in the proper place with honor; for, knowing Bat had wings they presumed he was a bird. But then they saw he had the body of an animal, and teeth like a Rat, and fur instead of feathers; so they decided he was not a bird and refused to bury him.

The animals came to take Bat’s body and bury it with reverence, thinking he was an animal; but when they saw that he had wings they thought he was a bird, since only birds have wings — and they, too, refused to bury him.

So Bat’s body lay neglected in the forest until it slowly disappeared; Bat was never buried, and none of his descendants were ever given graves.

Which is what may happen to one who is discontented with the life that God has given him.

A certain town was infested with serpents of every size and color, and they lived by eating the people of that town, and the children.

The serpents dwelt in holes in the ground and also in the thatched roofs of the houses; during the day they crawled from their holes and hunted children, and by night they dropped from ceilings onto sleeping men and women.

In this fashion many people were devoured, and the townsfolk lived in terror of their lives.

In those days the hearts of men were soft, and few cared to hurt a living thing; only women and animals had learned cruelty. But there came a time when the people grew weary of the serpents, and they called in a powerful medicine man to rid the town of them.

The medicine man was Tagboh Walakpu, a famous man, and he brought with him several followers skilled in killing spirits, devils, djinn and common monsters. He entered the town from the east, and his followers played such sweet music on stringed instruments that serpents issued forth from holes and housetops to sway and dance about the streets.

Walakpu walked among them blowing his medicine horn, and whenever he did this every serpent near him died.

Only one escaped. This was an elderly serpent filled with the cunning of its years, and called Wulu. He fled from Walakpu, and finding a woman cooking soap he said to her:

“A medicine man has come and is killing all my kin; hide me, and I will do you good.”

The woman was afraid of him.

“Be not afraid. Hide me in a secret place, and I will make you rich and bring you bowls of happiness. I will not harm you.”
At length the woman agreed to hide him, and made Wulu crawl into her box, or behind a pot, or under a fishing net; but this he refused to do.

“Walakpu would find me in such places. You must put me in your stomach.”

He persuaded the woman to open her mouth and he crawled into her stomach. Walakpu passed by blowing his medicine horn, but Wulu was unharmed; and when the medicine man had gone the woman asked Wulu to come forth from her stomach, for she had work to do.

“If you do not stop talking,” Wulu said, “I shall eat your tongue.”

“What is this? You promised to give me happiness if I saved you.”

“Words are dead when they are spoken. Be quiet!”

A nearby crew happened to overhear this conversation, and he asked the woman to explain what he had heard. When she began to talk the serpent said:

“If you tell anything to Crow I’ll sink my fangs into your heart. be quiet, woman!” “Ah,” said Crew, “I heard that.” He then asked Wulu: “Since this woman has helped you when you needed help, should you not be grateful?”

“Gratitude is weakness,” said the serpent.

“Gratitude is wisdom,” Crow declared, “and has three eyes, like me.”

“You have three eyes?”

“Of course I have three eyes, as you can see.”

“I have never seen a three-eyed bird.” Wulu crawled up the woman’s throat and put his head outside her mouth that he might look at Crow.

Crow seized him is his beck and pulled him forth. He carried Wulu high in the air, then dropped him on the ground and broke his back. The woman was overjoyed, and brought rice for Crow to cat: but even as he ate she laid hands on him, saying:

“I must make a sacrifice on my children’s graves. I will put your blood in their graves.”

Crow protested loudly, and an old man came. This old man had a black hen which he loved. He asked the woman:

“Since Crow helped you when you needed help, should you not be grateful?”

“Gratitude is foolishness,” the woman said.

“Gratitude is God’s best gift to men, but it seems that women have none. I will give you my black hen if you will let Crow go.”

The woman agreed to this. As Crow flew off he snatched one eye from the poor old man and crushed it in his beak and swallowed it.

“Gratitude is an egg without a shell,” he cried, “or an eye without a head… soft, and easily wounded. the first armor anyone must have is a shell about his heart, or he will suffer.”

From a serpent, a woman and a crow men learned to harden their soft hearts.

When Hungry Season came Spider went to Snake’s town and begged for food. He knew that Snake had gathered a fine harvest of yams that year, and now Spider said to him:

“Snake, please give me yams to help my family in this time of hunger. For every yam you give me I shall give you two in return when my fields are full.”

“Then you may have as many as you need,” Snake said, and Spider took as many as he could carry. He and his family fed on yams throughout the Hungry Season, then once again the fields were full and men and animals went forth to harvest crops.

Snake came one day to Spider for his yams; and when Spider saw him coming he made a plan. There was meat hanging in his house, and when Snake came inside Spider was careful to let him see the meat.

“That is fine meat you have,” Snake remarked. “I hope you will give me some, as well as your yams.”

“Well, I may give you a little,” said Spider, “but wait till I return. I am going outside.”

He went outside. He climbed up on the roof, let down rope through a hole and caused it to fasten about the meat. He pulls up the meat and hid it, then climbed down to the ground. He found his wife talking with Tortoise.

“Come in,” he said. “Snake is here. Let us have something to eat.”

Spider, his wife and Tortoise went inside and met Snake waiting there.

“We are going to cook food to eat,” said Spider, and began looking for the meat. It was not there. “Where is the meat?” he asked his wife. “Have you put it in another place?”

“I have not touched it.”

“Tortoise? Did you take my meat?”

“I am not a thief, like some other people whose names I will not mention,” said Tortoise rather coldly. Spider turned to Snake.

“I think you have taken the meat, Snake. It was here when I left the house. And so were you, and you were looking at it.”
Snake said he was innocent. Spider became thoughtful.

“I have a certain magic knife which possesses magic powers,” he said. “It will soon discover who the guilty person is. All of you lay your necks upon this log; if you are not guilty no harm will come to you, but if one of you is the thief then he will die.”

Spider’s wife obeyed. He ran the blunt edge of the knife across her neck, and she rose unharmed. Tortoise lay his neck across the log, although he protested at such foolishness, and he also was unharmed by the knife.

Snake’s turn came. Spider now used the sharp edge of the knife and cut Snake’s head off. Snake wriggled and writhed on the ground as he died, and turned his stomach upwards so that everyone might see his flat and empty belly and know his innocence.

Since that time all snakes have died with their stomachs turned upwards, to remind the world that they were once considered honorable people.

Djinn and his wife had their home among the mountains in the High Forests, and they would permit no man to come there unless he was one of their family.

Djinn was a fine hunter and had a quiver filled with poisoned arrows, but he did not hunt in the fashion common to mankind. If he chanced to see monkeys in a tree he would merely shoot at the tree, and soon enough the monkeys would be poisoned and fall down.

Anything that Djinn shot at always fell, and thus he was the most famous hunter in the land.

When his wife was expecting a child Djinn went out to hunt more frequently, that she might have the delicacies which the child in her desired; but so skillful was his hunting that animals were now difficult to find.

One day he searched the forest from early morning until dusk, and found no meat at all; and as night was falling he came upon a man who had a deer. He politely asked the man for a little of the meat, but the man refused and went his way. Djinn went home empty-handed to his wife.

“Did you find nothing at all today?” she asked.

“Nothing at all,” he said. “The forest is empty.”

“Did you not even meet someone with meat?”

“Only a man with a deer, and he would give me nothing.”

His wife was vexed.

“I believe you are not so clever as you used to be,” she said.

“In other days you would not have left a whole deer to one greedy man when your family was hungry, and come home empty-handed.”

Djinn considered this. Next morning he tracked the hunter to his town, and when he arrived he asked for the man who had killed a deer the day before. Djinn was such a small fellow that no one took any notice of him, so he began smelling and sniffing from house to house and finally found the one he sought. He knocked on the door, and when the hunter came out Djinn attacked him.

People were surprised to see this small Djinn attacking the town hunter, but when the hunter was overpowered and tied up in a hamper they became alarmed. As Djinn carried the hamper out of town spears and arrows followed him, but all were turned aside and Djinn escaped.

The town hunter was never seen again. Thereafter Djinns were feared and respected by the people, and whenever a hunter meets one he will give him half his meat.

At the beginning of the world God made three men; he sent them to live on earth, and they dwelt in three different places. One man became a hunter, the second was a traveler, and the third settled on good land and began a farm.

After a time God summoned the three men to him, and said he would grant each of them one gift. He asked them what they wanted.

The hunter said he wished to have a dog to help him hunt. The traveler wanted a horse. The farmer said he was lonely living by himself, and asked for a woman to keep his company and help him with his work. God granted these three gifts and the men returned to their homes.

The traveler rode his horse to many distant places and was quite often happy; and yet he felt his life was not complete. The hunter lived in the forest and hunted with his dog, and he also knew a measure of happiness — but he wondered why he sometimes felt sad and discontented. Both of these men decided to visit the farmer, who lived with his women in a fertile place.

The hunter went with his dog, and the traveler rode his horse. They found the farmer at his home, living contentedly with his wife and two baby children who were his greatest treasures.

The two visitors saw that the woman brought water, cut wood, cooked food and cared for the home and was always good and gentle; they realized too that with his family at his side the farmer was never lonely, and sadness was a stranger to his house.

They admired the farmer’s woman and small children, and knew they would also have to have such things if their lives were to be rich and filled with joy.

The hunter and the traveler went to God, and asked him to take the dog and the horse and give them women instead. God changed the two beasts into woman, so that the two men each had a wife.

The farmer’s wife was a peaceful woman of good heart and with a will to work; she was the mother of all such women in the world.

The woman who came from the horse was greedy, willful, and could not be trusted; and she was the mother of all such women in the world today.

The woman who came from the dog was spiteful, noisy and always making palaver; and she let strange men follow her about. She was the mother of all such women in the world today.