Immediately her handsome and stylish husband was changed into a wild
goat and began leaping around the room. Ogula opened the door, outside
of which Ogondaga was sitting, and the goat sprang through the door into
the street and scampered off into the forest, while all the people
laughed and shouted, saying one to another: “So, Ogula’s handsome and
stylish husband was only the wild goat which Ra-Nyambia’s people caught
in the forest.”
But Ogula turned to Ogondaga and said: “Do you see your man? Call him to
you. He always comes when you call.”
Then Ogula called Ogondaga’s people to her town. She also told her
father, Ra-Nyambia, to prepare for a big palaver. So Ra-Nyambia called
Wind and told him to sweep the town clean. When Ogondaga’s people came
Ogula brought them before Ra-Nyambia, together with all Ra-Nyambia’s own
people. Then Ogula told the whole story: How she had got a handsome and
stylish husband for herself; how Ogondaga came; how kindly she had
received her; how she was even willing that Ogondaga should share her
husband’s heart; and how Ogondaga had taken, not a part, but his whole
heart.
Finally she said to her visitors: “You may go back now to your town; but
Ogondaga is not going with you. She must stay here and be my slave as
long as she lives.”
And Ra-Nyambia and all the people said that the judgment was just. So
Ogondaga became Ogula’s slave.
And that’s the end of the story.
The African woman is not cynical enough to mean that the difference
between a man and a goat is chiefly a matter of the skin. But the wild
goat of the story reminds one inevitably of the ancient _satyr_, which
was half man and half goat; which men also imitated in pagan festivals,
covering themselves with goatskins, and singing and dancing. Hence the
origin of the word _tragedy_, which means a _goatsong_, and which came
to us by way of the Greek drama, which was developed from those early
religious festivals.
The Fang have a variety of amusements to which they are devoted. They
have many games. A few of these are always associated with gambling. But
their chief and constant amusements are music, dancing and
story-telling. Of music I have already said enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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