Where Animals Talk: West African Folk Lore Tales — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Where Animals Talk: West African Folk Lore Tales
John Stuart Mill · en
Then Adder suddenly joined the two children together and swallowed
them. (They were both of them lads.) Then he went out of the house,
and closed the door. His stomach being distended with what he had
swallowed, he went back to his house, and laid down on his bed.
Off in the forest, Squirrel said to his wife, "My heart beats
so strangely! I have eaten nothing here; what should disturb my
heart?" His wife replied, "Well! let us hasten back to town. Perhaps
some affair has happened in our house!"
They hastily gathered their food, to go back rapidly to town. On
their arrival, they went at once to their house. Looking at the door,
the wife exclaimed, "I did not leave this door so! Who has been at
it?" Her husband urged, "Quickly! Open the door! Let us enter at
once!" They opened the door; and found no one in the house.
Then Squirrel, fearing evil, said to her, "Stay you here! I will go
over to Pe's house. I know that fellow!" He came to Adder's house, and
found him distended with this stomach. Squirrel asked him, "Chum! have
you been at my house?" Adder answered, "Yes, I went to your house; but
I have done nothing there." Squirrel asked him, feeling sure of his
guilt, "But, where then are my children? Why did you not leave even
one of them? Ah! my friend!" Adder replied, "When we drank the Test,
did I not swear the truth that if I met with your children, I would
swallow them?" Squirrel answered, "Yes! and you have kept your word
well! But you shall see something just now and here!" Adder laughed,
and said, "What can you do? You have no strength like mine."
Close by the house of Adder (which was only a hole in the ground)
was a large tree. Squirrel went out of the house, and climbed to the
top of the tree. There he began to wail for his dead, and cried out,
"Ikundu ja mâ! Ikundu ja mâ!" (A play on words: either an apostrophe to
the name of one of his children, or a prayer for vengeance.) Another
squirrel, that was a mile or two away, heard the wailing; and it came
to where Squirrel was. Also his wife followed Squirrel to that tree;
and she wailed too. And other squirrels came; about twenty.
A hunter, living in the town of Mankind, started from his town to go
hunting. Coming along the path, he heard Squirrel crying. Looking
up, he exclaimed, "O! how many squirrels!" He thought to himself,
"Why do these animals make this noise, and keep looking down at the
foot of this big tree?"
He approached near to the tree; and they dispersed among the
branches. He then said to himself, "I will look around here at the
bottom; for, as those squirrels continue their cry, they keep looking
down here." Searching at the foot of the tree, he saw a hole, like
the home of some beast. Looking in, he saw the Adder sluggish in his
distention. The hunter killed it with his machete. And he took the
dead adder with him to the town of Mankind.