Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 41

Travelling a short distance northwest from Kamerun we reach the Slave Coast of West Africa, to which A.B. Ellis has devoted two interesting books, including chapters in the folklore of the Yoruba and Ewe-speaking peoples of this region. Among the tales recorded are two which ill.u.s.trate African ideas regarding love. I copy the first verbatim from Ellis's book on the Yoruba (269-70):

"There was a young maiden named Buje, the slender, whom all the men wanted. The rich wanted her, but she refused. Chiefs wanted her, and she refused. The King wanted her, and she still refused.

"Tortoise came to the King and said to him, 'She whom you all want and cannot get, I will get. I will have her, I.' And the King said, 'If you succeed in having her, I will divide my palace into two halves and will give you one-half.'

"One day Buje, the slender, took an earthen pot and went to fetch water. Tortoise, seeing this, took his hoe, and cleared the path that led to the spring. He found a snake in the gra.s.s, and killed it. Then he put the snake in the middle of the path.

"When Buje, the slender, had filled her pot, she came back. She saw the snake in the path, and called out, 'Hi! hi! Come and kill this snake.'

"Tortoise ran up with his cutla.s.s in his hand. He struck at the snake and wounded himself in the leg.

"Then he cried out, 'Buje the slender, has killed me. I was cutting the bush, I was clearing the path for her.

She called to me to kill the snake, but I have wounded myself in the leg. O Buje, the slender, Buje, the slender, take me upon your back and hold me close.'

"He cried this many times, and at last Buje, the slender, took Tortoise and put him on her back. And then he slipped his legs down over her hips....

"Next day, as soon as it was light, Tortoise went to the King. He said, 'Did I not tell you I should have Buje, the slender? Call all the people of the town to a.s.semble on the fifth day, and you will hear what I have to say.'

"When it was the fifth day, the King sent out his crier to call all the people together. The people came.

Tortoise cried out, 'Everybody wanted Buje, the slender, and Buje refused everybody, but I have had her.'

"The King sent a messenger, with his stick, to summon Buje, the slender. When she came the King said, 'We have heard that Tortoise is your husband; is it so?'

"Buje, the slender, was ashamed, and could not answer.

She covered her head with her cloth, and ran away into the bush.

"And there she was changed into the plant called Buje."

THE MAIDEN WHO ALWAYS REFUSED

Robert Hartmann (480) describes the Yoruba people as vivacious and intelligent. But the details given by Ellis (154) regarding the peculiar functions of bridesmaids, and the a.s.sertion that "virginity in a bride is only of paramount importance when the girl has been betrothed in childhood," explain sufficiently why we must not look for sentimental features in a Yoruba love-story. The most noticeable thing in the above tale is the girl's power to refuse chiefs and even the King. In Ellis's book on the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, there is also a love-story (271) concerning a "Maiden who always refused." It has a moral which seems to indicate masculine disapproval of such a feminine privilege. The following is a condensed version:

There was a beautiful girl whose parents were rich. Men came to marry her, but she always said "Not yet." Men continued to come, but she said "My shape is good, my skin is good, therefore I shall stay;" and she stayed.

Now the leopard, in the leopard's place, hears this. He turns himself to resemble man. He takes a musical instrument in his hand and makes himself a fine young man. His shape is good. Then he goes to the parents of the maiden and says, "I look strong and manly, but I do not look stronger than I love." Then the father says, "Who looks strong takes;" and the young man says, "I am ready."

The young man comes in the house. His shape pleases the young girl. They give him to eat and they give him to drink. Then the young man asks the maiden if she is ready to go, and the maiden says she is ready to go.

Her parents give her two female slaves to take along, and goats, sheep, and fowls. Ere long, as they travel along the road, the husband says, "I am hungry." He eats the fowls, but is still hungry: he eats the goats and sheep and is hungry still. The two slaves next fall a victim to his voracity, and then he says, "I am hungry."

Then the wife weeps and cries aloud and throws herself on the ground. Immediately the leopard, having resumed his own shape, makes a leap toward her. But there is a hunter concealed in the bush; he has witnessed the scene; he aims his gun and kills the leopard on the leap. Then he cuts off his tail and takes the young woman home.

"This is the way of young women," the tale concludes.

"The young men come to ask; the young women meet them, and continue to refuse--again, again, again--and so the wild animals turn themselves into men and carry them off."

AFRICAN STORY-BOOKS

While the main object of this discussion is to show that Africans are incapable of feeling sentimental love, I have taken the greatest pains to discover such traces of more refined feelings as may exist. These one might expect to find particularly in the collections of African tales such as Callaway's _Nursery Tales of the Zulus_, Theal's _Kaffir Folk Lore_, the _Folk Lore of Angola_, Stanley's _My Dark Companions and their Stories_, Koelle's _African Native Literature_, Jacottet's _Contes Populaires des Ba.s.soutos_. All that I have been able to find in these books and others bearing on our topic is included in this chapter--and how very little it is! Love, even of the sensual kind, seems to be almost entirely ignored by these dusky story-tellers in favor of a hundred other subjects--in striking contrast to our own literature, in which love is the ruling pa.s.sion. I have before me another interesting collection of South and North African stories and fables--Bleek's _Reinecke Fuchs in Afrika_. Its author had unusual facilities for collecting them, having been curator of Sir G. Grey's library at Cape Town, which includes a fine collection of African ma.n.u.scripts. In Bleek's book there are forty-four South African, chiefly Hottentot, fables and tales, and thirty-nine relating to North Africans. Yet among these eighty-three tales there are only three that come under the head of love-stories. As they take up eight pages, I can give only a condensed version of them, taking care, however, to omit no essential feature.[147]

THE FIVE SUITORS

Four handsome youths tried to win a beautiful girl living in the same town. While they were quarrelling among themselves a youth came from another town, lifted the girl on his horse and galloped away with her. The father followed in pursuit on his camel, entered the youth's house, and brought back the girl.

One day the father called together all the men of his tribe. The girl stepped among them and said, "Whoever of you can ride on my father's camel without falling off, may have me as wife." Dressed in their best finery, the young men tried, one after another, but were all thrown. Among them sat the stranger youth, wrapped only in a mat. Turning toward him the girl said, "Let the stranger make a trial." The men demurred, but the stranger got on the camel, rode about the party three times safely, and when he pa.s.sed the girl for the fourth time he s.n.a.t.c.hed her up and rode away with her hastily.

Quickly the father mounted his fleet horse and followed the fugitives. He gained on them until his horse's head touched the camel's tail. At that moment the youth reached his home, jumped off the camel and carried the bride into the house. He closed the door so violently that one foot of the pursuing horse caught between the posts. The father drew it out with difficulty and returned to the four disappointed suitors.

TAMBA AND THE PRINCESS

A king had a beautiful daughter and many desired to marry her. But all failed, because none could answer the King's question: "What is enclosed in my amulet?"

Undismayed by the failure of men of wealth and rank, Tamba, who lived far in the East and had nothing to boast of, made up his mind to win the princess. His friends laughed at him but he started out on his trip, taking with him some chickens, a goat, rice, rice-straw, millet-seed, and palm-oil. He met in succession a hungry porcupine, an alligator, a horned viper, and some ants, of all of whom he made friends by feeding them the things he had taken along. He reserved some of the rice, and when he arrived at the King's court he gave it to a hungry servant who in turn told him the secret of the amulet. So when he was asked what the amulet contained, he replied: "Hair clipped from the King's head when he was a child; a piece of the calabash from which he first drank milk; and the tooth of the first snake he killed."

This answer angered the King's minister, and Tamba was put in chains. He was subjected to various tests which he overcame with the aid of the animals he had fed on his trip. But again he was fettered and even lashed.

One day the King wanted to bathe, so he sent his four wives to fetch water. A young girl accompanying them saw how all of them were bitten by a horned viper and ran back to tell the news. The wives were brought back unconscious, and no one could help them. The King then thought of Tamba, who was brought before him. Tamba administered an antidote which the viper he had fed had given him, the wives recovered, the wicked minister was beheaded and Tamba was rewarded with the hand of the princess.

THE SEWING MATCH

The third tale is herewith translated verbatim:

"There was a man who had a most beautiful daughter, the favorite of all the young men of the place; two, especially, tried to win her regard. One day these two came together and begged her to choose one of them. The young girl called her father; when the young men had told him that they were suing for his daughter's hand, he requested them to come there the next day, when he would set them a task and the one who got through with it first should have the girl.

"Meanwhile the father bought in the market a piece of cloth and cut it up for two garments. Now when the two rivals appeared the next morning he gave to each the materials for a garment and told them to sew them together, promising his daughter to the one who should get done first. The daughter he ordered to thread the needles for both the men.

"Now the girl knew very well which of the two young men she would rather have for a husband; to him, therefore, she always handed needles with short threads, while the other was always supplied with long threads. Noon came and neither of them had finished his garment. After awhile, however, the one who always got the short threads finished his task.

"The father was then summoned and the young man showed him the garment; whereupon the father said: 'You are a quick worker and will therefore surely be able to support your wife. Take my daughter as your wife and always do your work rapidly, then you will always have food for yourself and your wife.'

"Thus did the young man win his beloved by means of her cunning. Joyfully he led her home as his wife."

BALING OUT THE BROOK

This tale reveals the existence of individual preference, but does not hint at any other ingredient of love, while the father's promise of the girl to the fastest worker shows a total indifference to what that preference might be. In the following tale (also from Koelle) the girl again is not consulted.

"A certain man had a most beautiful daughter who was beset by many suitors. But as soon as they were told that the sole condition on which they could obtain her was to bale out a brook with a ground-nut sh.e.l.l (which is about half the size of a walnut sh.e.l.l), they always walked away in disappointment. However, at last one took heart of grace, and began the task. He obtained the beauty; for the father said, '_Kam ago tsuru baditsia tsido_--he who undertakes whatever he says, will do it.'"

PROVERBS ABOUT WOMEN

The last two tales I have cited were gathered among the Bornu people in the Soudan. In Burton's _Wit and Wisdom from West Africa_ we find a few proverbs about women that are current in the same region.

"If a woman speaks two words, take one and leave the other."

"Whatever be thy intimacy, never give thy heart to a woman."

"If thou givest thy heart to a woman, she will kill thee."