Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef
by Florence M. Cronise and Henry W. Ward (page 1 of 33)
CUNNIE RABBIT, MR. SPIDER AND THE OTHER BEEF
[See Chap. XI.] ]
CUNNIE RABBIT, MR. SPIDER AND THE OTHER BEEF
WEST AFRICAN FOLK TALES
BY FLORENCE M. CRONISE AND HENRY W. WARD
ILLUSTRATIONS BY GERALD SICHEL
LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. LIM. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1903
Printed by The Motley Press, 18, Eldon Street, E.C.
PREFACE
This little volume is sent forth with many misgivings. It claims neither literary excellence nor an entrancing theme, but professes fidelity to truth, and a desire to call attention to certain quaint and interesting phases of the inner life of a much misunderstood race.
In the compilation of these folk-lore tales, the one aim has been to make them accessible to English readers, and at the same time to retain as much as possible of their native grace and quaintness.
To accomplish this aim, the stories have been told in the dialect used by the people in their intercourse with the English, and an attempt has been made to embody the tales in a native setting with local atmosphere and colour. In addition it has seemed necessary to make a rather copious use of footnotes and explanations.
Much care has been exercised not to modify the spirit and real content of the stories. The plots and the clever little inventions are wholly native. It has seemed advisable to select only a few of the more readable stories, in the hope that they may win the sympathy of the general reader, rather than to attempt an extended collection that would discourage all but special students of folk-lore.
The stories themselves possess much intrinsic merit; if they fail to enlist the reader, the fault must be ascribed to the compilers.
The sole credit for discovering and collecting the stories is due to Miss Cronise; the arrangements of the stories here presented, and their setting, have been largely the work of Mr. Ward.
The authors are under many obligations to Mr. Alfred Sumner, a native African now in this country at college, whose intimate acquaintance with the life and customs of his people proved most helpful; also to Rev. D. F. Wilberforce, a native missionary, who has long been interested in the oral literature of his country, and in consequence has been able to give us suggestions of unusual value. To Miss Minnie Eaton of Moyamba Mission, and to other friends, who spared no pains to place desired information within our reach, and especially to the Mission boys and girls in Africa whose sympathetic interest made this collection a possibility, the gratitude of the authors is due.
FLORENCE M. CRONISE. HENRY W. WARD.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I. WHEN THE NIGHT HAS COME 37 MR. SPIDER WINS A WIFE.
II. WITH THE SPIRITS OF THE WOOD 50 GORO, THE WONDERFUL WRESTLER. MR. SPIDER A CLEVER TRADER. MR. TURTLE MAKES A RIDING-HORSE OF MR. LEOPARD.
III. A BACK-YARD KITCHEN 77 CUNNING RABBIT AND HIS WELL. GOATS OF THE WOOD AND OF THE TOWN.
IV. EVENING ON THE WATER 96 SPIDER DISCOVERS THE WAX GIRL. MR. CHAMELEON IS TRANSFORMED INTO A BOAT. SPIDER, ELEPHAN' EN PAWPAWTÁMUS.
V. A PURRO INITIATION 124 CUNNING RABBIT BECOMES A KING. MR. SPIDER INITIATES THE FOWLS.
VI. THE BURNING OF THE FARM 147 SPIDER TRIES TO BRUSH THE DEVIL'S FARM. THE DEVIL TURNS PIGEON.
VII. MAMMY MAMENAH AND HER FRIENDS 165 A STONE THAT WORE A BEARD. THE GIRL WHO PLAITED THE DEVIL'S BEARD. "MARRY THE DEVIL, THERE'S THE DEVIL TO PAY."
VIII. CHILDREN OF NATURE 188 THE THREE TWINS. WHICH TWIN RESTORED HIS FATHER TO LIFE. WHICH ONE WAS MOST GREEDY. MR. SPIDER CREATES A FRIGHTFUL TORNADO. MR. LEOPARD SHOWS HIS HAND. MR. LEOPARD FOOLS THE OTHER ANIMALS. A CASE OF TIT FOR TAT. DR. SPIDER'S FATAL PRESCRIPTIONS. MR. SPIDER "PULLS" A SUPPLY OF MEAT.
IX. AN AFTERNOON IN THE BARREH 240 THE DANCING BIRD. THE WICKED IS TAKEN IN HIS OWN SNARE. AN OLD MAN TURNS ELEPHANT. THE MAN WHO COULD NOT KEEP SECRETS.
X. KONAH TURNS STORY-TELLER 264 THE DEVIL'S MAGIC EGGS. TOOTHACHE ENTAILED. WHY MR. SPIDER'S WAIST IS SMALL.
XI. WHILE THE BIRDS DID NOT COME 281 MR. SPIDER SECURES A POWERFUL WITCH MEDICINE. MR. SPIDER GETS INTO TROUBLE AGAIN. A GHOST STORY.
XII. A HARVEST HOME IN TEMNE-LAND 298 WATCH-POT AND GREEDY. THE ORIGIN OF THE AXE.
XIII. KONAH HAS A WONDERFUL DAY 317 THE NEW VERSION OF EVE AND THE APPLE.
CUNNIE RABBIT
INTRODUCTION
The collection of folk-lore tales, from which the stories contained in the present volume have been selected, was made by Miss Cronise while a teacher in the mission school at Rotifunk, Protectorate of Sierra Leone, West Africa; a mission under the control of the Woman's Board of the United Brethren Church.
The stories were collected without the remotest thought of offering them for publication. The first motive was a desire to enter more intimately into the life and mental habits of the people whom she was to instruct. This motive was soon reinforced by the attractiveness of the stories themselves, and by the fascinating manner in which they were told.
The tales were gathered from the mission children, most of whom had been brought from native homes farther inland, and from adult employees of the mission who had been long enough in contact with these white people to be found worthy of entire confidence, and to give their confidence in return.
Notwithstanding the many touches of English influence noticeable in the stories, it is believed that the ones here presented are, in all essentials, characteristically native. The same stories were heard from different persons, under different circumstances, and with every evidence of their being the spontaneous outflow of traditional lore. Sometimes a tale already heard in detail from an adult, would be told in mere outline by some child fresh from a hut of the forest.
A year or more had been spent among these people before it was discovered that they possessed a distinct oral literature, and considerably more time passed before any attempt was made to collect and record it.
Missionaries had been in this section for fifty years, but being wholly absorbed in more serious concerns, they were either unaware of this native literature, or more probably looked upon it as a part of the heathen superstition which they felt called upon to obliterate.
No one at all familiar with folk-lore, will need to be told of the peculiar difficulties experienced in making the present collection. Natives are instinctively suspicious of foreigners, and uneasy in their presence, and not only must this natural barrier be broken down, but there must spring up mutual understanding and sympathy, and outward environments must be congenial before there can be any satisfactory story-telling. The collection was made as opportunity offered, after other duties were performed. Various devices had to be resorted to, the commonest being to offer some attractive little inducement to a child of the mission or adjacent town. The child, curled up on the floor, or perched on any convenient object, would at once evince the most sympathetic interest, and then it would be a simple matter to draw out stories heard in the native wilds. By rapid writing, so abbreviated as to approach shorthand, the narratives were taken down literally, word for word. Then again, familiarity made it possible to sit near a group of children gathered in the evening for talk and laughter, and there to overhear the conundrums they propounded, and the stories they related to one another. Sometimes an adult could be induced to relate stories for an evening. One such story was a portion of a loosely connected narrative, the whole of which would occupy the evenings of an entire week.
Two years of patient endeavor brought to light one hundred and twenty-five distinct stories. There was positive assurance of unnumbered more being current among the people, and evidence was occasionally found of the existence of another class of stories, such as the missionary would not care to hear or to record.
It may be, then, that while the fables here given truthfully reflect the life of the people, they do not reflect the whole life, but only the better, purer part.
Strangely enough, during all the years that the English have been in possession of West Africa, no one has taken the pains to collect any considerable part of the oral literature that is particularly abundant there. So far as we have been able to learn, practically nothing has been done in all the Sierra Leone region, toward collecting and publishing this great body of traditional literature. Schlenker included seven tales in his "Temne Traditions" published in 1861, and an occasional "Nancy Story" has appeared in Sierra Leone newspapers, but no serious effort has been made toward a collection; and yet perhaps no region of Africa is richer in native literature.
How completely this literature envelops the life of the people, may be inferred from the fact that the youngest children in the mission were found to possess the salient features of many stories, which they must have acquired before being taken from their people.