Extra Reading Week 7: Nigerian Folk Tales

This time I read some stories that were completely foreign to me - folk tales from Nigeria. I have never read folk tales from Africa (except for the ones about Anansi) and was pleasantly surprised to find these stories so original and strange. Here are notes on just a couple of stories, but I highly suggest everyone go and give them a read here!

The Rebellious Daughter Who Married a Skull:
This tale reminds me a lot of the one I read earlier this week about Anansi and his friend Nothing going into town to get wives. Both of these stories show just how foolish it is to marry someone without first actually getting to know them - something I would think is common sense, but apparently needs to be re-iterated in a folk tale.
This girl is the daughter of the king and is the most beautiful in all the land. She won’t take any man’s hand in marriage who isn’t beautiful like she is. This poses a problem because there isn’t any man in the country who can counter her beauty.
So this skull - yes, a skull - from the spirit land decides to go get her hand. He borrows body parts from his friends and creates a pretty attractive meatsuit and goes off to get the princess’ hand in marriage. She agrees upon seeing his beautiful face, but her parents are hesitant. Eventually she declares that she is going to live with him in his own country. Of course, once she’s there he sheds all of his borrowed parts and she sees him for what he truly is - a skull. Mortified, but helpless, she resigns herself to her fate.
Like all good wives, she takes care of his decrepit mother. The mother grows fond of her and knows the spirits of the land will eventually come to get her, so she asks a rogue wind to take the girl away back to her own home. The wind complies, first coming as a tornado and then a soft breeze. When the girl is back home a party is held for 8 days, celebrating her return.
I suppose the true moral of this story is, ‘don’t trust a book by its cover,’ but really. I think the best moral found here is to be kind and respectful to your elders. You never know just how they might be able to help you.

The Elephant and the Tortoise:
This story was very bizarre. This is a story explaining why the elephant has such small eyes in proportion to its body. I would think it’s because living out in the savannah, with so much sun, it would be more beneficial to have small eyes that couldn’t so easily be burned. But that’s not the case.
The elephant comes to feasts held by the king of the land and always eats too much. In that time, the elephant had huge eyes, much more fitting for the proportion of his body. The tortoise sets about to put a stop to this by tricking the elephant into letting him cut out his own eyes, claiming that they are a sweet treat. Thus the elephant goes about blind for a few days, asking fellow animals to lend him their eyes, but of course they’re like, “Uh, no. I need my eyes.” So then, a worm comes along one morning and greets the elephant. The elephant, being blind (but not deaf) replies with another greeting. The worm is flattered that so mighty a creature would pay attention to him, that he agrees to let the elephant borrow his eyes for a day. 

Unfortunately, the elephant’s eye sockets seal shut around the worms tiny eyes, and worm is blind forever and the elephant has tiny eyes in proportion to his body.

The elephant and his tiny eyes

Image: Wikipedia