Monday, February 22, 2016

Week 6 Reading Diary: Nigerian Folk Stories



Reading Diary #6: Nigerian Folklore
·       The Pretty Stranger who Killed the King: MBOTU is the king of Old Town, Calabar. He was always at war, and was extremely successful because he was the most skilful leader. MBOTU had become very rich, but along the way he gained many enemies. The people of Itu wanted to kill the king, but were not strong enough to take out Mtobtu, so they resorted to witchcraft. There was an old woman who was a witch and she could transform herself into whatever she pleased, and she presented the idea of killing Mbotu by herself. The witch turned herself into a young and pretty girl, and armed herself with a knife to go to Old Town to seek the king. The king was extremely fond of pretty girls, and he sent for her. The witch ended up putting a sleep medicine in his meal to put him to sleep, then proceeded to kill the king by cutting his head off. This left the town of Old Town in shambles and vulnerable to attack from the people of Itu, who killed and imprisoned many of the people of Old Town.
·       Why the Worms are Blind and Why the Elephant has Small Eyes: The elephant was greedy and always ate the most food at the feasts the king would have quite regularly. The tortoise finally became fed up with the actions of the elephant and took it upon himself to stop the elephant. The tortoise tricked the elephant into taking out both of his eyes because the tortoise “did” and it tasted sweet, but the tortoise switched it out for shrimp and kernels to trick the elephant. The elephant became blind, in which he asked the worm for his eyes, but the elephants never returned the worms’ eyes. This led to the elephant with small eyes and the worms were blind for the rest of life.
  

  
Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910)

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