Children's Story: The Lazy Village People (West Africa)

Pre-colonial African stories are most interesting in that they were neither specifically designed for children nor did they exclude children as an audience. They were meant for everyone. It used to be that the elders in villages used stories (metaphor) as vehicles to convey information to other (adult) villagers, which, naturally, included children. I also have to mention here that many pre-colonial cultures considered children the incarnations of ancestors, sometimes spirits, and people who had passed away.  

Pre-colonial stories, the oldest on the continent, had strong animal motifs featuring insects, reptiles, predators, elephant, rhino, buffalo with the abilities to speak human languages. The speaking-animal stories are ancient and originated in ancient African spiritual folklore when it was commonly believed that animals, forests, rivers, mountains had 'spirits', in other words, souls. In accordance with ancient folklore the spirits were generally peaceful but were regarded as equal to human beings in that they required the utmost respect. 

During Africa's 'dark ages', the colonial period, Western education, literature, languages, religion and ways of life were introduced which saw a concomitant rise in struggle testimony, resistance and protest stories, in written, documented forms. Everyone knew it existed but finding evidence for it was a sore business because some African communities became masters in the art of subversive literature and poetry, where Western languages were used as code to encourage, inform and inspire during difficult times. Sadly, it was also during this period of the continent's history that most of the speaking-animal stories disappeared from African oral tradition. 

The post-colonial period saw a flare-up of research into and the reclamation of pre-colonial stories and interestingly, speaking-animals made a reluctant return, albeit for the sake of nostalgia only, because spirituality on the continent had fundamentally changed. Modern African children's stories cannot circumvent the combined impacts of political changes, the disappearance of the old ways of life, urbanisation, Western education, medicine and especially, technology. There are still very few children's books designed specifically for the African child in comparison to other creolised communities such as those found in South America, where, too, indigenous ways of life and belief systems had almost completely disappeared as a consequence of colonialism.

The following story probably originated during the colonial years when village chiefs and traditional leaders witnessed the erosion of their influence and the disappearance of their communities' traditional ways of life, as demonstrated by lazy, reluctant villagers. 

Image: Asante Paramount Chief, Nana Akyanfuo Akowuah Dateh II, Ghana

Once upon a time there was a village where all the people were exceedingly lazy. They didn't like to do any kind of work, at all! They didn't clean up their yards, didn't keep the streets clean, and they couldn't be bothered to weed their vegetable patches. The place was disgusting, it was a disgrace. 

The chief hated it because he quite liked cleanliness, and every so often would commence with a clean-up campaign. But only a handful of people ever turned up to lend a hand, and even then, they would stop working after only one or two days, and the weeds would grow again. In the blink of an eye, the village was as bad again as it ever was. 

One day, a hurricane blew through the village. After it had passed, the place looked even worse than before but the worst thing was that an enormous tree had been blow over and thrown right across the main road leading to the market place. 

The first trader came along, carrying his produce, and found the main road blocked by the tree. He said: ''I don't have the time to move this tree! I must get my produce to the market.'' So, he walked around the tree and went on his way. A second and a third trader came along and did exactly the same. Nobody bothered to do anything about the obstruction. People came and went, looked at the fallen tree and walked around it. 

The chief heard about the tree blocking the main road. He asked: ''Why don't some of these people get together and move it?'' Days went by and nobody did anything and the tree remained where it was. 

The chief came up with a plan to teach the villagers a lesson. Very early the following morning, before the rise of the sun, he took some of his servants and bade them dig a hole under the tree. He hid gold in the hole and had it covered up again. Then, he swore his servants to secrecy. Back at the palace, the chief instructed the town crier to pass through the village to summon the villagers for a gathering at the spot of the fallen tree, that same afternoon. 

When they were all gathered, the chief made a speech to his people and suggested that if all of them worked well together, it would not take very long to remove the obstacle. One of the farmers said: ''The hurricane put that tree there; let's ask the hurricane to move it out of the way.'' 

''Yes'', said another, ''why should we exert ourselves?''

''What's wrong with walking around it?'' Asked another. 

The chief was by this time exasperated. He was about to give up when a skinny young man stepped forward. He was a poor farmer who had no living relatives in the village. ''I will have a go.'' He said and began to push and pull to move the tree. The villagers stood there and watched, some made fun of the young man's efforts. 

The chief waited a while to see whether anyone would come forward to help the young man, and when he saw that no one made a move, instructed his servants to lend the young man a hand. Once the tree was moved to the side of the road, the chief went up to the young farmer and took him to the where he had earlier buried the gold. The chief told him to dig right there and promised that he could keep whatever he found buried there. 

The young farmer started digging in the road and very quickly, uncovered the gold. He was overjoyed. 

The chief said to him: ''All of this gold is yours to keep. You deserve it and can do with it as you please.'' And, to the lazy villagers he said: ''Let this be a lesson to you all! Laziness will not get you anywhere. Rewards come to those who are prepared to work hard.'' 

Adapted from Fairy Tales of the World, Western Africa.
Article by Anya Links for Book Buddy Namibia.