How the Babadua Reed Got the Joints (On Its Stalk)
A CERTAIN woman (once) conceived, and she went off to one of the lesser gods to consult it (about the child). And the god told her that, “It is probable that when you bear the child it will die, but I shall do all I can to give it to you, but the thing which I must tell you is this, the child is (really) the child of a Queen Mother up there with Nyame, the Sky-god, and when you bear it, don’t let it do anything, but when you rise up, you must bathe it, oil it, and take it, and set it on a stool.” Of a truth she bore it. (Like all) children in Spider tales, it is not long before it grows up. They called the child Akosua Denta. Just as the lesser god had directed, the mother, when she rose up, washed her, oiled her, and cooked something for her to eat, and then went off to her farm. Now, one day when she had no time to cook anything for her to eat, she gave orders to her slave girl, Kra, saying, “I am going to the farm, so cook something and give to Akosua Denta to eat.” And the mother set off. Now, when Kra had finished cooking the plantain, she said, “Akosua Denta, come here and pound this fufu, you and your Queen-Mother story.” She said, “I will not come.” Kra said, “Come, you shall, you and your conceit.” And Akosua Denta rose up and went; she went and received the pestle; she pounded the fufu. As soon as she had finished, she went and lay down in the room, took her cloth, and covered her head. Kra went (after her), she said, “Denta”; no answer. She removed the cloth from her head; Akosua Denta was dead; she replaced the cloth over her. Not long after, the mother came back from the farm. When she came, she did not (at once) seek for her child, but went to the fireside to go and finish cooking. Then she said, “Kra, where is Denta?” She said, “Grandmother, even her food which I cooked and placed there, there it still stands.” The mother said, “I have heard.” Then the mother went off into the room in order to fetch a cloth (to wear) and go out on the street to look for her child. When she went into the room, something dark lay there in a heap. She raised the cloth, and she saw that Akosua Denta was dead. She said, “Kra, you say that Denta has gone out on the street, and now here she is, dead?” Kra said, “Grandmother I have not seen.” Then the woman tied a cloth belt round her waist and took her (dead) child on her back, and came out upon the street with her, and cried; and the Head of the village came, and said, “Take your child (off your back) and let us go and bury it.” The woman answered:
“And I and my child Akosua Denta,
And I conceived her,
I and she went to consult the water-gazer.
They say, ‘It’s a Queen Mother’s child.’
I want some one to go and say that,
The Queen Mother’s child, Siankwa Adamowa’s child,
This, my child, I will not bury her here.”
And she set out, and went to a certain village, and when she reached there, the Head of the village said, “Take the child off (your back) and come and let me bury it, for we taboo (such a thing).” But the woman said:
“And I and my child Akosua Denta,
And I conceived her,
I and she went to consult the water-gazer.
They say, ‘It’s a Queen Mother’s child.’
I want some one to go and say that,
The Queen Mother’s child, Siankwa Adamowa’s child,
This, my child, I will not bury her here.”
And she set off again. She walked, and walked, and walked, through some deep forest, and by now, the child has rotted, and she took it off (her back) and cast it away, and returned home. And the Head of the village asked her, saying, “Where is the child?” She said, “I took her and threw her away.” The Head of the village said, “You are disgraced, if you had permitted it here, then we should have buried it in the thicket of the ghosts, that would have been fitting.” Thus the elders say, “If your child dies, then mourn in moderation; do not let it pain you. For that woman acted thus, and threw her child away when she need not have done so.” And now the woman said, “As for this Kra, take her and throw her in a mortar and pound her for me.” Then the villagers went there (where Kra was, and there was a sound of pounding) Pu! Pu! Pu! and they pounded her until she became very soft. And now there remained “the kindly one”; when they pounded it, it was tough, and when they pounded it, it jumped and stuck to the Babadua reed. That is why the Babadua reed has knots (on its stalk), formerly it was trom, trom, that is to say, quite smooth.
This, my story, which I have related, if it be sweet, (or) if it be not sweet, some you may take as true, and the rest you may praise me (for telling of it).
How Okoto, the Crab, Got a Shell, and Aberewa, the Old Woman, Got White Hair
A CERTAIN woman bore her child; when she sent her (anywhere), she said, “I shall not go.” She (the mother) said, “Then stay there, you and your wise ways.” Always when she sent her (on any errand), she said, “I shall not go.” Then one day she said, “Go and splash water and bring for me.” She said, “I shall not go.” And the old woman beat her and said, “Just you wait there, and you will see.” And the child spoke and said, “I shall go to search for ‘I will see’ that I may see (what it is like).” And she set off on the path, and went at a great pace, (and the sound of her feet running was like) yiridi, yiridi, yiridi. At length she arrived at a village, and she saw a certain old woman sitting there. When she saw her, she was about to draw back. The old woman said, “My grandchild, do not draw back for I have seen you.” And the child advanced; and the old woman said, “Why has water from your eyes bathed you like this?” She said, “My mother and I were living together there, every day when she rose up, she said, ‘Just you wait there and you will see,’ and she beat me, so I said, I would come and seek for ‘I will see ’ that I may see (what it is like).” And the old woman said, “I am she.” Then she said, “Go to the back of the house there and dig up yams and bring them; when you go and reach there, the one that will say, ‘Dig me up, dig me up, dig me up,’ don’t dig it up; but the one which says, ‘Don’t dig me up, don’t dig me up, that one, dig up.” She replied, “Ho!’ Of a truth she went there; certain of the yams said to her, “Dig me up, dig me up, dig me up;” others also said, “Don’t dig me up, don’t dig me up, don’t dig me up.” The ones that said, “Don’t dig me up,” they were the ones she dug up. And she came with them; and the old woman said to her, “Skin them and put them on the fire.” And she skinned them and put them on (the fire), and when cooked, she turned them out on a dish, and took and set them before the old woman. And she said, “Go to the outskirts of the town, and look on a rack which has meat lying on it, look among (the meat) and take your choice.” And the child took some, and came, and placed it on the fire, and made soup. When she finished, she placed it before the old woman. “The old woman said, “Have you finished?” She replied, “Yes, Grandmother.” She said, “Come and pound the fufu.” And the old woman went and lay down on her back; she said, “Gather up the cooked yams, pour them in my nose, and pound them.” The child said, “Here is something wonderful, that we pound fufu in a person’s nose; this is what mother talked about.” All this she said in her head. She went and pounded; but when she pounded, she pounded very gently. The old woman said, “Pound it strongly, if you don’t pound it strongly, your chest will split.” And she pounded it, pi! pi! pi! and when she had finished, she poured on the soup, and set it there before the old woman. The old woman said, “My grandchild, mention my name and take and eat.” And she said, “You are called Old-woman-grandmother.” She said, “Ee! she has not seen, that she may eat.” And the old woman ate up all. For eight days, she treated her thus always. And one day the child went to the stream to splash water. The Crab saw her, and he said, “Why has somebody’s child got thin like this?” She said, “There is an Old-grandmother-woman with whom I live, and when I cook food and give to her, she says, ‘Mention my name and take to eat’; I say, ‘They call you Old-woman-grandmother,’ and she says, ‘Ee! you have not seen the way to eat,’ and then she eats; that’s why I am thin.” The Crab said, “She is called Old-woman-Mosono.” The child said, “Ho.” And she set her water-pot on her head. The Crab said, “Don’t forget as you are going back.” The child set off; all the time she was coming, she kept saying, “Old-woman-Mosono, Mosono, Mosono.” When she reached the outskirts of the town, she forgot, and she stumbled and her water-pot broke, and she went home. The old woman said, “Where is the water-pot?” She said, “As I was coming, I stumbled, and it broke.’ She said, “Take another and go.” And she took it and went; and the Crab said, “You are back already?” And she said, “That name you told me, I have gone and forgotten it, and I have come to ask it again.” The Crab said, “She is called Old-woman-Mosono.” And she said, “Ho.” She kept saying it all the way home, and when she reached home she set down (the pot). The old woman said, “Go and dig up yams and bring them.” She did everything as before, and brought the food, and placed it before the old woman, and the old woman said, “Mention my name and take to eat.” She said, “You are called Old-woman-grandmother.” She said, “I mean my real name.” She said, “Your real name?” The old woman said, “Yes.” She said, “You are called Old-woman-Mosono.” The old woman said, “Take and eat.” The child took and ate. The old woman set out on the path, and said, “I am going in search of the very person who told you that my name was Mosono.” And she went to the stream, and met Obonto Ya, the minnow, (and she abused her, saying), “You ’Bonto, your mother! you ’Bonto, your father! did you tell my infant grandchild that I was called Mosono?” She said, “It was not I.
The old woman saw that Adwen’ (the fish) was standing near by; she cursed her, saying, “You Adwen’, your mother! mother! mother! you Adwen’, your father! father! father! did you tell my infant grandchild that I was called Mosono?” She said, “It was not I.” She saw that the Crab was standing there. She cursed him, saying, “You Crab, your mother! mother! mother! you Crab, your father! father! father! was it you who told my infant grandchild that I lived at Accra, was of Royal blood, and that I was called Mosono?” The Crab said, “Yes, it was I who told her, and why did you allow somebody’s child to grow thin like that?” And the old woman got angry, and her calabash which she held, she lifted it up and threw it and struck the Crab. That is why the Crab has a shell on his back. Long ago on the back of the Crab there was not any shell there. And the Crab also picked up white clay, and he cast it on top of the old woman’s head. That is why the tops of old women’s heads have white hair.
This, my story, which I have related, if it be sweet, (or) if it be not sweet, some you may take as true, and the rest you may praise me (for telling of it).