Folk Tales and Legends of Chad
The Sheep, the Goat and the Dog
The sheep, the goat and the dog wanted to
travel to Sarh. A truck arrived. The sheep asks what the price of the
trip is. The driver wanted them to pay five
hundred Francs each. So the sheep gave him five hundred Francs. The dog gives
him a thousand Francs. The goat asks to pay on arrival, and the driver
accepts.
And so, the truck leaves the village. When, the truck
arrived in the town of Sarh, the sheep jumped out of the
truck and ran away. The goat ran away as fast as he could without paying. Then
the dog came over to ask the driver for the five hundred Francs he owes
him. The driver
answers, "Go ask the goat for your five hundred Francs."
This is why today,
whenever a truck arrives in a village, the goat runs away, the dog runs
after it, and the sheep
does not move, because he paid his fare.
This history is taken from the book Contes du Tchad : Goundi Tome 2 by Togueyadji Mindengar and Maurice Fournier. 1998: Publications pédagogiques de Sarh, BP 87, Sarh, Chad.
When the Hyena and the Billy Goat Signed a Peace Treaty
After ceaseless quarrels which caused them to fight one against the
other, all the animals,
those of the village and those of the bush, agreed to sign a peace treaty,
to cease killing one another. It was agreed that from now on all must live
as brothers
and be united against their common enemy, Man, who is undoubtedly weak, but
to whom God gave the means to remain Master of some of the animals and to hold in respect
the others, either to pester them for fun, or to kill them to feed himself.
Moreover, weren't
the domestic animals originally from the jungle, before man's control came
over them? Thus, messengers were sent out, to broadcast the good news
everywhere. Yes, reconciliation and harmony would certainly be born, live
and go from this moment on.
At last, a
specific time was decided upon, an evening, to
celebrate the peace treaty with a festival in a vast field in the heart of the bush,
not too far from some uncultivated fields. All animals, large and small,
those who live in the village, in the bush or in trees, in holes and in
the water, those who fly, who run, who go about on two or four legs, those
who crawl, those who were crippled, those who were victims of the ferocity of their
fellow animals or the blows of Man; in short, all those which life opposed
gathered together to seal their
reconciliation permanently.
Soon, an enormous and dense crowd filled
up the vast field. There were congratulations, and brotherly shaking of
paws. The lion, the elephant, the buffalo, the bull, the dromedary
and some other notables spoke one after another in exciting terms about the object of the
meeting (the peace treaty). When they had finished, everyone was full of joy.
They
were warmly applauded.
Then the dance started,
led by a very
fascinating music. The musicians were: a monkey, a hare with long ears, a
porcupine with his body armed with prickles, a jackal with a long
muzzle, along with other virtuosos playing, one on the tam-tam, one on the
xylophone, one on the flute. Each competed to be considered the most
skilful musician. Soon, the fever of the moment grew and filled the crowd.
The ostrich,
the giraffe, the horse, all excellent dancers, had great success. As for the
enormous horse, that genius of the African rivers (I speak of the
hippopotamus, that dreadful mastodon badly cut out of his pattern with scissors
by Mother Nature), did not spare anything to entertain the audience with his
buffooneries.
After several other dancers had
danced in the middle, the Billy Goat dizzily jumped into the circle and, by
his clumsiness, caused a certain amount of disorder. And, as the proverb
says, "The bone which the dog sees, the
goat does not see it". The hyena, which undoubtedly was lying in wait
for him, went
to be near him, pretending to admire him and tossing him looks
which did not mislead as to his intentions.
At
last, when he was not able to contain himself any longer, the hyena threw
himself brutally onto the Billy Goat, attempting to pull him out of the circle
to better strangle him. The goat cried out desperately and the audience
hurried to release him from the power of the hyena which had already started to
lick his chops. Confusion and panic then filled the crowd. The panther benefited
from the opportunity to attack the sheep and at last a heated battle
ensued.
The members of the Animal Steering Committee vainly tried to
restore order. The lion, by not paying attention, tore an ear off the bull
which, in turn, popped one of his eyes out. The brawl spread and the
height of the panic was followed by a generalized escape. The domestic
animals, instinctively, headed toward the village, pursued by the blood
thirsty beasts. There were cries of attack, keen fighting and
shrieks of anguish. Alerted, the men of the village seized their weapons and left
their homes. Rifle shots rang out, and arrows whistled.
The wild beasts, frightened, quickly ran back into the bush, but not without leaving behind them some of
their own, dead or wounded.
Thus
the peace treaty failed. "Harmony does not rule in a city without
ignorance." One can maintain peace only by tolerance, by
give-and-take, by the reciprocal
compromises and the forgetting of the old reflexes of hatred. The animals learned
this lesson at a price.
The moral of this
story: "Peace and harmony do not come from speaking clever words;
above all, they are behaviours and actions."
This story is drawn from the book Paroles d'hier et d'aujourd'hui : Ainsi parlaient nos ancêtres by Djimtola Nelli. 1995: CEFOD - Éditions, BP 87, Sarh, Chad.
The Story of the Jackal and the Dog
The jackal, the dog and their children,
according to our ancestors, lived
and ate together in the bush. One year, long ago, the weather was rather
cold, and as they could not bear the cold, they and their children were
about to die. The jackal asked the dog: "How will we ever find fire to heat
ourselves?"
The dog said: "Mondo, Mondo,
look over there! This Man is lighting a fire! I will immediately
go to fetch a piece of burning wood so that we can heat ourselves." The dog
went to talk to the Man who was heating himself. The Man
asked him, "Where do you come from?" The dog answered, "We will die
from the cold, which is why I came to seek fire to heat ourselves." The
Man answered him,
"Heat yourself well before you take some of the fire with you, then you
can be on your way."
Then the
dog, with her mouth raised up, put herself nearer the fire to heat
herself. She heated herself until she burned her fur, but her nose remained
moist. During this
time, the Man's Wife came to prepare a meal for them. They ate well, and
the dog even ate the bones. Thus it forgot to take some fire with
her. Meanwhile, the jackal suffered from the cold with her
children. And to this day, she continues
to call the dog to bring fire so that they can be warmed by its heat.
Then
the dog said, "I will go into the bush, where my nose leads me, only if it
first becomes dry." Thus she gave up on the jackal with her children.
As for the dog, she followed the Man to return to his house. This is why,
even today, the nose of the dog always remains wet. When you notice
that the nose of the dog becomes dry, you will know for certain that she
just died, and so you should throw it
in bush. To this day, whenever you hear the jackal crying out, it is that
she is calling the dog. The dog in turn will bark, to affirm that it will go into
the bush when its nose becomes dry.
This history is drawn from the book Taaya gede (Dog Stories) by the Association for the Development and the Promotion of the Guerguiko Language. 2000: Association SIL Chad, BP 4214, N'Djaména, Chad.
The Hyena, the Monkey and the Hare
Long ago, a hyena climbed up on top of a well,
and fell into it. Soon afterward, a monkey was passing by. He heard
heard the hyena's cries for help. "My brother, please help me, I want
to get out of here!"
And so, the monkey
put his tail into the well. The hyena caught hold of it, and left the well.
Then the hyena asks his rescuer, "My brother, please carry me home, I
want to go home to my house." So the monkey agreed to carry him home.
When he got home, the hyena got
hungry. He wanted to eat the monkey. The monkey began to run away, then
the monkey and the hyena got into a fight.
The hare
heard the cries of the monkey. He arrived
and they both explained what happened. The monkey explained it all to hare. Then
the hare asks him: "Can you carry the hyena?" The monkey answers:
"Yes, I
can carry the hyena." The hare called to the monkey: "Carry the hyena
to the
well."
The monkey carried the hyena to the well. The monkey
threw the hyena
into
the well. The hare called to the monkey: "Leave him in the well." The hare
and the monkey return to their homes, and the hyena died in the well.
This history is drawn from the Contes du Tchad : Goundi Tome 2 by Togueyadji Mindengar and Maurice Fournier. 1998: Publications pédagogiques de Sarh, BP 87, Sarh, Chad.
The Orphan Nidjema (Arabic for "Star")
"... There once was a virtuous girl, who was a
devoted to helping others and a good friend of everyone. We
called her Nidjema because she was especially beautiful. Even
though she was an orphan, her friends knew they could use and abuse
her willingness to serve. She would correct their
mistakes. When they forgot to do something, she got them out of
trouble. The apron of her skirt always hid for them the best
part of her meagre dinner. Thus, in her adopted family, Nidjema
was not happy. They reserved for her the most difficult of the
chores: she went to draw water from the well, she went to gather
firewood. And it was always Nidjema who lit the fire, ground the
millet, washed the calabash cups. No one was ever happy with the
work she did, so she was beaten.
One morning, she was beaten so severely that
she ran away into the wilderness to end her life. She kept
walking, not caring at all about the ferocious beasts or reptiles
which might kill her if she came across their path...."
Our hero met hideous monsters on her pathway,
and asked them to kill her. One after another, they
refused. At last, she met death himself, who told her this:
"Adorable little star! No one can
escape their own destiny. All must await their moment in
time. Your moment has not yet come to die. So you must
return to where you came from; go back to your own village. Here
on earth, happiness comes from our moral excellence!"
This story, along with many other interesting ones, are to be found in the book Au Tchad sous les étoiles by Joseph Brahim SEID. 1962: PRESENCE AFRICAINE, 25 bis, rue des Écoles, Paris 75005. ISBN 2-7087-0499-0. We highly recommend this extraordinary book!
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