A Few More Malawian Tales (Told by Mr. Mkweza)

As promised, here are the rest of the stories that Mr. Mkweza, one of my co-workers in Malawi, told us on one of our trips in and out of camp.

A Malawian lizard to go with the story.

The Smart Hare and the Lizard:

There was once a chief that had a big lizard that was terrorizing his town.  So, he tried and tried to kill it, but he failed because it kept hiding behind the tree.  So, the king invited a lot of people, anyone who would come and kill that lizard, he would give him a very good wife - he said " I have a very beautiful daughter and the one who kills the lizard will marry my daughter, and will be the son-in-law of the chief".  So, people would come and try to kill the lizard but they were failing, because the lizard would just go around the tree, behind the tree.  So, the hare thought itself wise and took a rope, tied it to the leg of a goat, and another rope, tied it to the leg of a dog, and pulled them over to the tree where the lizard was hiding.  So, he put them near the tree, and he took the grass, and the hare gave it to the dog, and the dog doesn't eat the grass, so he was beating it to make it eat the grass.  And he took meat, and gave it to the goat, gave it fresh meat, and the goat doesn't eat meat, so the hare was beating it so it would eat the meat.  So the lizard saw that, oh this man is insane - he is doing the opposite, he is not taking the grass and giving it to the goat and the meat to the dog.  So, he said, "No, no, don't do that, just give the grass to the goat, and the meat to the dog".  But the hare pretends that he does not understand and was serious and was yelling at the goat and dog "You - you eat this one!", right under the tree.  So, the lizard was very furious "Aa-aa, no let me come and help you - I say, take this grass and give it to the goat".  So, the hare, was just behind the lizard watching the demonstration of giving the grass to the goat and giving the meat to the dog, and then he killed the lizard!  So, the hare succeeded at killing the lizard because of his intelligence.

Council of the birds...

How the Tortoise Got Kicked Out of Heaven:

The birds were all invited to a feast in heaven, and the tortoise wanted to go as well, but he did not have wings.  So, he asked the birds if each one of them would give him a feather so he could fashion himself some wings and join them.  They agreed and each plucked out a feather and gave it to him.  The tortoise wove himself some wings and joined the birds on their flight up to heaven and sat at the feast table with them.  Then, he asked them if he could be given a new name, because tortoises cannot fly, and he now had a part of each of them on him, so he wanted to be called ‘All-Of-You’.  The birds agreed to this, because he did have a piece of all of them in his wings.  Then, the angel brought out the first course, and as he was leaving after setting the food on the table, the tortoise asked him who the food was for.  The angel answered, “For all of you, of course!’, so the tortoise, now named ‘All-Of-You’ claimed it and ate most of it, leaving only scraps for the birds to finish.  Another angel brought out the second course, and again, the tortoise asked who it was for.  Again, the angel said ‘For all of you!’, and the tortoise claimed and ate it, leaving scraps for the birds.  The birds grew frustrated with this treatment and decided to take back their feathers, so each came and plucked their feather out of the tortoise’s wings.  The tortoise, worried now that he couldn’t fly back to his home, asked them if they would please go to his wife and tell her to put all of their mattresses and blankets in the yard so he could jump down from heaven and onto them.  They said they would, and flew home.  The birds stopped by the tortoise’s house and told the wife that there was a big war coming, and that to protect herself and her house, she should put all the sharp objects around the yard, so that the house would be protected.  She hurriedly did this, and the tortoise, looking down from heaven, saw his wife scurrying around the yard and was pleased, knowing that he would soon be able to go home.  When she finished spreading the items around the yard, the tortoise jumped from heaven, but instead of landing on a soft pillow, he crashed into axes and knives, which broke him into many pieces.  His wife came running out of the house and saw her husband spread about the yard in tiny shards, so she quickly picked them all up and ran to the witch doctor.  The witch doctor had a potion to put the tortoise back together again, but it could not make the scars disappear.  So that is how the tortoise was kicked out of heaven, and how he got all of the markings on his shell.

A woven and a brick granary are both visible in this village (bottom left of the picture).

Mr. Mkweza's Unending (& Favourite) Story:

He says "I could tell this one all the way back to the office and then start again tomorrow and continue all the way back to camp without finishing!"

Once upon a time, there was a village.  The villagers there grew maize and other crops.  Before harvest time, the locusts came and ate everything, so there was a lot of hunger in the village.  People thought and said "So this year let us not do the same - we should cultivate and harvest earlier, before the locusts come, because if they come they will eat everything and there will be nothing to eat.  So that second year they were very clever, they made the granaries, stores, and before it was completely dry season, they harvested it and put it in the granary and covered everything so they were safe.  So the locusts came adn tehy found that all the gardens are harvested and everything was cleared.  So they had nothing to eat so they went in the trees and wre just eating some leaves but they tried to find maize but there was no maize at all.  Then they landed on one granary - they are like clouds - a lot of them - you know, millions of them - and one locust saw a tiny hole in the granary, and it went through that tiny hole, and it found a grain of maize in a cob of maize in the granary.  So, it took that grain of maize and crawled through that same tiny hole and came out and showed the others - "See, I have gotten my maize!"  "Ahh - let me go!" - so another locust crawled through the tiny hole, picked up a grain of maize, and came out again.  Another locust go through, and another and another and another - I can say that up to tomorrow - because there are millions of locusts and and each is taking only one grain of maize and there are many cobs of maize in the granary, just imagine - so to finish one cob of maize, a lot of locusts are going through and picking up one grain of maize, so it can't end!  So people say "Oh - I am tired of hearing you - another locust, and another locust, and another locust" - "Yes, as I say, it is millions of locusts and millions of grains of maze".  So to finish the story - another locust crawled through a tiny hole, picked up a grain of maize, and crawled out again, and another locust crawled through a tiny hole, picked up a grain of maize, and crawled out again, and another locust crawled through a tiny hole, picked up a grain of maize, and crawled out again, and...  You can't finish!  Even if I start again tomorrow, I will not even finish half of the locusts!