HOW CONTRADICTION CAME TO THE ASHANTI

THERE WAS ONCE a certain man called Hate-to-Be-Contradicted, and because of that, he built a small settlement all by himself and went to live in it. And the creature called the duiker went to visit him, and he walked with him and sat down at the foot of a palm tree. Then some of the palm nuts fell down. The duiker said, “Father Hate-to-Be-Contradicted, your palm nuts are ripe.”

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted said, “That is the nature of the palm nut. When they are ripe, three bunches ripen at once. When they are ripe, I cut them down; and when I boil them to extract the oil, they make three water-pots full of oil. Then I take the oil to Bantu to buy an Bantu old woman. The Bantu old woman comes and gives birth to my grandmother who bears my mother who, in turn, bears me. When Mother bears me, I am already standing there.”

The duiker said, “As for that, you lie.”

And Hate-to-Be-Contradicted took a stick and hit the duiker on the head, and killed it.

Next the little antelope came along. Hate-to-Be-contradicted went off with it and sat under the palm tree, and the same thing happened. And thus it was with all the animals. Finally, the spider, went and fetched his cloth and his bag, slung the bag across his shoulders, and went off to visit Hate-to-Be-Contradicted’s kraal. He greeted him: “Father, good morning.”

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted replied, “Y’aku, and where are you going?”

He replied, “I am coming to visit you.”

And he took his stool and placed it under the palm tree.

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted said, “Cook food for the spider to eat.”

And while it was cooking, Spider and Hate-to-Be-Contradicted sat under the palm tree. Some of the palm nuts fell down, and Spider took them and placed them in a bag. This he continued to do until his bag was full. The food was brought, and Spider Ate. When he had finished eating, some of the ripe palm nuts again fell down, and Spider said, “Father Hate-to-Be-Contradicted, your palm nuts are ripe.”

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted said, “It’s their nature to ripen like that; when they are ripe. When they are ripe I cut them down, and when I boil them to extract the oil, they make three water-pots full of oil and I take the oil to Ashanti to buy an Ashanti old woman.. The Ashanti old woman comes and gives birth to my grandmother who beats my mother so that she in turn beat me. When Mother beats me. I am already standing there.”

The Spider said, “You do not lie. What you say is true. As for me, I have some okras standing in my farm. When they are ripe, I join seventy-seven long hooked poles in order to reach them to poles them down, but even then I cannot reach them. So I lie on my back, and am able to use my penis to pluck them.”

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted said, “Oh, I understand. Tomorrow I shall come and look.”

The Spider said, “Surely.”

While the spider was going home, he chewed the palm nuts which he had gathered and spat them out on the path. The next morning, when things began to be visible, Hate-to-Be-contradicted set out to go to the spider’s village. Now when the spider had arrived home the day before, he had gone and said to his children, “A certain man will come here who hates to be contradicted, and when he arrives and inquires for me, you must tell him that yesterday I had to take it to a blacksmith to be repaired and, as the blacksmith could not finish it at the time, I have now gone to have the work finished.”

Not long afterward Hate-to-Be-Contradicted came along. He said, “Where has your father gone?”

They replied, “Alas, Father went somewhere yesterday, and his penis got broken in seven different places. So he took it to a blacksmith, but he could not finish the job at the time, and Father has gone to have it completed. You, father, did you not see the blood on the path.”

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted said, “Yes, I saw it.” He then asked, “And where is your mother?”

The spider’s child replied, “Mother, too – yesterday she went to the stream, and her water-pot would have fallen and broken had she not saved it from doing so by just catching at it in time. But she didn’t quite finish saving it from falling and has returned today to do so.” Hate-to-Be-contradicted did not say anything.

Now Spider arrived. He said, “Cook some food that Hate-to-Be-Contradicted may eat.” As the children were cooking the food, they used only one single little perch but an immense quantity of peppers. They made the soup-stew very hot. When they had finished, they set it down before Hate-to-Be-Contradicted. Hate-to-Be-Contradicted ate. Now the peppers pained him; he wanted to die. He said to one of Spider’s sons, Kanfari, where is that water?”

Kanfari said, “Ah, the water which we have here in our water-pot is of three different kinds. That belonging to Father comes first, that of mother’s co-wife is in the middle, and that belonging to my mother is at the bottom of the pot. I must draw for you only the water belonging to my own mother and if i do not take great care when drawing it, it will cause a tribal dispute.”

Hate-to-Be-Contradicted said, “You little brat, you lie.”

Straightway Spider said, “Beat him so that he dies.”

Hate-to-be-Contradicted said, “Why should they beat me so that I may die?”

The spider said, “You say you hate to be contradicted, and yet you have contradicted some one. That is why I say they must beat you so that you may die.’

So they beat Hate-to-be-contradicted until he died. The Spider cut up his flesh in little pieces and scattered them all about.

That is why many persons who hate to be contradicted are to be found in the tribe today.

[ ASHANTI ]

DREAM EVALUATION

I believe that normal dreams are the outside shell of deeper inside experience. The interior reality is clothed in dream images as, when we are awake, it is clothed in physical ones. Dream objects and physical objects alike are symbols by which we perceive – and direct – an inner reality that we do not seem able to experience directly. In certain states of consciousness, particularly in projections from the dream state, we achieve a peculiar poise of alertness. This lets us briefly examine the nature of our consciousness by allowing us to view its products – the events and experiences that it creates when released from usual physical focus.

Consciousness forms its own reality, physical and otherwise. I think there is a “mass” dream experience, however, as there is a collectively perceived physical life and definite interior conditions within which dream life happens. Only inner experimentation will let us discover this interior landscape. Perhaps one day we will move freely within it, alert, conscious and far wiser than we are now.

It is a dimension native to consciousness, I believe, at whatever stage of being, physical or nonphysical. We have our primary existence in it after death and spend a good deal or physical time wandering through it, unknowingly, in sleep. Clues as to our creativity and the nature of our existence can be found there and from it emerges the organizational qualities of normal consciousness as we know it.

I do not believe that there are any more dangers facing us in the interior universe than there are in the physical one. We should explore each world with common sense and courage. The interior universe is the source of the exterior one, however, and traveling through it we will encounter our own hopes, fears and beliefs in their ever-changing form.

THE GREED OF THE OLD MAN AND HIS WIFE

THERE WAS ONCE UPON A TIME an old man who lived in a kraal with his neighbors. And this old man had a wife and a small child, and he possessed a very fine ox.

One day he said to himself, “How shall I slaughter my ox?” And he said aloud to his wife, “My child! I will call the men and tell them that I am going to move. We can then slaughter our ox all by ourselves.”

His wife agreed and, in the evening, the old man blew his horn as a signal to his friends that he had something to tell them. His neighbors came together, and he told them that he wished to move, as the air did not agree with him. The others consented, and in the morning he saddled his donkeys, separated his cattle from the rest, and started off, accompanied by his wife, who was carrying the child.

When they had gone some distance, they halted and erected their kraal, after which they rested.

At dawn on the second day the old man called his wife and asked her why they had not yet slaughtered their ox. The woman replied, “My husband! How shall we manage to slaughter the ox? There are two things to be considered – the first is that we have no herdsman and the second that I am carrying the baby.”

The old man then said, “Oh, I know what we will do. I will stab the ox in the neck, then I will leave you to skin it, and I will carry the child to the grazing ground. But when you have skinned the animal, roast some meat so that it will be ready on my return.”

The old man then killed the ox, after which he picked up his bow and grass, and went to drive back the cattle, for they had wandered far. But when he returned to the spot where he had left the child, he was unable to find it, so he decided to set fire to the grass. “When the fire reaches the child, it will cry, ” he thought, “And I will run to the place and pick it up before it is burned.”

He made a fired with his fire-sticks, and the fire travelled to where the child was . He ran to the spot, but when he reached it, he found that the child was dead.

The old man had left his wife in the morning skinning the ox. And while she was skinning it – she had just reached the dewlap – the knife slipped, and she stabbed herself in the eye. She went and lay down, and the birds came and finished the meat.

After the child was burned, the old man drove the cattle to the kraal, and when they were opposite to the gate, he heard his wife weeping, and saying, “Oh my eye!’ He therefore asked her who had told her the news.

“What news?” she inquired.

“The child has been burned,” he replied.

The woman exclaimed, “Oh, my child!”

The old man then asked where his meat was, and his wife informed him that the birds had eaten it, whereupon he cried out, “Oh, my meat!”

They both wept, the old man crying, “Oh my meat!” and the woman, “Oh, my child! Oh my eye!”

Look well at these people. It was for their greed that they were punished. They lost their child and their ox, the woman lost her eye, and they had to return in shame to their former home.

[ MASAI ]