Reading Diary Week 7: Congo

Below I have presented half of my favorite stories from Storiesfrom Congo.

The first story that I read and thought was interesting was The Turtle and the Man. This story was about a turtle that teamed up with a man and they built one large trap they then decided to split it up in to two separate smaller traps. The turtle picked the better of the two and caught an antelope that night. Then tricked an ox in to helping him prepare it in exchange for sharing the meat, the ox helped but then the turtle said he would receive nothing. Out of anger the ox went to ruin the turtles trap but got killed by it instead. The along came a leopard and the same thing happened to him except he wasn’t really dead and ended up biting off the turtles head. I think that the moral of this story is to really stand by what you say and not go back on your words or promises.

The next story I thought was interesting was The Leopard and the Crocodile. This story was about how a man who had many wives was having a hard time feeding all of them so he asked that the leopard catch him meet and he would provide him and him only palm-nuts. Then the man made this same promise to the crocodile, the animals held up their end of the bargain and gave the man all the meet he could want. One day though the animals grew tired of all the palm-nuts and so they asked for dog meat, the man knew he could not provide. So he told each of them to go to the same place, they both showed up and had never seen a dog before so they each thought each other was a dog. They fought and fought and the man called the whole town to watch. The animals ended up killing each other and the town rejoiced.

The final story I enjoyed from the second half of the reading was The Three Brothers. This story was about a woman who had three sons but could not take care of them so she laid them in a grassy field and left. They ended up growing up strong and wise thanks to the river spirit that guided them. The river spirit also provided them with wives and they created a whole town. One day their father saw them from afar and ran home to their mother to tell her the news. The following day they set out to find them, the mother walked as long as she could before passing out. Then the boys took her in to their home and fed her and helped to get her better.