by Amos Tutuola
So I shall be very much grateful if anyone who reads this story-book can judge one or both cases and send the judgement to me as early as possible, because the whole people in the ‘mixed town’ want me very urgently to come and judge the two cases.
After we left the ‘mixed town’, we travelled more than 15 days before we saw a mountain, then we climbed it and met more than a million mountain-creatures as I could describe them.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
31
We and the mountain-creatures on the unknown-mountain
When we reached the top of this mountain, we met uncountable mountain-creatures who resembled human-beings in appearance, but they were not, the top of this ‘Unknown-mountain’ was as flat as a football field and every part of it was lighted with various colours of lights and decorated as if it was a hall, so these mountain-creatures were dancing in form of circles when we met them. But when we reached the middle of them, they stopped dancing and we stood among them and we were looking at the bush very far away from that place. As these ‘mountain-creatures’ loved to dance always, they asked my wife to join them and she did.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
32
To see the mountain-creatures was not dangerous but to dance with them was the most dangerous
They were very pleased as my wife was dancing with them, but when my wife felt tired, these creatures were not tired, then my wife stopped, and when they saw her all of them were greatly annoyed and dragged her to continue with them and when she started again, she became tired before them, so she stopped as before, then they came to her and said that she must dance until she should be released. But as she was dancing again and when I saw that she was exceedingly tired and these creatures did not stop at all, then I went to her and said to her “let us go,” but as she was following me, these creatures grew annoyed with me. They wanted to take her back to the dance from me by force. So I performed my juju there again, and it changed my wife into the wooden-doll as usual, then I put it into my pocket, and they saw her no more.
But when she had disappeared from their presence they told me to find her out at once and grew annoyed by that time, so I started to run away for my life because I could not face them to fight at all. As I was running away from them, I could not run more than 500 yards before the whole of them caught me and surrounded me there; of course, before they could do anything to me, I myself had changed into a flat pebble and was throwing myself along the way to my home town.
But these ‘mountain-creatures’ were still following me and trying their best to catch me as I was a pebble, although, they were unable to catch it until I (pebble) reached the river which crossed the road to my town and also the river was near my town. But before reaching the river, I was very tired and nearly broke into two, because of striking harder stones as I was throwing myself, but at the same time that I reached the river, they nearly caught me there. But without any ado, I threw myself to the other side of the river and before touching the ground, I had changed myself into man, and also my wife, gun, egg, cutlass and loads as usual and at the same time that we touched the ground, we bade the ‘mountain-creatures’ good-bye and they were looking at us as we were going, because they must not cross the river at all. That was how we left the ‘mountain-creatures’. So from that river to my home town was only a few minutes to reach. Then we entered on my father’s land, and no harm or bad creatures came again.
When it was 7 o’clock early in the morning, we reached my town, then we entered my parlour, but at the same time that my town’s people saw that I returned, they rushed to my house and greeted us. So both of us reached my town safely and I met my parents safely too, with all my old friends who were coming to my house and drinking palm-wine with me before I left.
After that, I sent for 200 kegs of palm-wine and drank it together with my old friends as before I left home. Immediately I reached my home, I entered my room and opened my box, then I hid the egg which my palm-wine tapster gave from the Deads’ Town. And so all our trials, difficulties and many years’ travel brought only an egg or resulted in an egg.
But on the third day after we arrived home, my wife and I went to her father in his town and met them also in good condition, then we returned after we had spent three days there. That was how the story of the palm-wine drinkard and his dead palm-wine tapster went.
Before reaching my town, there was a great famine (FAMINE), and it killed millions of the old people and uncountable adults and children, even many parents were killing their children for food so as to save themselves after they had eaten both domestic animals and lizards etc. Every plant and tree and river dried away for lack of the rain, and nothing for the people to eat remained.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
33
The causes of the famine
In the olden days, both Land and Heaven were tight friends as they were once human-beings. So one day, Heaven came down from heaven to Land his friend and he told him to let them go to the bush and hunt for the bush animals; Land agreed to what Heaven told bim. After that they went into a bush with their bows and arrows, but after they had reached the bush, they were hunting for animals from morning till 12 o’clock a.m., but nothing was killed in that bush, then they left that bush and went to a big field and were hunting there till 5 o’clock in the evening and nothing was killed there as well. After that, they left there again to go to a forest and it was 7 o’clock before they could find a mouse and started to hunt for another, so that they might share them one by one, because the one they had killed already was too small to share, but they did not kill any more. After that they came back to a certain place with the one that they had killed and both of them were thinking how to share it. But as this mouse was too small to divide into two and these two friends were also greedy, Land said that he would take it away and Heaven said that he would take it away.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
34
Who will take the mouse?
But who would take the mouse? So Land refused totally for Heaven to take it and Heaven refused totally for Land to take it away and Land said that he was senior to Heaven and Heaven said that too, but when they argued for many hours, both were vexed and went away, and they left the mouse there. Heaven returned to heaven his home and Land went back to his house on the earth.
But when Heaven reached the heaven, he stopped rain falling to the earth even he did not send dew to the earth at all, and everything dried away on earth, and nothing remained for the people of the world with which to feed themselves, so both living creatures and non-livings began to die away.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
35
An egg fed the whole world
Now as there was a great famine before I arrived in my town, so I went to my room and put water into a bowl and put the egg inside it, then I commanded the egg to produce food and drinks which my wife and my parents and myself would eat, but before a second there I saw that the room had become full of varieties of food and drinks, so we ate and drank to our satisfaction. After that, I sent for all of my old friends and gave them the rest of the food and the drinks, after that, the whole of us began to dance and when they required more, then I commanded the egg again and produced many kegs and drank it, after that, my friends asked me how did I manage to get these things. They said for 6 years, they never tasted water and palm-wine at all, then I told them that I brought the palm-wine etc. from the Deads’ Town.
And it was a late hour in the night before they went back to their houses. But to my surprise, I did not get up from my bed early in the morning before they came and woke me up and they increased by 60 per-cent, so when I saw them like that, I entered into my room where I hid the egg and opened the box, I put it in the bowl with water and commanded it as usual, so it produced both food and drinks for all of them (friends) etc., and I left them in my parlour, because they did not go in time. Now, the news of the wonderful egg was spreading from to
wn to town and from village to village. One morning when I woke up from my bed, it was hard to open the door of my house, because all the people from various towns and villages had come and waited there to eat, even they were too numerous to count and before 9 o’clock my town could not contain strangers. So when it was ten o’clock and when the whole of these people sat down quietly, then I commanded the egg as before and at once, it produced food and drinks for each of these people, so that everyone of them who had not eaten for a year, ate and drank to his or her satisfaction, then they took the rest of the food etc. to their towns or houses. But after the whole of them had gone away temporarily, then I commanded the egg to produce a lot of money and it produced it at once, so I hid it somewhere in my room. As everyone of those people knew that whenever they come to my house they would eat and drink as he or she liked, so it would not be two o’clock in the mid-night before people would be arriving from the various towns and villages to my house and they were bringing their children and old people along with them. All the kings and their attendants came too. When I could not sleep because of their noise, then I got up from bed and I wanted to open the door, but they rushed violently into the house and damaged the door. So when I tried my best to push them back and failed, then I told them that everyone would not be served unless at outside, but after they heard so, they went back to the outside and waited at the front of my house. Then I myself got out and commanded the egg to supply them with food and drinks. Now the people were rapidly increasing from various towns or unknown places, but the worst part of it was if they came, they would not return again to their towns, so I got no chance to sleep once or to rest, except to command the egg throughout the day and night, but when I found that keeping the egg inside the room was causing much trouble for me, then I put it together with the bowl outside in the middle of these people.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
36
Reckless life at home
As I had become the greatest man in my town and did no other work than to command the egg to produce food and drinks, so one day, when I commanded the egg to supply the best food and drinks in the world to these people, at the same time it did so, but when these people ate the food and drank to their satisfaction, they began to play and were wrestling with each other until the egg was mistakenly smashed, the egg with the bowl broken, the egg itself broken into two. Then I took it and gummed it. But these people still remained there, even they not playing etc. and sorry for the egg which broke, of course, when they were feeling hungry again, they asked for food etc. as usual. So I brought out the egg and commanded it as before, but it could not produce out anything again and I commanded it three times in their presence but nothing was produced. When these people had waited there for four days without eating and drinking anything, then they were returning to their towns etc. one by one, but they were abusing me as they were leaving.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
37
Pay what you owe me and vomit what you ate
After these people had gone back to where they came, nobody came to my house as before, and all my friends stopped coming too, even whenever I saw them outside and saluted them, they would not answer me at all. But I did not care for that, because I had a lot of money in my room. But as I did not throw the egg away when broken, so one day, I went to my room and re-gummed it securely, then I commanded it as perhaps it might produce food as usual. And to my surprise, it produced only millions of leather-whips, but immediately I saw what it could produce, I commanded it again to take the whips back and it did so at once. After a few days, I went to the king and told him to tell his bell ringers to ring the bell to every town and village and tell the whole people that they should come to my house and eat etc., as before, because my palm-wine tapster who gave me the first wonderful egg had sent another egg to me from the Deads’ Town, and this one was even more powerful than the first one which broke.
But when these people heard so, the whole of them came and when I saw that none of them remained behind, then I put the egg in the middle of them, after that I told one of my friends to command it to produce anything it could for them, then I entered my house and closed all the windows and doors. When he commanded it to produce anything it could, the egg produced only millions of whips and started to flog them all at once, so those who brought their children and old people did not remember to take them away before they escaped. All the king’s attendants were severely beaten by these whips and also all the kings. Many of them ran into the bush and many of them died there, especially old people and children and many of my friends died as well, and it was hard for the rest to find his or her way back home, and within an hour none of them remained at the front of my house.
When these whips saw that all the people had gone away, then the whole of them (whips) gathered into one place and formed an egg as before, but to my astonishment it disappeared at the same time. But the great famine was still going on seriously in every part of the town, although when I saw that many old people began to die every day, then I called the rest of the old people who remained and told them how we could stop the famine. We stopped the famine thus: – We made a sacrifice of two fowls, 6 kolas, one bottle of palm oil, and 6 bitter kolas. Then we killed the fowls and put them in a broken pot, after that we put the kolas and poured the oil in the pot. The sacrifice was to be carried to Heaven in heaven.
∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧
38
But who would carry the sacrifice to the heaven for heaven?
First we chose one of the king’s attendants, but that one refused to go, then we chose one of the poorest men in the town and he refused also, at last we chose one of the king’s slaves who took the sacrifice to heaven for Heaven who was senior to Land and Heaven received the sacrifice with gladness. The sacrifice meant that Land surrendered, that he was junior to Heaven. But when the slave carried the sacrifice to heaven and gave it to Heaven he (slave) could not reach halfway back to the earth before a heavy rain came and when the slave was beaten by this heavy rain and when he reached the town, he wanted to escape from the rain, but nobody would allow him to enter his or her house at all. All the people were thinking that he (slave) would carry them also to Heaven as he had carried the sacrifice to Heaven, and were afraid.
But when for three months the rain had been falling regularly, there was no famine again.
EOF