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Folklores Have Real Lives
By Lateef Oladeji of Gem Business Ventures
In my younger days at our African rural community, story telling by an elder to a gathering of attentive and eager children was the order of the day every night. In one of such sessions, we were told the tale of the crab and the partridge, the theme of which centered on a sad and wicked betrayal of friendship. The crab was called Alakan while the partridge bore Aparo. I still remember vividly how all of us in the audience, being credulous little kids, erupted in tears for the crab, thinking that the story was real. In brief, the story went thus: Alakan and Aparo were very close childhood friends, each with children. One day, Alakan was in dire need of food for his family, and he sent one of his children to his friend for a bailout. On reaching the gate to Aparo’s house, the baby crab called out the latter’s name as usual. Surprisingly, instead of Aparo attending to his friend’s child, he started hurling invectives on him and his father. When the baby crab reported the incident to his father, the latter got furious with incredulity, and fatally punished his child for lying. Alakan sent the other children in turn, and the same fate befell them all. In grief, Alakan went to Aparo by himself and got the shock of his life. Aparo repeated the invectives he had rained on Alakan’s family. Alakan returned home dejected, lonely and severely hurt. Anytime I remembered this story and our innocent reactions to it, I would laugh at the simplicity of our tender minds as children then. "Such a thing would never happen in real life", I had thought. However, I was wrong. A similar thing happened to a relation recently, which instantly reminded me of the crab-partridge story. This relation called Lagbaja had a close childhood friend called Tamedo. Both were living with their families. They were so close and inseparable that they built their residential houses on adjacent plots of land. Indeed, they were the envy of the people around them. Neither would do anything without telling the other. However, Lagbaja started observing that his friend had started behaving funny. Such funny behaviors included Tamedo’s reduced visits to Lagbaja’s house and Tamedo’s traveling on long journeys for days without informing Lagbaja, although they were supposed to be close friends and neighbors. Actually, it was during one of such journeys that Lagbaja discovered that his friendship with Tamedo had become the type between the folkloric crab and the partridge. Lagbaja had tried to visit his friend in the next house, not knowing that he had traveled. His repeated knocks on Tamedo’s gate (the gate bell was not working) yielded no answer despite being apparent that somebody was in the house, going by the way the gate was locked from within. Undaunted, Lagbaja made a phone call to his friend’s cell phone, but it kept ringing without a reply. It was at that point that another neighbor came out of his own compound and informed Lagbaja that Tamedo had traveled. Feeling snubbed, frustrated and confused, Lagbaja went back home. Adamant about seeing or talking to his friend, Lagbaja sent his son the following day to check if Tamedo was already back. The poor boy also stayed long at and knocked on the gate persistently but nobody answered him. He was sent again the following day, and then the climax took place! Tamedo’s wife came and opened the gate in a gale of fury, saying: “Why have you kept knocking on the gate? You did the same thing yesterday”. Making a hissing sound with her mouth, she shut the gate back angrily without listening at all to the boy or allowing him to enter. Despite all the frustrations and humiliation, Lagbaja sent an email to his friend, as other avenues had failed, briefing him about all that had happened, and suggesting that they meet to discuss the developments. Lagbaja received no reply. When Tamedo eventually returned from his journey, and both of them saw each other within their neighborhood, Tamedo denied having received any email at all. Lagbaja then repeated his suggestion about having a meeting to discuss the new developments, but Tamedo, while initially approving of it, seems to have changed his mind up to now. Today, Lagbaja and Tamedo are engaged in a show of deceit and pretence to other friends and neighbors. They behave to each other in the presence of others as if nothing has changed. In actual fact, though, a lot has changed. Lagbaja has vowed never to enter Tamedo’s house again, and he has kept to his vow for almost a year now. Tamedo obviously understands why, and he seems to be enjoying the new redefined relationship. Who says that folklore and tales are mere imaginations that are incapable of real-life occurrence? Rather, those so-called imaginary stories are a representation of what the elders have actually experienced in their lives. The words (and world) of our elders are those of wisdom.
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Contributor's Note
This is a true life story. I believe one or two lessons could be learnt from it. The persons to whom it applies are well known to me, but the names used are assumed ones so as not to embarrass them. Furthermore, the Yoruba names of the crab and the partridge are alakan and aparo, respectively, hence the choice of Alakan and Aparo.
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This intel was contributed by gembiz
gembiz
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May, 2012
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