Essay: Animals in the Congo

Essay: The Stories From The Congo

I really enjoyed the readings from this unit.  I did notice that most of them were based around animals.  This shows how important animals were to the people in the Congo, no matter how new or old the story was. 

Most of the stories included antelopes and gazelles, which makes perfect since because those are the primary animals in the area.  In the United States those animals usually only exist in the zoos but in the Congo area, the antelopes and gazelles are very abundant.  They also viewed the animals differently than how we would view them over here in the states.  Spiders were looked up as powerful and the leaders, meanwhile, in the story, The Antelope and the Leopard, the antelope was the bad guy and the Leopard was overtaken and viewed as weak.

In the story of the vanishing wife, although animals did not play a huge role in the story, the story did end up being all about the fish.  The entire life of Buite was ruined by something as simple as not cutting off the head of the fish before giving it to his lovely wife.  But even the little details in the story reflect animals in the Congo, too.  The littlest boy’s name in the story that gave the un-beheaded fish to his mother was Parrot, as in the bird that lives in that area. 

The story of How the Wives Restored Their Husband to Life included an ox.  The three wives were so hungry that the only thing that could satisfy them was an ox, therefore the husband had to search for an ox and kill it in the wild.  On his search, he was killed by an ox which led to the wives having to use their powers to dream of the husband, the guide them to the husband, and to bring the husband back to life.

Another story in the unit that includes animals is the Turtle and the Man.  This particular story included a lot of the animals that are seen many times throughout the unit such as the ox, the antelope, and the leopard. 

None of these stories could be told without the help of animals either being the helpers, main characters, or the bad guy in the stories.  There are also many more stories in this unit that include animals. 

[Source]

Storytelling Week 6: How The Ugly Man Got Married

How The Ugly Man Got Married (based off the original How Gazelle Got Married)

There once was a man named Robert. He wasn’t the most handsome in the village, but in fact, he was the ugliest in the village.  Growing up, his "desire to be perfect" parents always thought he was going to change from being ugly to handsome. 

“Pretty soon, he will grow out of his baby fat.” 

“Pretty soon, he will grow into his nose.”

“Pretty soon, his pimples will go away, and he will have the clearest skin.”

“Pretty soon, he will gain some muscle and won’t be as lanky.”

“Pretty soon, he will learn to have the wits that will swoop any woman off her feet,” exclaimed Mama all throughout Robert’s life. 

Although she loved her son very very much, she always hoped that he would become the handsome man who would give her perfect and beautiful grandchildren to spoil rotten.  One day, she found the perfect opportunity for Robert to get two beautiful wives!

The king of the village was a very powerful and noble man that everyone looked up to, and he had two twin daughters that he kept a secret to the outside world.  He kept them so much of a secret that nobody even knew their names.  So one day, the king realized that they would have to meet someone and marry a man some day. 

“Any man that can find out the names of my two daughters can have their hands in marriage,” proclaimed the king to the whole village. 

When Robert heard the message from the king, he knew this was his opportunity to find not only one beautiful wife, but two beautiful wives! All he had to do was figure out the names of the king’s daughters.  Robert and his dog ventured off to the castle in the middle of the village to talk to the king about the challenge to win over his daughters. 

When Robert arrived at the castle, he talked to the king to try and guess their names.

“Ashley and Rachel? Alyssa and Brooke? Carly and Mariah? Rebecca and Raquel?” guessed Robert. 

The king quickly stopped him and told him that none of those are the right answers, and he would be there for years if he kept up with that jibber jabber.

As the king released him to take a walk around the castle, his dog stayed inside.  This was no ordinary dog.  Robert’s dog could talk just like humans but only spoke when Robert spoke to him.  So once Robert left and the dog stayed inside, the King called his daughters by name down to the dining room for dinner.  

“Laurie, Landry, come down for dinner and feed the dog in the entry room, too!” yelled the king to his daughters.

The dog all of a sudden perked his ears up and knew he had to tell Robert the names of the King’s daughters.  The girls fed the dog, and he ran away to find Robert.  On his way to tell his master, the dog became very thirsty from the food and searched for water instead.  Once he found Robert, the dog had already forgotten the names of the two daughters.  The dog returned to the castle to try to find out the names of the daughters once again.

As the dog ran back inside the castle, the family was just finishing up dinner and the king, again, yelled the names of his daughters.  

“Laurie, Landry, don’t forget about the Grand Ball tomorrow night, and give more food and water to the dog,” the king yelled loudly.

The dog’s ears perked up again.  So again, the dog ate and drank the water they gave him, and he set out again to find his master. 

Once the dog found Robert, the dog immediately told Robert the names of the daughters, and they both raced back to the castle.  Robert told the king the names of his daughters.  Although the king was baffled and did not understand how Robert had figured out his daughter's names, the king did make a deal that he had to uphold.  The king granted Robert the right to marry his two daughters.  Although it took some getting used to from the two girls and Robert, they all lived happily ever after.

[Source]

Author’s Note:

This story is based off of the original story of How Gazelle Got Married in the Stories from Congo unit.  I kept the basic underlying story about how the daughters were up for marriage and whoever could guess their names could have their hand in marriage, but I added a beginning to the story and changed the characters.  The dog helped in the original story, too, but kept forgetting the names of the daughters just like in my story.  I changed the main character to a man to make the story a little bit easier to understand and added some character development of the man to know his background.  The main character is easy to sympathize with because he acts as the underdog in the situation.  No one would have expected this not-so-popular man to marry, not only one of the King's daughters but both of them! I really enjoyed this story and I loved the part about the dog helping out but forgetting the names so many times. So I kept most of that in my retold story.  Although this story would never happen in real life, I feel like I made it more relatable and a little more comical than the original story.

Bibliography:

"How Gazelle Got Married" by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).  Notes on the Folklore of Fjort.

Reading Diary B: The Congo

Congo:

The Antelope And The Leopard

·      Leopard hid from the Antelope and they bet on it

·      Antelope found him and the leopard was mad so he wanted the antelope to hide

·      Leopard couldn’t find him

·      Leopard was too fat to keep looking and picked some nuts and returned to town

·      A dog came from a nut

·      Married to 4 wives (common consent, Boomba, Funzi, Lembe)

·      Dying Dog changed to a damsel an leopard wanted to marry her

·      Damsel wanted leopard to kill the 4 wives

·      Did anything for her, even trimmed his nails

·      She was scared of his eyes and she asked for him to take them out so he did

·      Then he cut off his ears, then feet, then teeth

·      That damsel turned out to be the antelope that had outdone him

How The Spider Won and Lost Nzambi’s Daughter

·      Nzambi is a creator god with a daughter

·      Couldn’t marry her without the heavenly fire from her father

·      Spider took on the challenge but only if he had help and rewarded them

·      Spider dropped into the earth from his silk from the heavens

·      Told the others to climb up

·      Nzambi let them in and wondered what was going on up there

·      They told him that they wanted his terrible fire

·      The king thought they were imposters

·      Told them to bring him bamboo so he knew they were really from there

·      The king believed them of who they were

·      Nzambi from land was going to give it to them if they could say where it was kept

·      The spider took the case where it was hiding

·      Upon returning, the spider married the daughter

·      But since none of the helpers were good sports about it and wanted to claim the daughter as their own because of their part, the father did not give them the girl but paid them in other ways

The Turtle And The Man

·      A turtle and man built a town but they didn’t plant anything so they starved

·      Want to built a trap to catch the antelope

·      Too big so they divided it in two

·      Turtle caught an antelope but couldn’t lift it

·      The ox was willing to help them

·      While the ox was out finding leaves for the turtle, turtle locked him out

·      Turtle wouldn’t give him his share and was mean to him

·      The ox went to destroy the trap but the turtle already reset it

·      Ox died in the trap

·      Same thing happens with the leopard with helping the turtle with ox

·      Leopard outsmarted the turtle by acting dead in his trap

·      When the turtle came to get the leopard, he bit his head off

·      Then the man ate the turtle meat, too

[Source]

Reading Diary A: Stories from Congo

Stories from Congo:

How the Wives Restored Their Husbands To Life

·      Nenpetro had 3 wives

·      Searched for their food but they kept complaining of hunger until they could eat an Ox

·      Died by an ox when he was searching for an ox and didn’t return

·      The dreamer dreamt that he was killed by an ox

·      The guide showed them where he died

·      The bringer of life brought him back to life and she was the most prized

·      Some say he should have mixed the food from the 3 pots but he chose the life giver instead

[Source]

How Gazelle Got Married

·      Nenpetro had 2 wives

·      Each had a daughter Lunga and Lenga

·      Antelope gave the parents many valuables and wanted to marry the daughters

·      Only marry if they can guess their names

·      Nsassi couldn’t guess it so he tried to find out

·      His dog heard him say his daughters names and told his dad, nsassi

·      He forgot the names then had to go back to find out again

·      He returned and got fed but was so thirsty that once he found water he forgot their names again

·      Returned back to the house of the daughters, got fed food and water

·      The dog told Nsassi the names and they set out to the house of the daughters to tell their father the names

·      On their way, they got thirsty and forgot the names

·      Dog went back to house

·      Straight back to his father and then went to the house

·      Nsassi told the names and he claimed them as his wives

The Vanishing Wife

·      Two brothers Buite and Swarmi

·      Swarmi was married and successful

·      Buite was alone and ate palm-kernals

·      Swarmi was mean to him and woudn’t let him do anything with him

·      Buite left town

·      One night buite dreamt about a beautiful girl

·      A canoe magically appeared so he could fish for the girl and she would cook it

·      His little shed disappeared and a beautiful house with everything in it appeared and servants

·      Each of the servants threw a fit about not cutting off the heads of the fish, he chased after them, and then cut off the heads

·      To the last boy, Parrot, he couldn’t catch up before he reached home to cut off the head

·      When the fish with the head was shown to the women, all the house and servants and everything disappeared

·      His brother saw this and left and left him alone again because he was so disappointed.

Thoughts about Comments

Thoughts about Comments

I love all the comments that we do in this class because it lets us read the stories and blog posts from our other classmates and how they interpret some of the stories.  Sometimes their stories can even help spark my imagination and help me with my writing, too.  Everyone in this class is also so nice when it comes to the comments that they post.  All of them have been very uplifting and motivating to keep writing stories.

The thing that makes comments the most helpful to me is when they start off with a positive about the story and then critique it to make it even better.  The comments that are all compliments are really nice to read but I also want to know how to make my stories and writings even better so I can learn from them.

The comments that are memorable to me are the ones that pick about my stories that I write in the storytelling column and give me advise about making my next one even better. The comments that truly leave an impression are the ones that I can tell someone could really relate to my story and the ones that read the original so it was easy for them to compare the two stories. 

Really great comments should include something positive and also a friendly critique to make either that story or the next story that the author writes even better.  I am usually a good commenter when it comes to starting off with the positives but I don’t always include something that the author can work on.  In my comments, sometimes it is hard to understand someone else’s writing style so it’s hard for me to critique it their stories.  I will work harder on trying to incorporate some bits of advise to my comments so the author can learn and grow from what I have to say. 

Extra Reading Week 5: Apache

Apache Tribe

Unlike most stories, the Apache tribe begins from the underworld and people climb up and ascend to the Earth or the upper world.  There was a beaver and a badger that was sent out on an adventure to the upper world.  Once more people entered the upper world, wars began happening.  The people from the lower world gave the people from the upper world lice that started biting them but that made them sleep.  The war was by the river and they began to shoot with bows and arrows.  The shots were not supposed to be taken so they tried to help the wounded man with medicines and herbs. They were one against four with the enemies.  Many people died in this war and they had to report that all of their men were dead.

The next stories in these tales were about the heroes and the owl of their land.  This is a story about their kids going to see their father.  The interaction involved the sun and the fire.  All the children wanted was something to play with so he made them toys.  The kids fell into the fire and the Owls made them into a food to eat in a pot.  There was something about one of the children that made them not die.  The owl noticed that and thought it was supernatural powers. So, they jumped out of the pot and returned to their grandmother’s house.

The tale of the Killing of the Monsters is about killing the Elk that had been killing the people of the village.  A man named Naiyenesgani had been sent out to kill this Elk many times and tried to with different approaches but it was never successful.  Finally after many times of trying, he finally killed him so he took the Elk to use it for the skin and meat.  Naiyenesgani kept the horns of the Elk close to him.  He had a way of making four motions, striking, and then killing people.

Some very important things that I have found about the Apache tribe is how close they are with their extended families and the connection with the animals.  They have many more tales that explain their culture and background of the tribe.

[Source]

Storytelling Week 5: Big Brother and Little Brother

Big Brother and Little Brother

Many years ago, there were two brothers that grew up together as best friends.  As they grew older, the older brother, Andrew, began to mature.  He finished school, found a beautiful wife, started a family, and moved out to a vineyard.  Meanwhile, the younger brother, Ben, had a little bit of trouble growing up and wasn’t quite ready to become an adult.

As years went on, Andrew became very successful with his company, earned millions of dollars, and his personality changed for the worse.  He became mad and uptight. He was selfish and very conceited, although, after a little convincing, Andrew agreed to let Ben stay in his house as long as he did all the chores, kept up with all the animals, and slept outside in the barn. "The only way you can stay here, Ben, is if you clean up after my animals and do all my field work for me.  As long as you continue to do my work, you can stay here and I'll look after you," explained Andrew to Ben when he begged and pleaded to stay with him. 

Andrew’s wife acted the same way as Andrew and didn’t think Ben deserved to be in their presence, so she ordered him and ordered him around in hopes that he would leave.  "Do this, clean that, wash these, and don't mess up," ordered the wife as Ben slaved away at their work while she stayed inside and didn't have to worry about anything.  If he messed up even one time on something small or failed to complete one task before sundown, the wife would beat the little brother until he cried and learned to work faster.  Although Ben was grateful for a roof over his head, he was also stubborn.  Ben was sick of being ordered around and beaten by the wife, so one day he yelled at her until she was too scared to talk to him any longer. 

The older brother came home to find his wife in the back of a closet shaking because she was scared of the little brother.  She accused him of beating her and hurting her so the older brother stormed out of the house to kill the younger brother.  Andrew wanted to make sure that could never happen to his wife again.  Ben begged and pleaded with Andrew for him not to hurt him and he tried explaining himself but Andrew didn’t believe him.  He tried everything he could for his brother to believe him but nothing was working and Andrew wouldn't stray away from what his wife proclaimed.  Something in the back of Andrew's head knew he should listen to his little brother instead, but he stuck to his wife's accusation and continued on with the fight.

Ben had nothing else to do but pray to God for help.  Running in the middle of the vineyard, Ben asked God if there was anything He could do to help him.  All of a sudden, a giant river came rushing through separating the two brothers so Andrew could no longer reach Ben to kill him.  Ben thanked God and kept running for the hills.

He found a little shack in the middle of the woods hundreds of miles away from his older brother and all of civilization so nobody could find him.  Although Ben had run away from Andrew, the connection the brothers had from when they were younger was still present.  As children, they made a pact with an angel that they would always stick together no matter what.  "Stuck like glue, you two, will be blue without the company of you," the angel said to them.  If anything were to happen to one another, the angel would send out signs to the other for protection.

One day, years after Ben ran deep into the woods, he came in contact with a disease carried by insects, lost the fight, and passed away.  With the angels above looking down on them for protection,  Andrew rapidly received signals and he knew something wasn’t right. He had to search and seek out his little brother.  After weeks of searching, Andrew found his little brother in the middle of the woods and prayed to God over him again. 

All of a sudden, right before Andrew's eyes, Ben awoke from the dead.  He awoke not in the human form but in the form of a horse that used to roam the vineyards.  The angel that created the powerful bond between the two brothers came down and explained everything that had happened to Andrew.  One could not be on this Earth without the other.  Even if Ben is a horse, they will always be together. Now, his little brother will always protect Andrew, and Ben will always be with his older brother. 

[Source]

Author’s Note:

The original story of The Two Brothers was a story about two brothers by the names of Anpu and Bata.  The two brothers were very close growing up. Bata worked for Anpu as a cowherd.  Anpu's wife came on to Bata, so Anpu decided to kill his brother.  In my retelling of this story, I felt uncomfortable talking about how the wife seduced the younger brother, so I changed it to verbally abusing Bata.  After the younger brother ran far away, he started his own life and got married, but the brothers did always have a special connection that no one quite understood.  When the younger brother died, the older brother was sent messages to let him know that his little brother had died so he had to search for him.  When the older brother found him, he tried to revive him and his soul came back as a sacred bull that eventually got sacrificed. 

In the new story, I changed the bull to a horse because it is more applicable to our culture.  The original story also had the river separating the two brothers so Anpu would not kill Bata right away.  That gave Bata time to run and hide.  I added the supernatural character of the angel coming down to bring the brothers together and add a deeper connection.  I felt like the sending of the signals needed to be done by another force that looked over them so angels popped into my mind.  I changed the setting that the original story was taken place.  The original story took place in the ancient Egypt and included a wife that seduced the little brother.  Although those aspects of the story changed, the underlying meaning stayed the same.


Bibliography
"The Two Brothers" by Donald Mackenzie (1907). Website: Ancient Egypt Unit.

Reading Diary Week 5: Egypt

Egypt:

The Two Brothers, Part 1:  The two brothers were Anpu and Bata.  Bata lives in Anpu’s house with his family.  Bata worked in the field while his brother was treated like a god. Bata didn’t even sleep in the house of Anpu’s family, he slept out with the cattle.  Anpu gave many orders to Bata but he gladly did as he said.  The land from the flooding of the Nile became very fertile and it was perfect time to plant.  One day, he was fed up with the wife ordering him around so he beat her. Once the older brother, Anpu came home, he saw that she was hurt and went outside to kill his little brother.

The Two Brothers, Part 2:

The older brother came outside to kill him when the ox that he takes care of warned him that his brother is going to kill him.   As the older brother came towards the little brother, he prayed to Ra and he granted him with a crocodile filled stream to separate them.  Ra will then tell the true story behind the hurting of the wife.  When Anpu found out what really happened between his younger brother and his wife, he was apuled and wanted to be with his little brother.  Bata decided to leave the land and venture out to new areas to get away from the family, but he gave his brother a way to find his soul.  When Bata found out that he wife was killed, the gods told him to return back to his brother.  Ra found Bata the most beautiful wife, they were happy, and he told her everything.

The Two Brothers, Part 3:

The sea spirit got a hold of a part of the wife’s hair, which held a wonderful smell that the king loved.  Bata’s wife was actually Ra’s daughter and many were sent out to find her, but none of them returned.  The daughter didn’t return until an important woman was sent. They decided to cut down the tree that the soul of Bata was held in and his older brother received the signs that his soul had been released.  His brother looked for many years for his soul.  One day, he found the soul and Bata became alive again.

The Two Brothers, Part 4:

Bata came back as a bull and his brother road on his back.  The king was so excited that he awarded the older brother with a lot of gold and silver.  When Bata saw his wife, he explained to her that he is the same soul but now he is a sacred bull.  The daughter wanted the bull to be a sacrifice. 

[Source]