Savannah Tales from Navrongo: the Singing Calabash, Akansaare's Pact, the Trusting Hyena
These come from a documented, credited collection of Kasem-language tales performed by named storytellers around Navrongo — Victoria Abaakaane Yitah of Vunania, Akula Amangeyem Akula of Kologu, Alexis Azerigo — and the fact that we know who told them is worth putting on the page.
Navrongo; Paga, with its sacred crocodile ponds, half an hour up the road.
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Savannah Tales from Navrongo: the Singing Calabash, Akansaare's Pact, the Trusting Hyena
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Savannah Tales from Navrongo: the Singing Calabash, Akansaare's Pact, the Trusting Hyena
These come from a documented, credited collection of Kasem-language tales performed by named storytellers around Navrongo — Victoria Abaakaane Yitah of Vunania, Akula Amangeyem Akula of Kologu, Alexis Azerigo — and the fact that we know who told them is worth putting on the page.
The Singing Calabash is the type where a murdered person's voice will not stay buried. A calabash, or a drum, or a plant grown from the grave, begins to sing — and what it sings is the name of the killer, in front of everybody, and it will not be shut up. Abaakaane Yitah's telling integrates the song into the narration; the audience is expected to sing back.
Akansaare's Pact turns on an agreement made too easily. Akansaare enters into a bargain with a power he does not fully understand, on terms he has not fully heard, and the terms come due. The tale sits in the same family as every story about a debt that must be paid in something other than money.
The Trusting Hyena is the northern hyena at his usual work: enormously strong, entirely credulous, and reliably taken apart by something a tenth his size. The hyena in savannah tales is not a villain. He is a warning about being large and slow-witted in a world full of people who are neither.
If you visit Ghana. Navrongo; Paga, with its sacred crocodile ponds, half an hour up the road.
These come from a documented, credited collection of Kasem-language tales performed by named storytellers around Navrongo — Victoria Abaakaane Yitah of Vunania, Akula Amangeyem Akula of Kologu, Alexis Azerigo — and the fact that we know who told them is worth putting on the page.
The Singing Calabash is the type where a murdered person's voice will not stay buried. A calabash, or a drum, or a plant grown from the grave, begins to sing — and what it sings is the name of the killer, in front of everybody, and it will not be shut up. Abaakaane Yitah's telling integrates the song into the narration; the audience is expected to sing back.
Akansaare's Pact turns on an agreement made too easily. Akansaare enters into a bargain with a power he does not fully understand, on terms he has not fully heard, and the terms come due. The tale sits in the same family as every story about a debt that must be paid in something other than money.
The Trusting Hyena is the northern hyena at his usual work: enormously strong, entirely credulous, and reliably taken apart by something a tenth his size. The hyena in savannah tales is not a villain. He is a warning about being large and slow-witted in a world full of people who are neither.