Chinye: A West African Folktale by Obi Onyefulu
"Long ago there lived a girl called Chinye. Her father and
mother were dead, so she lived with her stepmother Nkechi,
and her
stepsister,
Adanma." Well, those two made Chinye do just about all of the chores.
Adanma, "who was spoiled and lazy", was no help at all. In fact, that
girl liked to lounge around and take so many baths that she was always using up
all the water. One night there was not a drop left in the hut to use for
cooking dinner, so Nkechi sent Chinye to fetch some, although it was dark
night. She told her, "Go to the stream at once and get more water, you bad
girl", even though Chinye was not really bad at all. But she went to get
the water because she had no choice. When she was halfway there, "a shape
loomed up on the path" and the girl shrieked with terror. But then a
loving voice asked, "Where are you going, child?" and the shadow
seemed to transform into an antelope. When Chinye explained why she was out so
late, "the shape sighed and let her pass". When Chinye was three
quarters of the way to the stream another shadow burst forth, and it looked
like a hyena! It spoke calmly to her, questioning the girl as to why she was
about in this dangerous neck of the jungle at this late hour. When Chinye
told her, the hyena said, “Go on your way with my blessing. But take care:
a lion is following me. Hide behind this tree and wait until it has passed.” So
Chinye waited, then ran as fast as she could to the stream. It whispered as it passed in the dark, but
there were no animals about. Chinye
filled her water gourd, and turned to leave. “Suddenly, right in front of her
she saw an old woman, bent with age. ‘Bless you, child”, she said. Then the old one told the girl that on her
way home she would hear drumming and singing coming from a certain hut in the
jungle, and that she should enter this hut.
The river spirit told her that there would be gourds scattered over the
hut’s floor, and that Chinye should “choose the smallest, quietest gourd”, not
the large ones that would call out asking to be picked up. With another
blessing for Chinye, the spirit wafted away. And all passed just as she had
foretold. The hut with the sound of
drumming and singing was there, and its
floor was crowded with gourds. Some had
straight necks, some curved. Some were
nearly as big as Chinye, some small enough to hold in her palm. She sought out the littlest one, picked it
up, and left the hut. And the old woman of the river appeared again. “You have chosen wisely. Make good use of whatever fortune brings
you”, she said. And then she was
gone. But when Chinye got home, her
stepsister slapped the little gourd from her hand and shoved Chinye to the fire
pit to begin cooking. Her stepmother
slapped her for being late, and shouted, “We’ve waited long enough for food
tonight.” So Chinye had to cook and
serve the their supper and could not find a minute to open the gourd. In the morning, she slipped out with the tiny
pumpkin and sat down in a vacant hut she knew of. Then she used a rock and cracked open the
pumpkin and “at a stroke the bare hut was transformed into a
treasure-house. Gold ornaments spilled
across the floor, mingled with ivory and swaths of rare damask in all the
colors under the sun.” And Chinye, who
was as generous as she was dutiful, ran to share the good news with her
stepmother. “Aha! Nkechi’s eyes gleamed
greedily”, and she sent lazy Adanma to the river to seek the spirit. Of course that girl found her, and of course
the spirit gave her the same blessings and advice she had given to Chinye.
But did Adanma listen? No she did
not! She followed her own greedy nature
and the training of her avaricious mother instead. When Adanma came to the hut with the sound of
drumming and dancing, she made sure to choose the biggest calabash she could
carry. She hauled it home, laughing to herself about the silly advice of that
old woman by the water, and how pleased Nkechi would be when she got home. But things worked out a bit differently than
the greedy girl imagined. When she got home, her mother gloated with her,
saying, “We’re rich! We’re rich!” and slashing the gourd open with her longest
kitchen knife. And then “there was a flash of light and a clap of thunder…a
great whirlwhind sprang up, gathered all their pots, pans, clothes, and cowrie
shells” and blew them away into the night.
Adanma and Nkechi fled after their belongings, “too proud to ask for
help”. But Chinye remembered the river
spirit’s words, and decided to use her fortune in jewels to help her community,
and Chinye, and her village, lived happily ever after.
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| "You will find the floor of the hut covered with gourds!" Illustration by Safarewicz, Evie, (1994) |
From Chinye: A West African Folktale, by Onyefulu, O. & Safarewicz, E.
(1994) New York: Penguin Books USA,
Inc.
