Part 1 of Folk Tales of the Bakongo opens the Bakongo shelf with six animal tales as John H. Weeks set them down on the Lower Congo: how the ants saved the partridge's eggs, how the leopard stuck to the nkondi and paid with his teeth, how the civet and the tortoise lost their friendship, how the frog collected his debt from the hawk, why the Congo robin has a red breast, and why the small-ants live in the houses.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In "How the Ants Saved the Partridge's Eggs," the leopard's greed costs him his eyes and his teeth when the partridge pays the ant army in corn. In "The Leopard Sticks to the Nkondi," the leopard plants the sacred nail-fetish in his oath, touches the iron, and is hauled through the river and stripped of every tooth in his mouth. In "How the Civet and the Tortoise Lost Their Friendship," the civet asks the tortoise for a heart-cure and loses the last friend he had. In "How the Frog Collected His Debt from the Hawk," the frog's cunning wins back his debt, and the hawk's shame decides what hawks eat to this day. In "Why the Congo Robin Has a Red Breast," the leopard's crop pays for his cruelty, and the robin's sunrise song is heard no more. In "Why the Small-Ants Live in the Houses," the small-ants' stolen bath decides where they live to this day.
A note on violence, told plainly: killing is done inside these tales — a leopard kills the civet, a tortoise kills a small bird, a hawk kills a butterfly — all within single clauses at the book's own weight, no killing dwelt on, no trickery ordeal and no death-climax kept: the seventeen stories in which harm is the machinery or the climax stand excluded by name and are listed so in the shelf's register, one stands held for ruling, and no completeness is claimed for this book.
Chapters:
01:49 — How the Ants Saved the Partridge's Eggs
03:52 — The Leopard Sticks to the Nkondi
07:11 — How the Civet and the Tortoise Lost Their Friendship
09:59 — How the Frog Collected His Debt from the Hawk
14:08 — Why the Congo Robin Has a Red Breast
15:34 — Why the Small-Ants Live in the Houses
Source: John H. Weeks, Congo Life and Folklore (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1911) — the stories given to Mr. Weeks in the Congo by native teachers, missionaries, and traders and "in many cases written down by natives themselves, long before the Congo Free State was founded"; public-domain 1911 edition (Internet Archive congolifeandfol00week). Our telling is a fresh in-house rendering of the 1911 text. Music: The Longest Night by the River 2 (instrumental) as background.
Thank you for listening — Part 2 of the Bakongo tales follows on this shelf.
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Bakongo folk tales · Kongo folk tales · DR Congo folk tales · African folk tales · John H. Weeks · world folk tales · free audiobook
