One tale closes this shelf: "Inequality in Life," a Dinka tale of the White Nile from Yacoub Artin Pacha's Contes populaires du Soudan égyptien (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1909) — the one tale that remained after Part One told twelve of the book's nineteen, in a fresh English translation for KacheliTV. The book's tales are billed by their collector, their rivers and their book, not as a survey of all the peoples of the Sudan.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Abungdit, the first woman, bears twins. When Gurungdit, her husband, comes to give each child his portion for life, she shows him only the fair twin — the dark twin, the one she loves, she hides in her hut. The shown twin receives great possessions: guns, fine food and splendid clothes. The hidden twin grows up with nothing but a spear from his poor mother. He goes to his father's door, and when his father angrily refuses him, he sits down before the door and will not move — evening after evening, morning after morning — until his patience wins him a single gift: a little heifer calf. That, the tale says, is why the Dinka have cattle and spears, while the English have guns and fine things: two peoples who are, in the tale's own telling, brothers — sons of one mother.
Passage notes, as told: guns and a spear are named among the gifts and are never used; no one is harmed in the tale. The tale's period colour language is rendered in neutral modern terms, and Artin's scholarly footnote is not read. Five tales of the book are excluded by name under the shelf rule — The Dog, the Cock and the Fox; The Lion and the Hyena; The Hare and the Giraffe; The Hare and the Crow; The Hare and the Ram — and one, The Neighbours and Their Prophet, is held for a ruling. Of the book's nineteen tales, thirteen are told across the shelf's two parts; no completeness claim is made.
Chapters:
0:00 Opening theme — "2-20"
0:36 Introduction
1:44 Inequality in Life
Yacoub Artin Pacha, Contes populaires du Soudan égyptien (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1909) — public domain.
Narrated by Scratch. Music: opening and closing theme, "2-20".
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