CONTENTS

      Introduction

      A Letter From Mma Ramotswe

      Guinea Fowl Child

      A Bad Way To Treat Friends

      A Girl Who Lived In A Cave

      Hare Fools The Baboons

      Pumpkin

      Sister Of Bones

      Milk Bird

      Beware Of Friends You Cannot Trust

      Children Of Wax

      Brave Hunter

      Stone Hare

      A Tree To Sing To

      A Blind Man Catches A Bird

      Hare Fools Lion – Again

      Strange Animal

      Bad Uncles

      Why Elephant And Hyena Live Far From People

      The Wife Who Could Not Work

      Bad Blood

      The Sad Story Of Tortoise And Snail

      An Old Man Who Saved Some Ungrateful People

      Lazy Baboons

      Great Snake

      The Girl Who Married A Lion

      Two Bad Friends

      How A Strange Creature Took The Place Of A Girl And Then Fell Into A Hole

      Greater Than Lion

      Head Tree

      The Grandmother Who Was Kind To A Smelly Girl

      The Baboons Who Went This Way And That

      Two Friends Who Met For Dinner

      The Thathana Moratho Tree

      Tremendously Clever Tricks Are Played, But To Limited Effect

       Introduction

      his is a collection of traditional stories from two countries in Africa – Zimbabwe and Botswana. Although these differ in ethnic and linguistic terms, they share many of the folk tales which are found throughout neighbouring countries of Southern Africa. This sharing of oral literature is not uncommon. Folk tales throughout the world have a striking number of common features, and many familiar themes crop up in folk traditions that are culturally very different. In a sense, then, these tales are part of a universal language which can speak to people across human frontiers, just as music does.

      There are many fine collections of sub-Saharan African folk tales, many of them compiled by scholars of oral literature. I do not count myself amongst such experts – far from it – and this collection therefore makes very modest claims. In order to present the stories in a way which will interest and entertain a broad readership, I have deliberately taken certain liberties with re-telling, added some descriptions of landscape, and deepened the treatment of certain emotions. I hope that in doing so I have been able to bring out the beauty and poetry of these stories. A word-for-word transcription would not necessarily do them justice in that respect.

      I collected many of these stories myself some twenty years ago in the southern part of Zimbabwe known as Matabeleland. These stories were told to me – with the assistance of an interpreter – by people living in the Matopos hills, to the south of Bulawayo. They were also recounted to me by people in Bulawayo itself. Sometimes they were told by old people – by grandmothers – sometimes by children. It was a particular pleasure to hear the stories from children, as they told them with such spirit and enjoyment. All of these stories were recounted to me with generosity and warmth – qualities which those who know that part of Africa, or even just visit it briefly, will recognise as being so typical of the people there. I have expanded this original collection of stories, published some years ago under the title Children of Wax, to include stories from Botswana. These stories were obtained for me from people living in the Mochudi and Odi areas of Botswana. They were collected by Elinah Grant, a friend of mine, who runs a small museum in Mochudi. Elinah translated the stories from Setswana into English, and I am most grateful to her for her labours. Again, I have retold them, using some of the original language and some of mine.

      And what wonderful things are contained in these stories! Not only do we find all the familiar human emotions – jealousy, ambition, love – but we see moral rules set out very clearly. We see loyalty rewarded; we see greed punished; we see the encouragement of those values of community which are so important in Africa and from which we can learn so much. But we are shown more than that: we are introduced to a fascinating world view in which the boundaries between the animal and human worlds are indistinct and fluid. This is a traditional African vision, but it is also something very modern that we are only beginning to understand in Western countries. We are not the masters of nature – we are part of it.

      The two countries from which these stories are drawn are remarkable places. The people who inhabit them are generous-spirited and have a superb sense of humour. In these stories we are afforded a glimpse of the values and traditions that have made their societies so extraordinary. They speak to us from the African heart. I count myself fortunate indeed that I have been given the chance to hear them and to help pass them on to others. But the stories remain the property and creation of those who told them to me, and any credit for these is theirs alone.

      But let us pass from these serious matters to the true business of this book. How can a girl possibly have married a lion? How can a man have a tree growing out of his head? And how can a woman have children made of wax? The stories in this collection make these questions seem simple, everyday ones – with, as it happens, simple, everyday answers.

      Alexander McCall Smith

       Edinburgh 2004

       A Letter From Mma Ramotswe

      hen I was a very young girl in Mochudi I listened to stories just like the ones in this book. They were told to me by my father’s aunt, who was very old then, and who is now late. She was a very kind woman, and she knew many stories, which she had told to my father, Obed Ramotswe, when he was a small boy. That is how these stories are remembered in Botswana, and in many other countries in Africa.

      When I hear these stories they make me sad. That is not because they are stories of sad things that have happened, it is because they remind me of the Africa of my childhood and of all the good things that there were then. Everybody feels a little bit sad when they think of their childhood, because the world we knew then seems so far away. Looking back is like looking through a window which is covered with dust: you can just make out the faces, but nothing is very clear.

      But then you hear these old stories – the stories that you heard so many times – and suddenly everything comes back. You are there again, sitting with your aunt outside her house, and it is quiet, and the sky is empty and the sun is on the land. And you think: I am a lucky person to be here, to be listening to these things that happened in another place, just round the corner, in the days when the animals could speak. And the sadness goes away and your heart is full again.

      I shall put this book