Storytime!

In this section, we'd like to offer you some African folk stories. Although they seem exotic, they are often fables that are very similar to the ones that we know here in Europe as far as the "moral" that they convey is concerned! The following story is from "Shangani Folk Tales", by Clive Stockil and M. Dalton and is posted here with the kind permission of Clive Stockil. If you'd like to read more, please do not hesitate to contact us!

How Nguluve Got His Tail

In the beginning, the animals had no tails. One day the Creator prepared a great collection of tails and summoned all the animals to come and choose one. Each animal in turn looked over the pile of tails and selected the one which he thought best suited his looks and his needs and went away satisfied and complete. Now, when Ndhlovu the elephant's turn came, he could not decide between two grey tails which he fancied, the one was small and the other large and long. He tried them on this way and that, one after another and both together. When the time came to make a decision, he was unable to put one down, so he stuck the big one on in front and the little one behind, and walked off with two tails. As the Creator had counted all the animals and made enough tails for only one each, Ndhlovu thus took not only his own, but somebody else's tail as well. So when the turn came for the last animal in the queue, which happened to be Nguluve, the warthog, there was no tail left for him. Poor Nguluve was too ashamed and unhappy to take his place among his friends who were busily showing off their new tails and swishing them this way and that. So he scrabbled around, turning up stones and digging with his nose into the ground until he unearthed a thin, little piece of tree root. 'What a perfect tail,' he thought to himself. Very proud of his new appendage and of how clever he had been in finding it, Nguluve wanted to show it off at every opportunity. And that is why he sticks it straight up in the air as he runs along, for everyone to see and admire!