By far the largest part of the stories collected consist of those in which animals play the leading role. Especially in fables, there is a fixed group of animals, each with their own specific character. Table 5.2 shows a list of the animals generally occurring in stories from the Far North and Central Province.
Name of animal in Far North
Equivalent in Central Province
Characteristics.
Squirrel Hare Trickster, intelligent,
cunning, physically small and weak, wild
Hare Hare Trickster, intelligent,
cunning, domesticated
Monkey Monkey Intelligent, clever,
adjudicator
- Turtle Quiet and wise, hero
Turtle - Slow and lazy
Hyena Panther Anti-hero, cowardly, greedy
and stupid
Panther Buffalo Aggressive and angry
Dog Dog Domesticated, link with
people, big eater
Lion Lion Royal and noble, also
arrogant
Elephant Elephant Strong and naïve
Snake - Cunning
Frog - Misleading
Bee - Attacking
- Antelope Weak, vulnerable
Spider Spider Revolutionary5
Lizard Lizard Lazy and stupid
Chicken Chicken/ cock Subtle
Butterfly - Liar
Table 5.2: Animals in fictional stories and their specific character
As we can see from Table 5.2 there are many similarities in characteristics between the animals in stories from the Far North and Central Province. Nevertheless there are also some differences of which the most striking one is the turtle. In Central Province the turtle is the symbol of wisdom, always going his own way, always arriving where he wants to be, always relaxed. People say the turtle is never in a hurry because he always carries his house with
5 In contrast to other cultures where the spider (e.g. Ananse) plays a prominent role, in Cameroon it is only rarely found. When it was found it was considered to be a revolutionary character. It was punished (by God) and now has to live imprisoned in its own web (see story box 22).
him. The turtle always has five attributes in his little bag. To cite a story fragment from Tina Messe Francois in Ndjolé:
The turtle opened his little bag and put his pipe in it, a small amount of tobacco and his cola nut, and everything else he needed without forgetting his gourd of water and his gourd of palm wine.
The turtle is the absolute hero in Central Province but it is almost absent in the stories from the Far North. In the rare cases it is mentioned it is portrayed as a rather negative entity, being slow and lazy, taking advantage of other characters (see for an example Box 5.4). The lack of correspondence between the two provinces also accounts for the anti-hero of Central Province, the panther. Although the panther does occur in stories from the Far North, it is rather a symbol of aggression (corresponding with the buffalo in Central Province). However, the anti-hero from Central Province clearly has its counterpart in the Far North, the hyena.
Box 5.4: A turtle story from the Far North
Kalfou: Yaouba Hamadou, age 19, male, Peul.
One day Coucou the bird invited the turtle for dinner at his house. On the way they had to cross a river. The turtle said: “I cannot eat with you without having taken a bath.” Coucou said “Go ahead, you can take a bath.” The turtle said: “But the water is very deep. Let’s take a rope and fix one end to my foot and the other end to yours.” The turtle went into the water. Under water, the turtle unfastened the rope and fixed it to the root of a tree that was in the water. The turtle left the water on the other side and went to the house of Coucou and ate everything there was. He went back into the water and again fastened the rope to his leg. He said to Coucou: “I am ready, you can pull me out of the water now!” They walked together to the house of Coucou but found the house empty. Coucou said to the turtle: “I am so very sorry, a thief must have come in my absence. I will invite you again tomorrow.”
The next day, Coucou prepared another meal, with wine and everything. He went looking for the turtle. The turtle said: “I cannot eat without having taken a bath.” Coucou said: “Go ahead, you can take your bath. “The turtle said: “But the water is very deep. Let’s take a rope and fix it to my foot and to yours.” The turtle went into the water. Under water, the turtle unfastened the rope and fixed it to the root of a tree that was in the water. The turtle left the water on the other side, went into the house of Coucou and ate everything there was. He went back into the water and fastened again the rope on his leg. He said to Coucou: “I am ready, you can pull me out of the water now!” They walked together to the house of Coucou but found the house to be empty. This time Coucou had decided to go to a Marabout. The Marabout gave him a statue in the shape of a human being. The statue had glue on it.. He said to Coucou: “Go home, put this in your kitchen and prepare another diner.” Coucou prepared the food and then invited the turtle. The turtle went into the water and out again just like before and then went to the house of Coucou. He entered the house of Coucou and started eating. He saw the statue and asked: “What are you doing here?” The statue did not answer and the turtle hit it with his leg. The leg got stuck. The turtle got angry and hit again. Finally all four legs got stuck and the turtle could not go back anymore. Coucou waited endlessly and finally pulled the rope and saw that the turtle was not there anymore. He thought that the turtle did not accept his invitation anymore. He returned home and found the turtle. And so Coucou discovered that the turtle was a thief.
Apart from this general list there are a number of animals that occur occasionally in a specific, smaller region. In the Far North, for example, there are regional differences with regard to water. In the villages that are situated closer to one of the rivers or the Maga lake, such as Zina and Guividig, there are considerably more stories on fish and hippopotamus. At first sight, it is of course not surprising to note that the animals that people talk about in their stories are the ones they see around them.
However, considering this connection between animals in stories and the actual environment we come to a remarkable result when we look at the animals typical of stories in Central Province. In Table 5.3, the occurrence of animals in the stories is presented6. We may conclude that the natural habitat of most of the animal characters that occur in these stories is either savannah or a savannah-forest landscape. Although the mosaic landscape in the Central Province is often perceived as degraded tropical forest, none of the story characters lives in the rainforest. The gazelle, although a typical savannah animal, is mentioned only in stories in Central Province and not in stories from the Far North. Moreover, most of the animals listed in Table 5.3 do not occur in the region, at least not nowadays. Some animals, like the snake indicated as boa or python have never occurred in Central Province, and probably not even in Cameroon.
The fact that some animals that do not occur in the region nowadays play a prominent role in stories could be explained by several reasons. It may refer to the situation in the past. This may imply that in the past these animals were present in the region. A second explanation may be that these animals occur in the region where the ethnical group originally comes from. As was explained in chapter 4, the Babouti and Baveck have migrated from the north that is characterised by savannah. The occurrence of specific animals in stories may be an interesting issue that does relate to the environmental discussion. I will come back to this in detail in section 6.4.
In the next section I will discuss the different animal stories in more detail. I will make a distinction between animal fables, aetiological stories and other stories.
6 It should be noted once more that this list does not have any statistical value since the stories collected are not random. It is just meant to give a general impression of the most common characters in stories.
Far North (n= 137 ) Central Province (n=121 ) Hyena (40) Turtle (28) Lion (23) Hare (25) Elephant (19) Lion (24) Hare (18) Panther (24) Birds (18) Snake (17) Snake (15) Bird (14) Dog (11) Dog (11) Squirrel (10) Buffalo (10) Monkey (9) Elephant (10) Panther (6) Chimpanzee (10) Antelope (5) Antelope (9) Kob (5) Crocodile (7) Goat (5) Monkey (6) Cow (5) Hyena (6) Vulture (5) Gazelle (5) Fish (5) Chicken (5) Turtle (5)
Table 5.3: Animal characters in order of occurrence (≥ 5) in fiction stories (Several
animals may occur in one story)