THE LION AND WARTHOG: A FOLKTALE AMONG THE LAMBA PEOPLE
A folktale is defined as a mythical story told through oral history from generation to generation by people of a particular culture. Folktales are an important part of Zambian culture. Traditionally, these stories were passed down to the young members of the society by word of mouth (oral tradition). Elders would sit the young ones around a fire and tell them folktales as a way to explain certain phenomenon about the world and to also teach them important life lessons.
An example of such a folktale is one which is told among the Lamba people of Zambia. This folktale tells the story of an interaction between a lion and a warthog (a wild pig). This folktale has two central lessons. The first lesson is about the consequences of being ungrateful and the second lesson is about the importance of using one’s cleverness to avoid dangerous situations.
This is how the story goes:
Once upon a time, a lion was caught by the leg in a noose trap that was in a forest. The harder the lion struggled to try and free himself from the trap, the more tightly the trap held him. As the days passed, the lion kept getting weaker because he was unable to go find any food or water. The hunger and thirst had taken a heavy toll on the lion’s body.
After some days, a family of warthogs passed by the place where the lion was trapped. Upon seeing the warthogs, the weakened lion cried out to the warthogs and begged the warthogs to set him free. Out of kindness, the warthogs did help the lion to come out of the trap.
But then after coming out the trap the lion demanded one of the warthog piglets to eat. The father warthog who was expecting to be thanked by the lion was surprised by this demand and very disappointed. Although weakened by his days of hunger and thirst, the lion was still stronger than the warthogs, so the father warthog agreed to give the lion one of the piglets. But before he could give the piglet, the father warthog told the lion that he first wanted to hear all about the trap which had trapped the lion.
The father warthog began asking so many questions to the lion. Questions like; where the trap was lying, how the trap was set, how the trap had caught him and how he failed to come out of it alone. Eager to get his promised meal which was being delayed by the questions, the lion decided to shorten the questioning by simply showing how he had been trapped. The lion began to do a physical demonstration of how the trap had trapped him. In the process of doing the demonstration the lion ended up getting caught in the trap once again.
Upon seeing that the lion was trapped again, the family of warthogs went on its way, leaving the lion trapped as they had found him. “Free yourself if you can”, the father warthog said to the lion as they went away. With no one there to free him, the lion ended up dying of hunger and thirst while trapped in the noose trap.
The most important lesson in this folktale is that when someone helps you, you should not repay that person will evil otherwise you will suffer the consequences of your evil intentions. This folktale emphasizes the importance of being grateful for the good that someone does for you. The other lesson in this folktale is that you need to be resourceful and clever in order to get yourself out of dangerous situations in life that you may have entered into because of your kindness.
As we listen to stories such as this one, it is important to note that folktales should always been seen in their mythical context and not taken as factual narrations of real events. They are merely a part of culture and their role is to illustrate moral teaching to the members of a particular society.
(© Zambian Footprints)
