Page:Folklore1919.djvu/592

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226
Thirty-Two Folk-Tales of Nigeria.

he sang, “I o ho go, i e ho go,” and threw the spindle up so that the thread remained on the ground; then he climbed up it, beating the drum with one hand and reached the sky; and in elimi rain began to fall and it was white chalk, and when he saw it he said elimi was better.

xxvii.

Once Ijẹba was at war with the Ora country, and they took and shut up a man of Ugboviatọ and water flowed from the house in which they put him, and the house became the river Owan. So they divined and decided to set him free, and gave him a white cloth and sent him home. His name is Ozobo; he puts chalk on his body and goes to the bottom of the river and speaks with elimi, and when he comes out he is quite dry.

Kominio, Kukuriku Tribe.

xxviii.

Once there was a man who had a son, and when it was hungry, it cried for meat; so the father took a fowl and killed it, and the child ate the liver; the next day, it cried for meat again, and he killed a goat, and the child ate the kidneys and liver; the rest of the meat was thrown away. The next day it asked for pork and ate only the kidneys and liver; then it demanded beef and ate the kidneys and liver; the rest of the meat all the town took and divided. Then the child demanded horse meat and the same thing happened. Then it demanded the flesh of its father and mother; but they said, “No,” so the boy cried, “No! Get out.” Then all the town and the chiefs came together and asked why the boy said this; and they were told it came from the fact that the father and mother gave their child all he asked for.

Then the chief saluted the boy and his mother and father, and said to them: “You bore a son; you gave it all it asked for; I fine you £5, mother of the boy; if you do