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Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba/Tales of Amadou Koumba
Birago Diop
(First published 1947)
The Tricks of Leuk-the-Hare
Skunk, Rat, Civet-cat, Palm-squirrel, and others of the burrowing tribe were more than a little astonished one day to receive, one after the other, a visit from Leuk-the-Hare, very early in the morning. The little-fellow-with-the-long-ears whispered something to each one in turn, and then galloped off to the next one. The sun was beating down mercilessly when Leuk finally loped home to his shady bush to wait for sunset.
Night was already falling when the long-nosed folk, in a body approached the village of men, where more than one of their ancestors had left his mortal remains, for the sake of a wing of chicken, a few grains of millet, or some even pettier larceny. Indeed the children of the village were as nimble as Golo-the-Monkey and as swift as M’Bile-the-Deer; and they had long been skilful in manipulating cudgels of mahogany and hunting-spears of lingué-wood.
So Civet-cat, Skunk, Rat, Palm-squirrel and the others passed the fields of millet and monkey-nuts, and drew near to the village of N’Doum. The memory of those mortal blows received by their fathers of their fathers had been dimmed for them that evening by the picture of the riches and booty which Leuk-the-Hare had promised them: millet, chicken, monkey-nuts, cassava, and even honey which, so he told them, King Bour had stored in a doorless hut in the middle of the village.
Now, in telling them this, Leuk knew full well that he was half lying, or, more exactly, that he was forgetting a small detail. He knew (though he took good care not to say) what else was shut up in the hut. Thioye-the-Parrot had told him. The latter had overheard the palavers Bour had held with his counsellors before the building of the doorless hut, which could only be reached by burrowing from the outskirts of the village to the very centre, where the other houses had been demolished over an area of seven times seven cubits, so that the hut should stand alone, surrounded by seven reed-fences.
Spoilt since childhood and used to gratifying his every whim, Bour had decided to shut up his youngest daughter Anta in the doorless hut, to find out, so he said, whether a woman who had never known a man could have a child.
Thioye had heard the king’s orders and had repeated them, for the simple reason that he liked having something to talk about, and so it happened that Leuk had been the first person who he had met as he flitted from tree to tree. But Leuk, who had never shown respect to anyone in his whole life, decided to take advantage of this to play a trick on King Bour. His first move was to deceive the long-nosed folk, in order to make use of them.
So Rat, Palm-squirrel, Civet-cat, Skunk, and the others burrowed all night till they emerged into the doorless hut, but as soon as they saw that the riches Leuk had promised them were guarded by a girl, they turned tail and fled. The memory of the misfortunes that had befallen their forebears came back to them. They remembered in time that in N’Doum girls were as skilful as boys in handling cudgels and hunting-spears. So they all fled back to the bush, vowing to get their own back on Hare, who watched them scamper away, as he lay hidden not far from the entrance to the tunnel. When they had all disappeared, Leuk followed the path they had made for him and came to where Anta was.
‘Your father Bour,’ he said to the girl, ‘thinks he is cleverer than anyone on earth, but I could teach him a lot of things he does not know. He thought he could stop you having a husband. How would you like me?’
‘Who are you? What is your name?’ asked Anta.
‘My name is Mana (meaning "It’s me"). Would you like me for a husband?’
‘Yes!’ said the girl.
Leuk came back by the same path every evening to keep the King’s daughter company, and in due course she conceived and nine moons later she gave births to a son.
Three years passed, and Leuk came – although less regularly – to visit his family and to play with the child.
One day Narr, the king’s Moor, was out walking early, reciting verses from the Koran, when he thought he heard a child crying somewhere inside the seven reed-fences. He ran to the king, losing his slippers as he went.
‘Bour, bilahi! walahi! (in truth! in God’s name!) I thought I heard cries coming from the doorless hut.’
They sent a slave who climed over the seven walls and listened up against the doorless hut.
‘It is a child crying,’ he reported on his return.
‘Let this son of a dog be put to death,’ shouted Bour in a fury, ‘and let his carcass be thrown to the vultures.’
And the slave was killed.
Another went to listen and came back to confirm that it was a child crying.
‘Let this son of an infidel be killed!’ ordered the king, and the second slave was put to death. And the same thing happened to the other messengers, who had come back to report that they had heard a child crying.
‘It is not possible!’ said the king. ‘Who could have got into a hut closed up like this?’
He had an entrance broken through the seven walls and sent an old man who reported in his turn,
‘Yes, a voice can certainly be heard crying, but I could not say if it is Anta or a child crying.’
‘Let the hut be demolished!’ ordered Bour. ‘Then we shall see.’
No sooner said than done, and there, plain to see, stood Anta and her child.
‘Who gave you this child?’ asked the king.
‘Mana (It’s me),’ replied Anta.
‘How do you mean, it’s you? You there, who’s your father?’
‘Mana,’ replied the little boy.
The royal father and grandfather could not understand what was going on; his daughter who had made a child all by herself, and this child who declared that he was his own father!
Bour took counsel with the oldest of his advisers, and thereupon decreed that all creatures who walk or live in the land should be called together.
When, on Friday, men and animals were all assembled, Bour gave three cola-nuts to Anta’s son saying,
‘Go and give these cola-nuts to your father.’
The child went round the group of men and animals, gazing in all the faces, hesitating, stopping, starting off again. When he drew near to Leuk-the-Hare, the latter began to scratch furiously, hopping up and down complaining,
‘There are too many ants round here!’ and he changed his seat while the child continued his search.
‘My word! What a lot of ants!’ said Leuk, when he saw him approaching again. He took one leap and went and hid behind an animal bigger than he was.
Meanwhile one of the old men in the king’s retinue had noticed Leuk’s goings-on.
‘What’s the matter with Leuk that makes him keep changing his place and complaining of ants?’ he asked.
‘Make him stay in the same place,’ ordered the king.
So they piled seven cloths on three mats and put a sheepskin on top of these.
‘Come and sit here, brother Leuk,’ said a griot, ‘and you’ll have nothing more to fear from ants.’
So the long-eared one was forced to stay on that soft couch, unable to move or hide any more, and to stop avoiding the child, who eventually came up to him and handed him the three cola-nuts.
‘Oh, so it’s you?’ said Bour angrily. ‘You’re the one who calls himself Mana (It’s me)? How did you manage to get to my daughter?’
‘Skunk, Weasel, Palm-squirrel, Civet-cat, and all their brothers and cousins dug a tunnel for me.’
‘Well, I’m going to kill you. The rest of you can be off,’ Bour said to the humans and animals who were still trembling in fear of his fury. ‘I’m going to kill you, Leuk!’
‘Bour,’ said Leuk, ‘you cannot kill the father of your grandchild!’
‘What can you give me in return for your life?’
‘Anything you like, Bour.’
‘Well then, before six moons have elapsed I want you to bring me the skin of a panther, the tusks of an elephant, the skin of a lion, and the hair of Kouss-the-bearded-goblin.’
