Thursday, June 12, 2008

Stories from Alawiye

Phetolo wrote to ask "May u pls send me the origin of the story about how the chimpanzees bottom got swollen and red."


Well, this was one of the stories that I remembered just a small fragment of, but I clearly remember where I knew the story from. It was one of the stories that I learned from Alawiye (by J.F. Odunjo), the textbook that we used for Yoruba when I was in primary school. I can't remember if it was from apa kini, apa keji or apa keta (part 1, part 2 or part 3). But all I could remember from the story was Su dundun which my best effort translated to "Give me sweet feces."


One of the first books I intended to get were the Alawiye series, so I asked my sister in Nigeria to get them for me. She told me that the books she saw did not have "all those stories". I still haven't obtained a copy and I haven't verified that statement.


Someone else eventually refreshed my memory of this story. Thank you Id.


As far as story origin, it's from the Yoruba people of West Africa (that's why it was in a Yoruba textbook, right?)