Latest / Sandman Stories Presents / EP 312: Uganda- The Mpa-Bana Bird; The Absent-Minded Bridegroom; The Singer, The Famine (Baskerville)

Transcript

EP 312: Uganda- The Mpa-Bana Bird; The Absent-Minded Bridegroom; The Singer, The Famine (Baskerville) · Sandman Stories Presents

• 0:29
  Welcome back listeners to Sam Man's Stories presents a
• 0:33
  folklore podcast where I read you to sleep or until the next
• 0:35
  story. I'm your host Dustin.
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  Today we are back in the book of Ugandan folklore written down by
• 0:43
  Baskerville. We have 4 stories.
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  The 1st is about an African cuckoo, the second is about
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  groom that doesn't remember everything, the 3rd is a singer
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  song, and the 4th is about a famine.
• 1:01
  I think you'll have fun. OK, let's begin.
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  The MBA. Bana bird, the African cuckoo
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  does not sing cuckoo cuckoo. It sings Cuckoo Cuckoo and it
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  can sing this song for a whole hour until everyone in the
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  neighborhood is tired of hearing it, and then it flies to another
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  tree, clears its throat, and begins again.
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  The mother cuckoo is too lazy to build a nest of her own and to
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  hatch her own eggs. If she finds a nice comfortable
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  looking nest, she lays an egg in it and flies away, hoping the
• 1:43
  owner will hatch it for her. But she forgets so quickly that
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  she never returns to see what has happened to her egg.
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  One day a mother cuckoo found a lovely nest in the forest and
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  laid an egg among the four little eggs which were in it
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  already. Then she flew away and forgot
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  all about it. When the owner of the nest
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  returned, she was too tender hearted to throw out the egg, so
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  she hatched it with her own. But the young cuckoo was so
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  large and hungry that he soon filled up the nest, and one day
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  when the mother bird was away looking for food, he pushed the
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  four little fledglings out of the nest.
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  A Wildcat was passing among the bushes down below and gobbled
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  them up as they fell. When the mother bird returned,
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  she found only the cuckoo in her nest and she searched everywhere
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  for her children, crying as she went.
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  MPA Bana. MPA Bana.
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  Which means give me children, give me children.
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  She searched under the bushes and all around her nest and then
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  went all through the forest, crying all the time.
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  Mpabana, Mpabana. Till all the other birds and
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  animals knew of her sorrow. When the next nesting season
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  came, she laid four more eggs and never left the young birds
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  after they were hatched. But she had got into the habit
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  of singing this song. I left them safe in the nest.
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  MPA. Bana MPA.
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  Bana. Seeking the food that was best.
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  MPA Bana. MPA Bana.
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  How did the cruel thief? Come MPA Bana.
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  MPA Bana. Wrecking my joy and my home MPA.
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  Bana MPA. Bana.
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  The young birds heard it all day long and learned to sing it, and
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  now it has become the tribal song and they sing it for hours
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  together and are quite as tiresome as the cuckoo who just
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  sings cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo without grumbling about it.
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  The end. OK and story #2 The absent
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  minded bridegroom. Once Upon a time there was a man
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  called Ngamba who was very absent minded.
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  Everybody laughed at him but he did not mind.
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  He had many friends and was quite a good fellow.
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  At last the time came for his marriage, and he paid the dowry
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  and arranged the feast and married his sweetheart.
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  And they started on the journey to his house.
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  But as they walked along they came to a place called Nakusae,
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  and Nagamba remembered that a friend of his lived there.
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  So he said to his bride, Sit here and rest in the shade for a
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  little while. I will fetch you a cool drink.
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  When he got to his friend's house he found a feast going on,
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  and many people they knew were there, and he sat down with them
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  and forgot the poor little bride sitting in the shade, waiting
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  for a cool drink. The sun went down and the night
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  fell, and still he sat on and talked and joked and sang, and
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  when the dawn broke in the east and the cocks crowed, Nagamba
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  sprang to his feet. My friends, he cried, I am
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  married and my bride sits in the shade waiting for a cool drink.
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  They all went to find her but the girl had become tired of
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  waiting and who returned to her father's house and refused to go
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  back to Ngamba. And as no one else would marry
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  him, he remained a bachelor all his life.
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  And now in Uganda, this has become a proverb.
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  If a man is absent minded and forgetful, his friends will say
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  you will never get a wife. You will have the fate of
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  Ngamba, the absent minded bridegroom.
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  The end. OK and story #3 the singer.
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  Naimba oloimba oloimba. Loangay we March over hills and
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  valleys, hundreds of warriors strong, and I take my harp from
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  my shoulder and I sing them a marching song.
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  I sing of a distant garden that looks towards the setting sun in
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  the cool green shade of the plantains.
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  The shadows are soft and long. I sing of a beautiful maiden,
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  slim and tall like a forest tree, with eyes as dark as the
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  forest tools and a heart that's true to me.
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  And when the war is over and the warriors return to rest, I will
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  marry my beautiful maiden in the garden that looks towards the
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  West. And each man marches in silence,
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  For each is a traveller alone. And no man asks what his
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  neighbor thinks, For the heart of a man is his own.
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  The end. OK and story #4 The famine.
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  A long time ago, a terrible drought visited the countries
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  around the Great Lake. The spring rains failed, and
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  every day the sun rose like a copper ball and made his burning
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  way across the cloudless sky. No flowers bloomed that spring,
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  and the grass dried upon the hillsides.
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  The banana trees and the shady gardens looked desolate and sad,
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  their leaves hanging down limp and brown, and no heavy bunches
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  of golden fruit filled the air with their sweetness.
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  The potato patches had been baked hard and dry, and no
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  Indian corn had been able to struggle through the hard
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  ground. At last the people began to dig
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  up the banana roots and to eat the great coarse bulbs to keep
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  them from starving. The lake sank lower and lower
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  till the tall papyrus stood high above the water, and the marshy
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  ground was seen for miles around.
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  Among the shallows around the shore great rocks stood out on
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  the falls of Jinja, and the water trickled in small rivulets
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  over them, where every spring the waters of the great lake
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  rushed and tumbled and roar into the river Nile.
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  Famine and once spread over the land, but the part of the
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  country that suffered the most was Busoga.
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  There was a large herd of elephants which lived in
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  Zabondo's country, and they wandered from place to place
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  seeking fresh grass and leaves and roots and finding nothing.
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  At last the chief of the herd spoke.
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  When I was a calf in the herd 90 years ago, I remember a famine
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  like this, and I remember that the Nile was so low that we
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  found a Ford and crossed into the Mabira forest and found food
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  there. Let us go now and seek this
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  Ford, for the waters of the river are low.
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  So the herd moved off towards the Nile, and as they went they
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  passed through the deserted villages and wasted country, and
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  saw the thin starving animals dragging themselves to the
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  river. The chief of the herd LED them
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  straight to the spot he remembered, and there they saw
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  rocky ground gleaming through the shallow water, and knew that
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  they had found a Ford. There was one cow elephant who
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  was walking with her calf and cheered him on.
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  Courage, my child, she said. We are nearly there.
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  Think of the cool green glades we shall find in the Mabira
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  forest, for this pitiless sun can never strike through the
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  thick creepers on the trees, and the water pools are deep and
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  dark. As she said this, her eyes fell
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  on a pitiful sight. A mother monkey had carried her
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  baby down to the river to drink, but it was too weak to lift it.
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  The cow elephant lifted them both with her trunk and carried
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  them across the Ford into the Mabira forest.
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  The king of the cloud land had seen the distress on earth, and
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  as he looked down on Uganda he saw what the cow elephant did,
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  and his heart was filled with pity for the starving people and
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  animals. And he called all his clouds
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  together a great army, And they poured rain on the sun baked
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  earth, and where there had only been hard ground, gardens and
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  fields sprang up. The hillsides became green with
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  grass and brilliant flowers, and the great lake rose and poured
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  its waters over the falls. And where the shallows had been
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  round the Lake Shore, the water was so deep that it reached to
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  the feathery heads of the papyrus, and the Ford across the
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  river was lost to the tumbling, rushing waters.
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  From that time monkeys have always been the friends of
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  elephants, for though they are small, they can help them.
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  From their homes in the treetops they can see hunters coming and
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  warn the herd. They see the hunters setting
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  traps, and they tell the elephants where they are.
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  And This is why men prefer to hunt elephants on the plains and
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  hillsides and fear to hunt them in the forests, for they never
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  know whether the monkeys have seen their plans and have told
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  the. Herd.
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  Their secrets the and. The first story is a sad one.
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  It is true that the cuckoo bird drops its egg into the birds
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  nest only to be raised by those parents.
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  It's cruel but it's nature. It's a nasty little trick and
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  I'm trying to find out which bird is the impabana but
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  Googling it is not getting me what I wanted.
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  And sometimes I do feel like the absent minded groom.
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  My ADD keeps me from remembering to finish a project, but I can
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  still be a good teacher, I hope. I like this song in the third
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  story. It must have been translated
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  from a native song, but the feeling comes out well and the
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  final story made me smile. Elephants and monkeys working
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  together. And of course, it reminded me of
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  a herd of cows joke that my father loves to tell a group of
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  cows. You mean a herd?
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  Heard what? No, a herd of cows.
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  Sure, I heard a cows. No, no.
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  A cow herd. A cow herd.
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  What do I care what a cow herd I?
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  Have no secrets from them. Love you pops and the podcast
• 13:42
  shout out is to Field Lab Earth, a great place to get really in
• 13:46
  depth information about crops and how we interact with the
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  earth. Also, you can get college credit
• 13:50
  for listening and taking their quizzes.
• 13:52
  Super cool stuff. And the listener shout out is to
• 13:56
  Isfahan, Iran. I hope to eat Elephant Ears, AKA
• 14:00
  Ghosh IFIL and drink, duh, a fermented yogurt drink while
• 14:04
  visiting the ancient baths. And so I say to my listener in
• 14:08
  Isfahan, Mamnoon Vashab Bahir, thank you and good night.