Yero Jallow Associate Editor

By Yero Jallow, USA

The Hyena and a Hare: An Epic of an African (Gambian) Traditional Story.


In the Gambia, one of the many countries in Africa, children are
nurtured and taught traditional values in forms transferred to
succeeding generations. Most of it has not been written, so it is
being lost after most of the best narrators die. One common one,
typical of any spoken language in Africa is the story of the Hyena and
the Hare. It is believed that the Hare is a wise animal, and the Hyena
a goofy and foolish sort of animal. Most stories narrated portray the
Hyena as a fool, and the Hare as a wise animal that championed human
wisdom used in daily practical life applications. It is not
necessarily that the Hyena is foolish at all, but its aggression and
tendency to prey on other animals with such insensitivity including
humans makes it a feared animal. Here, the story goes and this is
directly translated from traditional story-telling in the Gambia.

The Hyena and the Hare were neighbors in a lonely hamlet. Often in
those years of their struggle together, hunger and thirst will hit the
hamlet. Such situations were brought about by famine, bush fires and
drought. Once the inevitable occurs, the Hyena and Hare both being
family members would leave their homes and wonder about in search of
food for their families. This one instance caught attention; as such
it is going to be the humor at hand.

THE HYENA & A HARE.

Once upon a time; time! There lived a Hyena & a Hare.

Hyena, armed to the teeth, left home for the bushes for bush meat.
Upon arrival, dug a big hole underneath a tree, applied some dry woods
and kerosene to get the fire blazing in that trench, and mutilated one
of his limbs then climbed on top of the tree. The Hyena stayed on top
of that tree crying aloud with a limb furiously oozing, calling for
help from passerby animals. The intention is once an animal climb up
to rescue it, it will cleverly push such rescuers to the blazing
trench. The Hyena being that fool of an animal, once passerby animals
sympathize with the blood oozing from the limb says, “What are crying
Mr. Hyena?” The Hyena will foolishly reply, “You see the trench
blazing underneath. If you climb up to help me, I will push you there
so you can be ready roast for me and my starving family.”

That scared the animals and they ran helter-skelter from the wounded
Hyena, and as a result there was no catch for the poor Hyena.

The Hare also left home, armed to the teeth and headed for the
bushes. It dug a big trench, and lids some fire just as the Hyena did,
but only scratched a little on its limb, with blood hardly oozing even
before climbing on top of the tree, and started echoing its lungs
crying for help. Once passerby animals sympathize, and ask “What are
you crying Mr. Hare?” The Hare will say, “The curious and sincere
sympathizers should climb on top to see me and those that are not, can
just go without bothering me.”

Once these animals start climbing up to the Hare, it will push them to
the blazing trench. The Hare cleverly succeeded in getting enough
roasted meat for the family.

Once they returned home, the Hyena felt absolutely jealous of the
neighbor, so decided to prey on the Hare if it doesn’t relay the
tricks it applied to succeed. The Hare narrated cleverly how it was
done.

The Hyena left again for the bushes, armed to the teeth, and using the
same trapping method, this time around with a little cut on his limb.
Once passerby animals sympathize and ask “What are you crying Mr.
Hyena?” The Hyena will foolishly reply “The curious ones can climb up,
and I will do the same as the Hare did to your comrades yesterday. If
you don’t know what happened to them, I will rightly inform you that
they are speaking the language of the dead. Come up, it is fun in that
fire!”

These scared animals, trembled with heavy heart-beats and ran
helter-skelter, and poor Hyena went home again without success.

Moral Lessons: It is better to be clever in actions than being a goofy fool.

Author’s note: The story titled, “The Hyena & a Hare” is written
purposely for Mr. Suntou Touray’s Coventry kids. I enjoy writing
poetry, prose and traditional stories together with daily humors from
life occurrences.  To read more of my architecture, please visit
www.gainako.com.  I hope that these kids will take great inspiration
and explore more to learn about their African cultures despite being
far away from home.


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Yero Jallow (Dalton)