Reading Notes: South African Folktales, Part B

(Found on Wikimedia Commons, image of a tortoise)

For this first part of South Africa Folktales, I focused primarily on the story "Elephant and Tortoise" from South African Folk-Tales by James Honey (1910). And when I say my jaw dropped at the end, I mean my mouth literally opened because I was so shocked.

In this tale, the elephant is one of the most powerful figures in the land. He demanded rain and it came, but only in certain lagoons. Because of this, the elephant had to go out looking for more but also protect the water he already found. In order to do so, he ordered the tortoise to watch over his water. While elephant was on his journey for more water, the tortoise was challenged by nearly every other animal in their land for the water. The giraffe, zebra, gemsbok, wildebeest, roodebok, springbok, and jackal all tried to take the water, but the tortoise strongly turned them away.

However, the last challenger was the lion, and as soon as the tortoise tried to deny him, the lion beat him up and took all the water. As soon as the elephant came back, he became infuriated with the tortoise for giving up his water. He threatened to chew up or swallow the tortoise, and the tortoise challenged him to swallow him whole. The elephant did just that and seemingly had gotten rid of the tortoise for being disloyal.

Much to the elephant's surprise, the tortoise was still living in his stomach, as he wasn't chewed up but rather swallowed whole. Because of this, the tortoise was able to tear off the elephant's liver, heart, and kidneys, killing him instantly. The tortoise then crawled out of the dead elephant and went on to live his life as normal.

This tale was extremely shocking to me because of how abrupt and aggressive the ending was. While I was initially angry that the elephant refused to try to understand what happened to the tortoise, I was not expecting the tortoise to fight back like that. I think this tale is a metaphor to not underestimate people. Similar to the story of the "Hare and the Tortoise," the tortoise in both stories were extremely looked down upon and considered weak. However, both stories showed that when we put limits on someone, those limits can come back to bite us.