HomeOld_PostsDo Africans love polygamy?

Do Africans love polygamy?

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By Dr Vimbai Gukwe Chivaura

FOREIGNERS say Africans love polygamy.
No story in Africa supports this.
Here are some of them.
The Frog and His Two Wives
Once there lived a Frog who had two wives.
His first lived in Ndumbi.
The second wife lived in Ndala.
He himself lived between Ndumbi and Ndala.
He went sometimes to Ndumbi and sometimes to Ndala to see his wives.
Once a little frog came to him and said, “Come to Ndumbi, please!
“Your first wife has a nice pudding for you.
“Come at once while the pudding is hot!”
The Frog was very happy.
He liked puddings very much.
He was ready to go when another little frog came and said, “Please, come to Ndala!
“Your second wife has a nice pudding for you.
“Come at once while the pudding is hot!”
The Frog sat down and began to think: “If I go to my first wife for pudding, my second wife will be sorry and angry.
“If I go to my second wife for pudding, my first wife will be sorry and angry, too.
“Where shall I go, to Ndumbi or to Ndala?”
He sat down and thought for a long time crying: “Oh!
“Where shall I go?
“Where shall I go?”
Now, when you hear frogs cry, ‘Gaou, gaou! Gaou, gaou!’, it means, “Where shall I go?
“Where shall I go?”
How bad it is to have two wives who make puddings at the same time!
The Humps
In the matter of wives two is not a good number.
The man who wants to avoid quarrels and nasty innuendos must have at least three wives, or else one, but never two.
Two women in the same house have a third companion, shrill-voiced Envy, bitter as tamarind juice.
Khary, the first wife of Momor, was as envious as could be.
She could have filled 10 calabashes with her jealousy and emptied them down a well, and she would still have had enough to fill 10 times 10 gourds in the depths of her coal-black heart.
Khary had perhaps no good reason to be satisfied with her lot.
She was a hunchback; a small, insignificant hump that could easily be hidden under a well-starched camisole or boubou.
But Kary imagined that everyone stared at her jeering Khary-khougue! Khary-the-hunchback!
This brought memories of her childhood playmates would jeer at her asking her to lend them the baby she carried on her back.
Full of fury she would pursue them and God help the girl who fell into her clutches.
She would scratch her face, pull her hair and tear off her earrings.
Khary’s victim could scream herself sick but could only be rescued by those of her playmates who were not themselves too scared of Khary’s fists and finger-nails.
Grown-ups in Africa no more interfere in children’s quarrels than they do in their games.
Khary’s temper did not improve with age.
It soured like milk which an evil spirit has stepped across.
It was now Momor’s turn to suffer from the unpleasant moods of his hunchbacked wife.
When he went off to the fields Momor had to take his midday meal with him.
Khary would not leave the house for fear of mocking glances.
She would not help her husband with the tilling for the same reason.
Weary of working the whole day and only eating a hot meal in the evening, Momor decided to take a second wife, Koumba.
At the sight of her husband’s new wife, Khary should have become the best of spouses and most amiable of women.
That is what Momor in his simplicity had hoped.
That is why he had married Koumba, another hunchback, whose hump even exceeded all proportions of what a decent hump should be.
Yet Koumba was light-hearted, sweet-natured and friendly in spite of her huge hump.
When the other children teased her as a child to lend them the baby she carried on her back, she would reply laughing louder than them all, “I would be surprised if he would come to you.
“He won’t even get down to suckle!”
In her husband’s house Koumba was the same.
She considered Khary her big sister and did everything to please her.
But Khary was by no means pleased.
She became more shrewish and spiteful than ever when she saw that Koumba did not seem to suffer from her hump like she did.
So Momor lived half happy between his two hunchbacked wives; the one affable, the other spiteful.
One day when Koumba and Momor had worked in the field from sunrise till noon, they lay down in the shade of the tamarind tree in the middle of their field.
The tamarind tree is, of all trees, the one that provides the deepest shade.
Sometimes one can see the stars in broad daylight through its foliage which the sun can scarcely penetrate.
That is what makes this tree the commonest haunt of spirits and ghosts, good spirits as well as bad, the ghosts of unsatisfied desires as well as those which have found fulfilment.
While Momor was sleeping, Koumba heard a voice calling her name from the tamarind tree.
She looked up and saw on the lowest branch of the tree, an old woman with long, white hair hanging down her back.
“Are you at peace, Koumba?” asked the woman.
“At peace only Grandmother,” replied Koumba.
“Koumba,” went on the old woman, “I have known your heart to be good and wish to do you a great service, for you well deserve it.
“On Friday at the full moon, the spirit-maidens will dance on the clay-hill.
“Go there and when the tom-tom is at its wildest and as each dancer falls out and is replaced by another; you will approach and say to the spirit-maiden nearest to you, “Here, take the child that I have on my back; it is my turn to dance.”
Khary left her hut quietly that Friday towards the hill.
From a long way off she could hear the frenzied beating of the tom-tom and the clapping of hands.
As the spirit-maidens were dancing, Koumba approached and clapped her hands to the rhythm of the tom-tom.
After 10 had danced and come back to join the ring, Koumba said to the neighbour on her left, “Here take the child for me.
“It is my turn to dance.”
The spirit-maiden took her hump, and Koumba fled.
She ran and never stopped till she reached her hut.
The spirit-maiden could not catch her, for the first cock crew.
This was the signal for the dance to cease and the spirit-maidens to return to their domains till the next Friday full moon.
Koumba no longer had her hump.
Her finely braided hair fell on her neck which was now long and slender as a gazelle’s.
Momor saw her and thought he was dreaming.
Koumba told him what had happened.
Khary saw her and fell down in a swoon.
Momor and Koumba picked her up and carried her into her hut.
Koumba gave her water to drink and spoke gentle words to her.
When she recovered, Koumba told her how she had lost her hump and what Khary must do if she wanted to get rid of hers.
When the Friday of the full moon came, Khary made her way to the clay-hill.
The spirit maidens were dancing.
She approached one nearest to her and said, “Here, take the child, it’s my turn to dance.”
“Oh, no!” said the spirit-maiden.
“It’s my turn.
“Here, take the child.
“I have been left with it for a whole moon and no one has come to claim it.”
With these words she planted on Khary’s back the hump which Koumba had left with her.
The first cock crewed and the spirits disappeared.
Khary was left alone on the clay-hill with her two humps.
The first hump which was quite small had made her suffer every moment of her life.
Now she had another hump, an enormous one!
This was really more than she could ever endure.
She tucked her skirt and began to run.
She ran for days and nights and so far and fast until she reached the sea and threw herself into the waves.
But the sea would not swallow her altogether.
It is Khary’s two humps that jut out beyond the point of Cape Verde and catch the last rays of the sun as it sets on the soil of Africa.
Now, Do Africans love polygamy?

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