CHAPTERVIIITHE CUSTOMS OF THE ANTSThefollowing days were busy indeed in the village. There were so many things to see and to do that it was hard for any boy or girl to keep up with the times.If one stayed to watch the women preparing the meat of the elephant for the great feast, one would miss the expedition into the forest to cut poles for new houses, and would not see the putting up of the framework and the construction of the roof. Nkunda spent some time helping to make the mud to plaster the walls of her mother’s house, and any child who ever dabbled in mud and water with the feet knows how pleasant that is. Other children collected split bamboos and wet bark rope, and grass for thatching.boy playing in mudThe house Mpoko and Nkunda saw going up was built without the use of nails or hammers or saws, planes, screws or chisels, foot rule or figures. First, a row of strong poles was planted along the line of the house wall and as high as the eaves would be—a little less than five feet. The mud floor inside was tramped down hard, and was a little higher than the level of the ground outside. The three forked posts supporting the ridgepole were about seven feet high.Of course there were children who did not know the old riddle about the ridgepole posts. When Mpoko told them that there were three men carrying a dead one in their teeth over yonder, they ran very fast to the place at which he pointed. All that they saw, however, was three “king posts” just set up, with the ridgepole lying across them; and then they remembered that the forks of such a post are calledmeno, which means teeth. Then they went and found other children who had not heard the riddle and brought them to see; and before the roof was on, the joke had been told four or five times.It was not hard to build little huts in the same way the men were putting up the big ones,and when a group of children had just finished one Nkunda came by from the hen house.“I have a house built without any door,” said she. “The person who lives in it will come out when he is hungry.”Nobody could guess that riddle until Nkunda opened her little brown hand and showed them a new-laid egg.“I know a riddle you have not heard,” said Nkula. “My father’s fowls laid their eggs under the leaves.”None of them had heard that one, but Nkunda happened to remember seeing Nkula munching peanuts a few minutes before and called out triumphantly, “Nguba!” Of course, the peanut, or “goober,” hides its fruit under its leaves.examining peanuts“The bird with its head cut off eats up allthe food,” said their mother. The answer to that was easy when one saw the women grinding flour for bread. The stone on which grain, cassava, and plantains are pounded was the headless bird.Then the Alo Man told them one that was new to them all.“I went to a strange town and they gave me one-legged fowls to eat.” The answer was “Mushrooms.” Another new riddle was this: “A small stick may have many leaves and lose them all in a day.” The stick was a market, and the leaves were the people.With laughter and joking and singing, all the work went on, and before long the men were finishing the house walls. They bound split bamboo crosswise of the posts with wet bark rope, which shrinks as it dries and will last for years. The women plastered the wall inside and out with the mud which they had made at the nearest ant-hill by puddling earth and water with their feet. This mud was squeezed between the bamboos, and when it was dry, more was put on, until the walls were quite rain-proof.When the walls were dry the frame of the roof, which had been made separately, was set on top,and then the grass thatching was tied on in bundles, the upper row overlapping the lower as wooden shingles do. The rafters of the roof were the midribs of the raffia leaf. The house was divided within into the side for sleep and the side for fire.In chilly weather a wood fire smoldered inside each hut, so that the walls and inside of the roof became black and shining with soot. The houses were used only to sleep in, to sit in on rainy days, and to hold various stores which must be kept dry; all the cooking, eating, and general work of the family were done outside. Moreover, a whole family did not live in a single house. Each grown person had a separate hut, the children usually staying with their mothers.There was almost no furniture except that some houses had a mud platform with a grass bed on it. When the headman of the village presided on any formal occasion, he sat on a low stool cut out of a solid block of wood. The rest of the people sat on their heels and were perfectly comfortable, for they had always sat in that position. Food was served in wooden platters and calabashes, without tables. Baskets and jars served to hold things, andthere were no stoves, cupboards, bureaus, washstands, desks, sofas, or sideboards. The people made what they needed and wanted, and spent no time taking care of anything they did not want.The village was fairly clean, for the dogs, fowls, and goats and the wild birds and animals ate up a great deal of garbage. If rubbish accumulated, it was carried off into the forest at certain times. There was always enough to eat of one kind of food or another, and enough to trade, for most of the things really needed could always be found in the great storehouse of the wilderness. If there had never been anything to be afraid of, the people would have lived comfortably year in and year out. But the shadow of danger was always hanging over them.The men of the village had had a great deal of talk with the Alo Man about this fear of attack, and he was able to tell them several things about the ways of defending a country and of avoiding trouble, which he had seen in his travels. He had been among many different tribes, and some of the customs of which he told seemed very strange.For instance, the Alo Man said that theWa-nkonda built their huts round, with the walls sloping out from the bottom like a basket, and the spaces between the bamboos were not plastered with mud but filled in with round bricks of white clay. This seemed to Mpoko and Nkunda like a great deal of needless trouble, but the Alo Man assured them that the Wa-nkonda would think their huts just as strange and outlandish. In some tribes the warriors used daggers with the ring-shaped hilt, and shields of hide or leather, and some preferred the bow and arrow to the spear. The Alo Man had seen a king’s palace eighteen feet by twenty-five, with plank walls and thatched roof. This king owned ivory bows carved at the ends; the ivory would have snapped like a dry twig in any temperate climate, but the hot steamy air of Equatorial Africa kept it elastic. The same king had double drinking horns made of a pair of eland horns mounted in ivory; he had oil dishes of carved ivory shaped like little canoes or handled cups, and his women had combs and hairpins of carved ivory. The Alo Man had been a guest at a royal banquet, at which they served soup, sweet potatoes, greens, fish, boiled chicken, boiled pork, roast pig, rice pudding, and stewed guava. The women of the villagewere proud to find that their own feast would have nearly everything on this list and a few other dishes besides.Mpoko had reached an age when he was beginning to wonder about the reason for things, and he wondered a great deal about the constant danger of raids from enemies outside. He knew that he himself would probably be headman some day, for his mother was of a family even more important than his father’s, and it was the mother’s rank that counted in such matters. He asked the Alo Man some questions about the best way of defending one’s village, and without saying anything very definite in reply the Alo Man went on to tell the story of the Quarrelsome Ants. The story perhaps gained in interest from the fact that several different kinds of ants were just then busy in plain sight.hunting toolsI often see things [the Alo Man began] that remind me of the time when all the Ants met together in palaver under a large tree, like this one, to try to find some way of protecting themselves from their enemies.“We have more enemies than any other creatures on earth,” groaned the Black Ants.“We are perfectly helpless, whatever happens,” wailed the Red Ants. “A Centipede came to our village yesterday and ate up all our slaves before we could do anything.”“The other creatures are so large,” lamented the Rice Ant. “They are provided with weapons suited especially to hurt us. The Anteater came to our hill and poked his long, slender tongue down every corridor and into every hole, and licked us up by the hundred.”anteater“If you had ever known what it was to be hunted by Birds,” said the Wagtail Ant, “youwould think other enemies were hardly worth minding.”“It does not matter which enemy is the worst,” said the Gray Ant. “What we have to consider is the way to escape.”“Let us live underground,” said the Rice Ant.“Our enemies can burrow faster than we can,” said the Red Ant.“It would be better to take to the trees,” said the Black Ant.“So it might, if you are ready to walk into the mouth of some hungry Bird,” said the Wagtail Ant.“We can learn to fly,” said the Gray Ant.“Birds fly much better than we ever could,” said the Rice Ant.“We shall have to come to earth to eat or sleep,” said the Red Ant.“And when we do, our enemies will all be waiting for us,” said the Wagtail Ant.“Then, since we cannot live underground, on the ground, in the trees, or in the air, where are we to live?” asked the Black Ant. “I see no way but to fight.”“How do you expect to fight a Centipede?” asked the Red Ant.“Or an Anteater?” asked the Red Ant.“Or a great, pouncing Bird with a beak like a spear?” asked the Wagtail Ant.Each insisted that his own way of escape would be effective and that every other plan was foolish and dangerous.“There is nothing for us to do,” said the Black Ant at last, “but each to live as suits him best, for we shall never agree on a way of living that will suit us all. For my part, I intend to fight.”Then the Black Ant and his people fought their way through the rest and departed in a column across the country.The Red Ant built a strong castle with hundreds of winding passages and chambers, but no sooner was it done than the Anteater saw it. Clawing his way through the wall, he put in his long, slender tongue and licked up the inhabitants.The Rice Ant burrowed under the earth, but no sooner had the many worms and burrowing insects learned of the new colony than they came and ate not only the grown Ants but the baby Ants and even the eggs.The Wagtail Ant climbed the trees and hid under the bark, but Birds with long, slenderbeaks pried into every crack and nipped the hidden Ants with their pincers.The Gray Ant grew wings and learned to fly, and although he succeeded in dodging the Birds, he found that when he alighted and tried to hide in the leaves, the web of a Hunting Spider awaited him.Meanwhile the King of the Insects had heard of their troubles, and he sent a message to the Ants, saying: “You will find safety only in union. Join all together, and, small as you are, you will be safe.”The Beetle, who was sent with the message, started out bravely, but bumped into a tree and hit himself a blow on the head which knocked the message completely out of it. Thus the Ants have never received the advice of the King.Many of the men of the village had been listening to this story, and there was silence for a time after the Alo Man had finished.“It is true,” said one of the hunters at last, “we quarrel a great deal among ourselves, and we have not been able to agree with the other villages even about this expedition.”“But our own ways are the best,” said another.“Why should we change them for those of others?”“That is what the people of Satu’s village say,” said the Alo Man.“If there is ever a great meeting in which we are to plan how to defend ourselves against Tswki,” said Mpoko’s father, grimly, “I think we shall have to begin by making a law like that of the People of the Bandaged Faces.”The others grinned, for they knew that story; but Mpoko could not imagine what his father meant, and there was no time just then to ask.
Thefollowing days were busy indeed in the village. There were so many things to see and to do that it was hard for any boy or girl to keep up with the times.
If one stayed to watch the women preparing the meat of the elephant for the great feast, one would miss the expedition into the forest to cut poles for new houses, and would not see the putting up of the framework and the construction of the roof. Nkunda spent some time helping to make the mud to plaster the walls of her mother’s house, and any child who ever dabbled in mud and water with the feet knows how pleasant that is. Other children collected split bamboos and wet bark rope, and grass for thatching.
boy playing in mud
The house Mpoko and Nkunda saw going up was built without the use of nails or hammers or saws, planes, screws or chisels, foot rule or figures. First, a row of strong poles was planted along the line of the house wall and as high as the eaves would be—a little less than five feet. The mud floor inside was tramped down hard, and was a little higher than the level of the ground outside. The three forked posts supporting the ridgepole were about seven feet high.
Of course there were children who did not know the old riddle about the ridgepole posts. When Mpoko told them that there were three men carrying a dead one in their teeth over yonder, they ran very fast to the place at which he pointed. All that they saw, however, was three “king posts” just set up, with the ridgepole lying across them; and then they remembered that the forks of such a post are calledmeno, which means teeth. Then they went and found other children who had not heard the riddle and brought them to see; and before the roof was on, the joke had been told four or five times.
It was not hard to build little huts in the same way the men were putting up the big ones,and when a group of children had just finished one Nkunda came by from the hen house.
“I have a house built without any door,” said she. “The person who lives in it will come out when he is hungry.”
Nobody could guess that riddle until Nkunda opened her little brown hand and showed them a new-laid egg.
“I know a riddle you have not heard,” said Nkula. “My father’s fowls laid their eggs under the leaves.”
None of them had heard that one, but Nkunda happened to remember seeing Nkula munching peanuts a few minutes before and called out triumphantly, “Nguba!” Of course, the peanut, or “goober,” hides its fruit under its leaves.
examining peanuts
“The bird with its head cut off eats up allthe food,” said their mother. The answer to that was easy when one saw the women grinding flour for bread. The stone on which grain, cassava, and plantains are pounded was the headless bird.
Then the Alo Man told them one that was new to them all.
“I went to a strange town and they gave me one-legged fowls to eat.” The answer was “Mushrooms.” Another new riddle was this: “A small stick may have many leaves and lose them all in a day.” The stick was a market, and the leaves were the people.
With laughter and joking and singing, all the work went on, and before long the men were finishing the house walls. They bound split bamboo crosswise of the posts with wet bark rope, which shrinks as it dries and will last for years. The women plastered the wall inside and out with the mud which they had made at the nearest ant-hill by puddling earth and water with their feet. This mud was squeezed between the bamboos, and when it was dry, more was put on, until the walls were quite rain-proof.
When the walls were dry the frame of the roof, which had been made separately, was set on top,and then the grass thatching was tied on in bundles, the upper row overlapping the lower as wooden shingles do. The rafters of the roof were the midribs of the raffia leaf. The house was divided within into the side for sleep and the side for fire.
In chilly weather a wood fire smoldered inside each hut, so that the walls and inside of the roof became black and shining with soot. The houses were used only to sleep in, to sit in on rainy days, and to hold various stores which must be kept dry; all the cooking, eating, and general work of the family were done outside. Moreover, a whole family did not live in a single house. Each grown person had a separate hut, the children usually staying with their mothers.
There was almost no furniture except that some houses had a mud platform with a grass bed on it. When the headman of the village presided on any formal occasion, he sat on a low stool cut out of a solid block of wood. The rest of the people sat on their heels and were perfectly comfortable, for they had always sat in that position. Food was served in wooden platters and calabashes, without tables. Baskets and jars served to hold things, andthere were no stoves, cupboards, bureaus, washstands, desks, sofas, or sideboards. The people made what they needed and wanted, and spent no time taking care of anything they did not want.
The village was fairly clean, for the dogs, fowls, and goats and the wild birds and animals ate up a great deal of garbage. If rubbish accumulated, it was carried off into the forest at certain times. There was always enough to eat of one kind of food or another, and enough to trade, for most of the things really needed could always be found in the great storehouse of the wilderness. If there had never been anything to be afraid of, the people would have lived comfortably year in and year out. But the shadow of danger was always hanging over them.
The men of the village had had a great deal of talk with the Alo Man about this fear of attack, and he was able to tell them several things about the ways of defending a country and of avoiding trouble, which he had seen in his travels. He had been among many different tribes, and some of the customs of which he told seemed very strange.
For instance, the Alo Man said that theWa-nkonda built their huts round, with the walls sloping out from the bottom like a basket, and the spaces between the bamboos were not plastered with mud but filled in with round bricks of white clay. This seemed to Mpoko and Nkunda like a great deal of needless trouble, but the Alo Man assured them that the Wa-nkonda would think their huts just as strange and outlandish. In some tribes the warriors used daggers with the ring-shaped hilt, and shields of hide or leather, and some preferred the bow and arrow to the spear. The Alo Man had seen a king’s palace eighteen feet by twenty-five, with plank walls and thatched roof. This king owned ivory bows carved at the ends; the ivory would have snapped like a dry twig in any temperate climate, but the hot steamy air of Equatorial Africa kept it elastic. The same king had double drinking horns made of a pair of eland horns mounted in ivory; he had oil dishes of carved ivory shaped like little canoes or handled cups, and his women had combs and hairpins of carved ivory. The Alo Man had been a guest at a royal banquet, at which they served soup, sweet potatoes, greens, fish, boiled chicken, boiled pork, roast pig, rice pudding, and stewed guava. The women of the villagewere proud to find that their own feast would have nearly everything on this list and a few other dishes besides.
Mpoko had reached an age when he was beginning to wonder about the reason for things, and he wondered a great deal about the constant danger of raids from enemies outside. He knew that he himself would probably be headman some day, for his mother was of a family even more important than his father’s, and it was the mother’s rank that counted in such matters. He asked the Alo Man some questions about the best way of defending one’s village, and without saying anything very definite in reply the Alo Man went on to tell the story of the Quarrelsome Ants. The story perhaps gained in interest from the fact that several different kinds of ants were just then busy in plain sight.
hunting tools
I often see things [the Alo Man began] that remind me of the time when all the Ants met together in palaver under a large tree, like this one, to try to find some way of protecting themselves from their enemies.
“We have more enemies than any other creatures on earth,” groaned the Black Ants.
“We are perfectly helpless, whatever happens,” wailed the Red Ants. “A Centipede came to our village yesterday and ate up all our slaves before we could do anything.”
“The other creatures are so large,” lamented the Rice Ant. “They are provided with weapons suited especially to hurt us. The Anteater came to our hill and poked his long, slender tongue down every corridor and into every hole, and licked us up by the hundred.”
anteater
“If you had ever known what it was to be hunted by Birds,” said the Wagtail Ant, “youwould think other enemies were hardly worth minding.”
“It does not matter which enemy is the worst,” said the Gray Ant. “What we have to consider is the way to escape.”
“Let us live underground,” said the Rice Ant.
“Our enemies can burrow faster than we can,” said the Red Ant.
“It would be better to take to the trees,” said the Black Ant.
“So it might, if you are ready to walk into the mouth of some hungry Bird,” said the Wagtail Ant.
“We can learn to fly,” said the Gray Ant.
“Birds fly much better than we ever could,” said the Rice Ant.
“We shall have to come to earth to eat or sleep,” said the Red Ant.
“And when we do, our enemies will all be waiting for us,” said the Wagtail Ant.
“Then, since we cannot live underground, on the ground, in the trees, or in the air, where are we to live?” asked the Black Ant. “I see no way but to fight.”
“How do you expect to fight a Centipede?” asked the Red Ant.
“Or an Anteater?” asked the Red Ant.
“Or a great, pouncing Bird with a beak like a spear?” asked the Wagtail Ant.
Each insisted that his own way of escape would be effective and that every other plan was foolish and dangerous.
“There is nothing for us to do,” said the Black Ant at last, “but each to live as suits him best, for we shall never agree on a way of living that will suit us all. For my part, I intend to fight.”
Then the Black Ant and his people fought their way through the rest and departed in a column across the country.
The Red Ant built a strong castle with hundreds of winding passages and chambers, but no sooner was it done than the Anteater saw it. Clawing his way through the wall, he put in his long, slender tongue and licked up the inhabitants.
The Rice Ant burrowed under the earth, but no sooner had the many worms and burrowing insects learned of the new colony than they came and ate not only the grown Ants but the baby Ants and even the eggs.
The Wagtail Ant climbed the trees and hid under the bark, but Birds with long, slenderbeaks pried into every crack and nipped the hidden Ants with their pincers.
The Gray Ant grew wings and learned to fly, and although he succeeded in dodging the Birds, he found that when he alighted and tried to hide in the leaves, the web of a Hunting Spider awaited him.
Meanwhile the King of the Insects had heard of their troubles, and he sent a message to the Ants, saying: “You will find safety only in union. Join all together, and, small as you are, you will be safe.”
The Beetle, who was sent with the message, started out bravely, but bumped into a tree and hit himself a blow on the head which knocked the message completely out of it. Thus the Ants have never received the advice of the King.
Many of the men of the village had been listening to this story, and there was silence for a time after the Alo Man had finished.
“It is true,” said one of the hunters at last, “we quarrel a great deal among ourselves, and we have not been able to agree with the other villages even about this expedition.”
“But our own ways are the best,” said another.“Why should we change them for those of others?”
“That is what the people of Satu’s village say,” said the Alo Man.
“If there is ever a great meeting in which we are to plan how to defend ourselves against Tswki,” said Mpoko’s father, grimly, “I think we shall have to begin by making a law like that of the People of the Bandaged Faces.”
The others grinned, for they knew that story; but Mpoko could not imagine what his father meant, and there was no time just then to ask.