Free The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories by Amos Tutuola Page B

hot drinks in the feast.’ Thus the wise man advised Rere’s father, who then went away and made the sacrifice to the god of the river as directed by the wise man.
    Then a few days later, Oluwo prepared a very rich feast, and, in addition, he bought plenty of the hot drinks. Afterwards , he invited several people and also Tortoise, the Jungle Drummer.
    Then, after the guests had eaten and drunk, Tortoise was to beat his drum. He was too greedy, and he was drunk to excess before he started to beat his drum. But still, as soon as he started to beat his drum, and Rere started to sing his enchanting song, all the guests, andRere’s father and mother did not resist when they stood up and started to dance merrily.
    But when they had danced for about one hour, Rere’s father and mother stopped dancing suddenly. When they stood still and listened carefully for some minutes, they were shocked with horror the moment they identified the voice of their son, Rere, who was singing a kind of song in which he was mentioning his father’s name, Oluwo, over and over again. And the song was coming out of Tortoise’s drum.
    Now Rere’s father and mother were impatient to see their son. What to do to get their son back from the Jungle Drummer, Tortoise, was a big problem for them. If they told Tortoise openly that their son was inside the drum, he might run away with him. However, after a while, a thought came to Oluwo’s mind. He stopped Tortoise suddenly from beating his drum. After that, he invited him to a small room in his house.
    As soon as he had given Tortoise a seat, he started to serve him and flatter him continuously. And as Tortoise was greedy in everything, he drank so much that he became unconscious within a few minutes. As soon as he fell down from the seat and fell asleep, Oluwo went and loosened the leather of the drum and then pulled out his son, Rere, who was nearly suffocated by the heat. Then Oluwo sealed the drum back with the same leather that he had removed from it. He did the seal so carefully that the drum seemed as if its leather had not been removed at all. Then he replaced the drum behind Tortoise.
    Then he rushed his son, Rere, to an open place where there was fresh air to breathe in.
    All Oluwo’s guests had gone away before Tortoise woke up in the mid-night. As soon as Tortoise, the Jungle Drummer , lifted up his drum and felt that it was lighter than when Rere was inside it, he knew that Rere had come out of it.
    ‘Who has tampered with my drum?’ Tortoise started toshout angrily. But when Rere’s father heard the noise, he beat Tortoise with a club mercilessly, and then drove him away from the house.
    After Rere had become conscious and had eaten, his father asked, ‘Rere, will you go and hunt in the jungle again?’
    ‘Never shall I go and hunt in any jungle any more, not until I am old enough!’ Rere replied with regret.

The Duckling Brothers and their Disobedient Sister
    Once there lived an old man and his wife. They had two sons, named Ajala and Adele. Ajala was older than Adele. Their father and mother were so poor that they could not live without borrowing money from the inhabitants of their village. They were also buying their clothes on credit.
    One day, when the father failed to pay some of their debts, the creditor acted very rudely to him. Having seen this, Ajala was so ashamed that, the following morning, he invited his younger brother, Adele, to one corner of their house, and told him, ‘Adele, you see, we are old enough to go abroad to find a kind of job to do. When we work there for some years and we save some amount of money, then we shall come back to our father and mother and give them the money. And when they pay their debts from the money, they will be free from their debts.’ This was Ajala’s advice to Adele.
    Without argument, Adele agreed to his brother’s advice. Then the following morning, both of them told their father and mother that they were going abroad for a job,