Extra Reading Diary: Stories from Congo

The Gazelle and the Leopard: A gazelle told a leopard that they should be cutting down brush because the dry season is coming, but the leopard told the gazelle to go ahead on his own. He caught a thief, which was a gazelle, and ate him. The end of the story was very odd because the leopard ate her own husband’s head. It wasn’t a very organized story and kind of only stated a lot of facts. I wish there had been a little better flow to the story, but that is how some old myths were written. Overall I enjoyed this story.

The Fetish Sunga: He began talking about his uncle’s twin brother, and how good of a fisherman he was. He said that he caught many fish everyday. The fisherman would lie to his own brother about the amount of fish that he had caught. He eventually was made to where he could no longer lie, because he got his power of speech taken away. I liked this story, but I felt it to be very random. There was no real storyline and didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The Fight Between Two Fetishes: I really enjoyed this story although I am not quite sure why. I liked the moral behind the story because it was kind of sad, but ended up being for a weird reason. It kept me pretty interested throughout. Unlike the other stories, I actually did like the way that this one was written. I thought it had a great tone to it as well. Overall I enjoyed this whole unit and it has definitely been one of my favorites so far. 

Songye power figure from Congo,
sometimes called a fetish, photo by R. McCoy