African Tales

22. Krio (Sierra Leone) Five Dead Men Attend a Dance

114 22 Five Dead Men Attend a Dance 78 Krio (Sierra Leone)79 One day, a big dance was held in a village. While this dance was going on, spirits from the forest came to attend. Dead people also came out of their graves to attend the dance. There were five young women who lived in this village and who were very fond of men. Five dead men came to the dance in the village. They were very well dressed. They were so well dressed that people remarked that they had never seen anyone dressed in such clothes anywhere else in the world. No sooner had the five dead men arrived that the five young women saw them and fell in love with them. They flirted with them all through the dance until it was time for the dance to end. The dance ended, and people were getting ready to return to their homes. The dance was over, and the five young women decided to accompany their boyfriends home. They left and were on their way. But these men were dead persons. The five young women accompanied their boyfriends. They had traveled for a little while when four of the women said, “We think we should return to our homes.” The dead men said, “Well, you can all go back now; you do not know where we are going. You can return now.” But the fifth young woman, the one who had not indicated that she would return with her four friends, a headstrong young woman, said, “Well, as for myself, I am not going back. I must know where my boyfriend is going.” Bop! Her four friends turned around and started to return home. They begged their friend to come with them, to return home with them. They begged and begged her, but this young woman replied, “I stick to what I say. I must see where you men are from, and the place where you eventually die will be the place where I will also die.” The dead men continued to head to the place that they were from. They had now reached their graves. They said to the young woman, “Please, we plead with you. Go back.” They gave her a lot of things, money and clothes, begging her to return to her home, but she replied to her boyfriend, “I am not going back. The place where you die is where I am also going to die.” She remained there, standing. Then one of the dead men approached his grave. Another went to his grave. They all did this, and they were standing, waiting for the girl to go. They did not want her to see where they were going. So they begged her again to return to her home. They begged and begged, but she would not heed their advice. She said, “The place where my boyfriend dies is where I will also die.” Well, there was a song that the dead men sang when they wanted to enter their graves. One of them lay down on his grave and he started to sing, “I get up tehteh I wriggle tehteh I fall down kpungbuju I stand up yele o Maanya, I’ve gone.” Then his grave opened, and he went inside. There were now four dead men remaining. These four dead men started to beg the young woman, “Please, we don’t want to leave you here all by yourself.” The young woman replied, “The place where my boyfriend dies is where I will also die.” One of the dead men lay down on his grave. He sang the same song that the first dead man had sung: “I get up tehteh I wriggle tehteh I fall down kpungbuju I stand up yele o Maanya, I’ve gone.” Then he disappeared into his grave. Krio (Sierra Leone) 115 Two of the remaining dead men lay on their graves. They sang the song: “I get up tehteh I wriggle tehteh I fall down kpungbuju I stand up yele o Maanya, I’ve gone.” And then they disappeared into their graves. It was now the turn of the fifth dead man. The woman was standing at his side. The dead man begged the woman. He said, “Please go back. We will return.” “The place where you are going, that is the place that I want to see,” replied the woman. The dead man lay...