Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Malagasy Folktales, scratch that, the TRUTH, according to Bruno

The Man Who Didn't Pay

A man sleeps with a prostitute. The next morning he leaves without paying her. Later that day he goes to take a shower, looks down at "his affairs" as Bruno liked to call it, and realized his penis was missing. The man is very panicked and confused! Where did his penis go?! He returns the prostitute and inquire about his missing affairs, and spots his penis sitting in a jar of water on her wall. He is shocked! How did his penis get in a jar on her wall?? He demands that the prostitute return his penis and she says only if he will pay her. The man pays her the money he owes and leaves her house. Immediately after stepping outside, his affairs return.

Malagasy Lesson: Always pay your prostitutes, or your penis will end up in a jar on her wall.

Dahalo Bleed Water

The nefarious dahalo have stolen a herd of zebu again! The gendarme, who are generally in cahoots with the dahalo have most likely lent them their guns and pretended to chase them into the desert. But! Sometimes, there are honest gendarme who really do chase the dahalo and shoot at them with their guns. But what happens? The dahalo bleed water! They cannot be shot. Their chests spill out spurts of water and the gendarme continue to shoot at them without success.

Malagasy Lesson: ...Men who steal zebus have the supernatural ability to bleed water?

Grigri, Whew That's Some Powerful Stuff

Another tale about the dahalo (zebu theives), which goes something like this: BOOM! The clap of thunder shakes a Madagascar house. In the distance, one can see streaks of lightening illuminating the sky. The storm lasts throughout the night. The next morning, a vazah is eating breakfast with her family. Her mother asks her if she saw the lightening last night. Then proceeds to tell her that that grigri is some powerful stuff. ...wait what? Her mom clarifies, of course, the lightening strikes were not weather related at all because this isn't the season for lightening (...there's a season for lightening?) so naturally, it was the sorcerer's attacking the dahalo in the desert. Sometimes, that's the only way to kill the dahalo, with grigri, used by sorcerer's. And no, the sorcerer's can't really do anything else with their grigri powers. Right.

Malagasy Lesson: (I heard this story twice) Bruno wishes he had magic powers.

Three Days

Well here's the thing that I learned about the Malagasy during Bruno's story time: They can heal all injuries in THREE DAYS. After I expressed my disbelief about this, Bruno called his oldest son out and said "He fell in a hole in the ground (yeah, there's holes in the street that are the size of the tire of a car and I call them 'vazah traps' but apparently Malagasy can fall in them too) and broke his leg. Three days later... he was running." The Malagasy are strong and we can heal everything in just three days, no more.

I don't even think I need to give my inner monologue to this story. We're just going to leave it at that. No lesson here.

To be continued...

1 comment:

  1. I believe that some tribes in Africa deal with a specific social/psychological condition in which they fear that their penis is disappearing/regressing into their body. Seems that this is just part of the zeitgeist over there.

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