Senegal Folklore

In my French class the other day, we were assigned to read a short story from Senegal. As I began reading it I was immediately struck that it was a trickster tale! I raved about it in my French class, but I'm not sure anyone knew what I was talking about or understood what I believed was significant. I searched high and low for a copy online, but I couldn't find one so I had to resort to my cellphones "awesome" camera quality. Here it is below: 

Essentially, the story begins with Uncle Hyena and Uncle Hare frolicking through Senegal and both are very hungry. They come across a tree and decided it was time for a rest. Then they realize how cool and fresh the shade of the tree was, therefore prompting them to see if the leaves tasted just as good as the shade felt (if that makes any sense). The tree told them they could eat the leaves but not the bark. Of course, they ate the bark. Then the tree told them they could eat the bark, but not the inside of the tree. And of course, they ate the inside of the tree, too. Then, Uncle Hare was so greedy that he wanted to take the tree back to his village so that the entire village could eat the tree as well. The tree, hearing this, offered the suggestion that the tree be carried on top of Hare's head, on the cushion that he uses to carry buckets of water with. Hare agreed and took the tree back to the village. However, when he got back to the village, the tree wouldn't get off of Hare's head so he called for help. But even with all the village's help, Hare couldn't get the tree off his head. So he was crushed to death. And the tree walked happily back to where it came from. The end.

As I was reading this, I found it very significant because it's confirms that other cultures have trickster tales like the American Indians. It may have not been the coyote, but the hare closely resembled him. He had power and intelligence and a supernatural element, but he also had flaws like greed and naiveté. It was pretty neat to me how in American Indian oral tradition they incorporated elements from their environment, and that also played out into the Senegal tradition as well. Oh, both are originally meant to be in the oral tradition, as well. In this story, if you look closely enough to the picture, there is a part where the narrator actually has the audience interact with him or her- it was so important to the story that even when they wrote it down they had to include it. This story even had a moralistic element to it- it's clear to me that the audience was suppose to gain an understanding of how greed can take someone down the wrong path... sound familiar to the trickster tales?