The tailed head-hunters of Nigeria : an account of an official's seven years' experiences in the Northern Nigerian pagan belt, and a description of the manners, habits, and customs of some of its native tribes / by A.J.N. Tremearne.
- Arthur John Newman Tremearne
- Date:
- 1912
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The tailed head-hunters of Nigeria : an account of an official's seven years' experiences in the Northern Nigerian pagan belt, and a description of the manners, habits, and customs of some of its native tribes / by A.J.N. Tremearne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
390/426 page 324
![The Spider, the Fish, and the Lion This is about the Spider. It was a time of famine, there had been hunger in the land for a long time, and there was nothing for him to eat; but some small Red-Breasted Birds used to pluck the berries from a tree in the centre of a very deep lake which no one could enter, and they used to give him a few. One day when the Birds had come back, the Spider persuaded one of them to let him ride on his wing, and they went to the lake together. When the Spider was about to pluck the berries the Birds stopped him, and tried to deceive him, saying, “ We always sleep in the tree, and in the morning find that the berries have ripened.” Now when they had gone to sleep, the Bird who was carrying the Spider slipped her wing from under him, and she flew off and left him helpless, so that when he moved he fell into the lake. He sank in the water until he came to the house of the Water-Dwellers, and they made him so welcome that they began quarrelling over him, each claiming him as a relative. Then one of the disputants said, “ Mix some locust fruit, and make it very hot, and if he is a relative of ours he will drink it however hot it may be; if he is not, then he will let it cool.” When they had prepared it, the Spider said, “ Take it into the sun [to make it hotter, apparently forgetting he was under water], and keep on stirring it,” and he drank it all up. Then the Water-Dwellers said, “ He is our brother,” and they brought him to the house of a Fish who had just laid 100 eggs, and installed him there, but the Spider said to the Fish’s young ones, “ If you hear a sound like ‘ pus,’ you will know that I am hiccoughing.” When they had gone he took the eggs, and put them on the fire, and when he broke them and they made a “ pus, the young Fish said, “The guest is hiccoughing.” Then the older Fish I’ebuked them for saying so, but the Spider called out, “ Do not scold them, I am their father,” and he ate up the eggs all but one. After two days, he said he must return home, and many of the Water-Dwellers said they would escort him [a mark of honour 324-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29010445_0390.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
