Reading Notes: Stories from Congo (Part B)

2. How the Spider Won and Lost Nzambi's Daughter

• Synopsis:
• The earth goddess had a beautiful daughter
• One could only marry the daughter if they could bring her fire from the sky god
• The spider recruited the turtle, rat, woodpecker, and sandfly to help him retrieve the lightning
• The spider built the rope to climb up
• The Woodpecker pecked a whole in the sky
• The Turtle retrieved the bamboo
• The Rat got set on fire (and survived)
• The Sandfly spied on the sky god's council so that the other animals would know where the fire was hidden
• The spider presented the sky fire to the earth goddess and claimed her daughter
• The other animals began to argue over who should really get the goddess' daughter as they had all helped
• The earth goddess decided to give each animal the dowry promised and keep her daughter single to prevent fighting
• Possibilities
• What if the daughter married ALL of the animals?
• Lots of these stories involve multiple wives, so why not multiple husbands?
• Rewritten from the Sandfly's point of view

Source: Daily Clip Art

Story Source: Stories from Congo