Week 9 Story: Nenpetro and Mambou

Nenpetro had three wives, each of whom was pregnant and craved a different food. He was kept very busy with hunting for meat and gathering fruit in the woods. The season was very dry, so animals were scarcer and trees not as fruitful. He tried to find something for each of them, but somedays he was so busy hunting that he could not find any of the fruit that his third wife, Mambou, desired. Although he made sure there was meat for her, Mambou was too sick to eat the meat and became very hungry and exasperated. After quarreling with Nenpetro and the other two women, she ran off into the forest to find the fruit for herself. To ensure her success and to get revenge on Nenpetro, she stole his fetish and took it with her.

Nenpetro got over his initial irritation very quickly, and wished Mambou would come back. He decided to go look for and went to retrieve his fetish in order to speed up his search. When he found it gone he was furious. How on earth would he provide for his growing family now? He immediately set off to find her and take back the fetish.

Mambou wandered around in the woods looking for fruit, but she did not find anything. She requested it of the fetish, and was delighted to see fruit manifest before her eyes. She asked for more and more fruit, until the fetish grew exasperated and appeared in the form of a young woman. The fetish, named Sunga, asked Mambou what she was doing sitting in the woods gorging herself on fruit. Mambou explained that her husband had been treating her unfairly and that she was simply feeding herself.

Guava Fruit. Web Source: Pinterest.

Nenpetro was in these same woods, and heard Mambou and Sunga talking. He ran up to them and told Mambou to give him the fetish back and come home with him. He apologized for prioritizing hunting and promised to gather fruit in the future. But Mambou was enjoying having her unlimited supply of fruit and refused.

Sunga, who thought Nenpetro's apology quite fair and had seen his right treatment of his wives all the years that he had carried her, grew indignant at Mambou's greed. So when Nenpetro and Mambou turned to her for a palaver, she told Mambou to return the fetish to Nenpetro. If she wanted to look for fruit on her own, she would be welcome to, but Nenpetro needed the magical aid more as he was responsible for more people. Mambou acknowledged the fairness of this and asked simply that Nenpetro help her carry back the piles of fruit she had received from the fetish. Nenpetro agreed, and they returned home. When Mambou's baby was born, a few months later, she decided to name her Sunga as a sign of respect.

Author's Note: Instead of retelling on of the stories from Congo, I invented my own story using the character of Nenpetro, who features in multiple stories, and the fetish Sunga. I brought in common themes from the stories such as jealousy, looking for food, and mediated justice.

Bibliography: R. E. Dennett's Notes on the Folktales of the Fjort, link.