The Woman and the Cunning Rabbit

This is the second of two Liberian folk tales I found among my mother's papers. It was translated from the Vai by Vaani Gray.

Once there were a woman and her husband. They were living by a big wide rock. They had one daughter. The girl was the most beautiful of all creation. In that country human beings and beasts of the forest inter-married.

As this girl grew to womanhood, many persons brought dowry for her. Those beasts that were rich would sometimes bring a good sum of money, domestic animals and many dresses. Whenever they brought these things to the girl's mother she would say, "I do not want any of these things for my daughter. If any person wants to marry my child he must build a hut on this big rock. When the hut is completely built, then he may take his wife with him."

All the people in the country came to try their chance. They could not build the hut. All the strong animals, baboon, chimpanzee, elephant, lion, all tried, but could not build the hut.

At last Cunning Rabbit came. The woman showed him the surface of the big rock where he had to build the hut. Before Rabbit could do anything, he built a fence across the little creek at the side of the big rock. Then he went to look for sticks. He spent the whole day in the bush, and at evening he brought a tiny small stick. He went to look in his fence for fish. He caught two small fishes and one big crab. He threw the fishes back into the creek and carried the crab to the woman and said, "Please, my mother, cook my crab for me. I want pepper soup."

The woman agreed. Rabbit went back to his work. Not very long after, the woman called him to his soup. Rabbit came. He drank a little bit of the soup, and then took one limb of the crab and bit it. Then he shouted, "Oh, mother! the crab is not properly cooked and you set it before me to eat. Please cook it again."

And the woman boiled the crab and boiled it and boiled it. Then she called Cunning Rabbit. He came, and took one of the limbs again, and as soon as he set his teeth on it he pulled it from his mouth as quickly as he could. Then he said to the woman, "The crab is not done at all. As soon as one tries to bite it, it wants to break one's teeth out of one's mouth."

Then the woman answered and said, "Whomever have you seen in this world that could cook crab as soft as fish?"

Then Cunning Rabbit also answered and said, "Now you have decided in favor of the impossibility of building a hut on a big stone like this. Wherever have you seen a man building on a big rock like this before?"

It was upon this point that the woman gave her daughter to Cunning Rabbit to be his wife.

"When a rascal dies, a rascal buries him." As the Frenchman would say, "To a rascal, a rascal and a half."