Tortoise and the Sweet Royal Stool
Once upon a time many ages ago there lived a great king, His Highness Adada. The ubiquitous Tortoise was as notorious as ever and a royal pet despite warnings against such.
The King’s Kingdom of Djevwia spanned at least two hundred miles in any direction from the capital town of Otoro. It was a very populous kingdom with hundreds of villages many of them large. Farming was their main industry including fishing, goat rearing and hunting. The Otoro market was the largest in the land. People would come tens of miles by river or foot to Otoro Market that held on one day a week.
Djevwia was thus a prosperous kingdom of industrious people. The were so wealthy they could afford professional workers who did not need to farm. Midwives, doctors, carpenters, warriors, poets, blacksmiths, toolmakers, clothes makers, canoe makers and hut builders.
King Adada received regular visits from princes and chief heirs sometimes with their fathers from near and far. In addition to being a prosperous and powerful king he had seven exceedingly beautiful daughters between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. For eight years suitors had come to the king to ask for his princess daughters’ hands in marriage. Alas, the King would always reject the suitors.
No prince nor chief heir could meet the standards or expectations of the king. The suitors in the eyes of the king were too ambitious, too reckless, too arrogant. Or too much of a warrior, too handsome, too short. And too poor, too crafty, too undignified. None of them were good enough for his daughters.
As the tradition demanded, the King’s daughters had to meet the suitors asking their hand in person but the decision of yes or no lay with the king. The princesses soon got frustrated with years of meeting men they did keenly desire to marry only to see them suffer rejection by their father, the King.
Currently, it had been two years since the princesses took a bath once a week in protest. They also refused to change their clothes or tend to their hair. The beautiful princesses now looked like poor peasants. Their demand to the king was they would only bathe, take care of themselves and be presentable if their father allows them to marry the men they desire.
King Adada declined their demand claiming that it is better to have no heirs or in-laws than have useless ones. The princesses stuck with their demand.
All this while, the king was looking for ways of getting the daughters to bath. Many advisers presented suggestions to the King to get the princesses to bathe but they failed. The king’s carpenter one day made ekpeti, bathing stools or boxes (with a small hole each at the top and bottom to let water flow through) for the King and Queen who each had separate bathrooms.
In the Urhobo language there is a saying “Ade ghwo re ka’a kidia họ, on getting old you sit to bath.” Both the King and Queen were delighted with the novelty. It had changed bathing from a routine chore into a relaxing pleasure.
While bathing the King got the idea that he should put a bathing seat in the bathroom for the princesses’ quarters which was inside the King’s palace compound and heavily protected by eunuchs.
The oldest princess by age was the first to try the bathing seat with a long, reluctant and unhappy face. She, however, spent a long time on the seat bathing. When she came out of the bathroom she was looking bright, smiley and happy. The second princess was surprised at her sister’s obvious change. “That stool is so sweet, achachacha! the oldest princess said with exhilarating relish in her voice and manner.
The second princess then went into the bathroom and had her bath. She too spent a long-time bathing. When she came out, she told the third princess “that stool in the bathroom was so sweet, nene!” The third princess went into the bathroom. And the rest of the princesses went to have their bath till the youngest and seventh princess had hers. They all came out happier and more cheerful each saying “the stool in the bathroom is so sweet.”
The King became so happy with himself in his wisdom to get his daughters to bathe morning and evening every day and be presentable. The princesses’ bathroom became the centre of their over-guarded lives. They would each spend hours a day in the bathroom and sometimes fighting each other when a princess was hogging the bathroom to herself for too long.
A surprising event was that the carpenter had mysteriously disappeared from Otoro soon after making ekpeti for the royal family. His family in Ọkueka were the first to raise the alarm about his disappearance. Was he killed by a wild animal? Did kidnappers abduct him for whatever purpose? Did he move to another kingdom lured by better pay? Had he gone into hiding? These were the questions concerned people asked about his disappearance.
When hope of the carpenter’s return or discovery began to wane, the king hired a new carpenter.
Four moons’ time passed and the princesses all at once began to fall ill in the morning marked by vomiting and frequent spitting. The Queen invited the royal doctor to examine the princesses. His answer shocked the Queen who fainted on hearing the news that all her seven daughters were pregnant.
When the King heard the news, he was gobsmacked and speechless. How could this happen? The princesses did not know how it happened. The King interrogated the eunuch guards protecting his daughters harshly. They did not know how it happened. The eunuch guards had sworn a ghoulish oath to protect the princesses with their lives. No one else saw anything that could answer the riddle of the princesses’ pregnancies.
The hairdresser to the princesses informed the Queen she noticed the princesses spent a much longer time than usual in the bathroom. The King’s guards looked for tunnels under the bathroom but there were none. The riddle remained unanswered.
In a flash of inspiration one morning, the King decided to bath in the princess’s bathroom. As he sat down on the stool to bath an irritation began creeping under the left cheek of his backside towards his back passage. The King stood up immediately shaking with anger. His anus was just nearly ransacked.
The King called out to his guards and sent for his entire household and his chiefs. In the presence of many witnesses the King asked the new carpenter to open the ekpeti from the princesses’ bathroom in the middle od of the courtyard.
To everyone’s surprise there was Tortoise himself who covered his eyes from the rays of the blazing sun. It was Tortoise who had impregnated all seven of the King’s daughters. Yet again, Tortoise had struck with devastation on unwitting victims.
It became apparent that Tortoise had blackmailed the King’s former carpenter into fitting him inside the princesses’ ekpeti. That was the reason the carpenter had runaway suddenly to a faraway place where he would not answer for his misdeed.
“Tortoise is this how you have treated me?” Yelled the King with great anger. The King then picked Tortoise up high in the air and smashed him on the hard ground. On impact Tortoise split into two halves. One half rolled and stopped on the ground. The second half rolled into the river.
That is why today we have the Tortoise and the Turtle.
Be good, no Lucky
Grimot Nane