Stories, both personal and traditional, can help us imagine new ways of doing things when we can’t think of any options but the ones that keep failing, writes storyteller Dan Yashinsky. He shares a few examples.
In his novel Anthills of the Savannah, Chinua Achebe describes the night when some villagers have come to protest in the capital city. They know the dictator’s forces will be brutal. Around the fire that night, their storyteller – an old man – speaks to them about courage. He ends his speech by telling a story about a tortoise and a leopard.
One time the tortoise met the leopard on the road. The leopard said, “I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I’m going to eat you! I’m going to destroy you!”
The little tortoise said, “Just grant me one favour before you devour me. Give me one moment to prepare my mind.”
The leopard agreed. Then the tortoise began to jump all over the road, throwing the dust every which way. He scattered the sand everywhere and made a great mess on the road. Then he came back and stood proudly in front of the leopard. “Now I am ready,” he said.
“Is that how you prepare for what I’m going to do to you?” snarled the leopard.
“Yes,” said the tortoise. “Because from now on when people walk by this spot, they’ll see these marks on the road and say, ‘This was a great struggle between two equals.’ They’ll remember that even a little tortoise once fought the mighty leopard. Perhaps the sign of our fight will give them the courage to fight you themselves.”
The old man ended his speech by telling the villagers that, whatever the dictator did the following day, at least their grandchildren would be able to say, “Our ancestors had the courage to leave their marks in the road.”
Stories are good for reminding us that what worked in one situation may not always work in another.
There are so many things blocking our road now: racism, environmental degradation, the relentless assault on human rights, the attempt of men to re-subjugate women, state-sanctioned violence against citizens and outsiders, and the terrifying international spiral into war. Pick your leopard. Achebe’s story reminds us to keep resisting the bullies, to keep trying to build bridges instead of walls; above all, to leave our marks in the road so others will remember that resistance is never futile.
Stories are also good for reminding us that what worked in one situation may not always work in another.
There was once a hatseller. He travelled from village to village with a stack of hats on his head, calling out “Hats for sale!” One day he fell asleep under a tree full of monkeys. When he woke up, there was only one hat left on his head because the monkeys had stolen the rest of them. They were swinging through the branches wearing his hats. He was furious! He shook his fist at the monkeys and they shook their fists back at him. He stamped his foot. They stamped their paws. He was so angry that he took the hat on his head and threw it to the ground. Well, “monkey see, monkey do.” They threw their hats down, too. So he dusted off his hats and continued on his way. When he got home he said to his son, “My son, if you become a hatseller like your father, listen to what happened to me today.” And he told his son the story. Indeed, the son grew up and became a hatseller like his father, walking around with a stack of hats on his head and calling “Hats for sale!” One day, he, too, stopped for a rest under a tree without realizing it was a monkey tree. When he awoke, there they were, swinging through the branches wearing his hats. But he didn’t panic because he remembered what his father had taught him. He shook his fist. They shook their paws. He stamped his foot. They stamped their paws. He took his hat and threw it to the ground – and nothing happened. He did it again. Nothing. Then one of the younger monkeys swung down and said, “Our fathers told us stories, too.”
The moral is: listen to your elders!
Stories . . . are pre-eminently useful things to carry in your heart and head.
The question of generosity lies at the very heart of philanthropy. I’ll end part two of this essay by sharing two stories on this theme. I worked at The Stop Community Food Centre as a storyteller-in-residence and had the good fortune of meeting an agronomist named Margaret Zondo, from Zimbabwe. She told me about a custom known as the “chief’s granary.” In her words:
Traditional Shona custom required the chief in any given locality to allocate land for growing food crops as protection against food shortages in the community. This communal land is referred to as the Zunde land. Everyone in the community provided their labour on a voluntary basis, even though not everyone would benefit directly from the harvest: it would be stored in granaries at the chief’s homestead as a food reserve. Although all members of the community would obtain food from the food reserves in times of need, priority was given to older people, widows, orphans, and people with disabilities.
When Zondo spoke of this custom, she made it clear that sharing the grain safeguarded by the chief on behalf of the community was not understood as an act of charity. It was one of the rights that came with belonging to that community. What looks like philanthropy was, at least in Shona culture, an assertion of the rights of communal membership.
Zondo’s story connects with a story from Cameroon, but with a very different outcome. I used to tell it to many of the groups I met while working for UNICEF Canada.
A king was going to throw a feast. He invited everyone from miles around. Everything would be free: the food, the music, the dancing. But he asked that everyone bring a calabash of palm wine. The king had a great earthen jar in the middle of his compound, and after everyone had filled up the jar, the palm wine would be served out to every guest.
One man wanted to go to the king’s feast, but he had no palm wine. His wife suggested he purchase some from a neighbour, but he thought that was a silly idea. “I’ll save my money,” he said. “I’ll fill my calabash with water. Nobody will ever notice one small calabash of water in a big jar full of palm wine.” And so, with his calabash of water, he went to the feast. Hundreds of people were coming down the road toward the king’s great feast. The man took his place in line, emptied his calabash into the king’s jar, and sat down, waiting for the feast to begin. The servants began to dip out the palm wine and bring it around to the guests. When the king appeared, they lifted their bowls to honour him. This man also lifted his bowl and took a sip. But it didn’t taste like palm wine. He sipped again. No, this was not palm wine. What was it? It was water. Everyone had thought as he had: someone else will bring the palm wine. Ever since then, they say in Cameroon, “If water is all you bring to the feast, then water is all you’ll have to drink.”
If you’re reading this journal, you already know how important it is to bring the palm wine to the feast. But it’s good to be reminded sometimes.
Stories – both personal and traditional – are beacons in troubled times, way-finders, sources of necessary wisdom. They are pre-eminently useful things to carry in your heart and head, helping us imagine new ways of doing things, and breaking through “frame-lock” when we can’t think of any options but the ones that keep failing. They can be excellent companions as you follow the way of philanthropy.
In the audio clips below, Dan Yashinsky shares three more stories that he’s found useful in many situations. They reflect on some of the themes that are important in philanthropy, he notes, and could help people in the sector in their own work, and help them to form the beginnings of a storytelling vocabulary.
