Ture and the Man's Fish

Ture is the famous spider trickster who reigns as the chief character in Zande folktales. Among his many recorded adventures, Mrs. Edward Clive Gore's 1921 collection Sangba Ture specifically includes the tale of "Ture and a Man's Fish".

In the spirit of that tradition, here is how a tale of Ture's greed and the man's fish unfolds:

Ture and the Man's Fish

One day, a hardworking Zande man went out to the forest pools. He spent hours laboriously baling water out of a pool to catch a basket of small, sweet fish.

As he sat resting by his catch, Ture crept through the bushes, his eyes wide with greed. Ture desperately wanted the fish, but he did not want to do the backbreaking work of baling water himself.

So, Ture decided to use sanza—the Zande art of speech with a hidden, double meaning. He approached the fisherman with a look of great panic and cried: "My friend! A cold, useless night is spent waiting if one's termites do not rise when their swarming is due! But look at the sky—the termites at your mounds are swarming at this very moment! Leave your fish with me, and run to gather your harvest!"

The fisherman, terrified of losing his precious termites, thanked Ture and ran off into the deep forest.

The moment the man's back was turned, Ture grabbed the basket of fish. Ko a ndu ki mangi e ki yega—he went, did the deed, and returned home to feast.

When the fisherman reached his termite mounds, he found them completely quiet, with no swarming in sight. Realizing he had been tricked, he rushed back to the pool only to find his basket empty and Ture long gone.

"It is witchcraft!" the man cried, as the Azande do whenever a sudden, painful misfortune strikes.

To find the culprit, the man went to consult the termite oracle, which is readily available to men, women, and children alike. He took a branch of the dakpa tree and a branch of the kpoyo tree, stuck them deep into a termite mound, and waited overnight for his answer.

In the morning, the termites had eaten only the dakpa branch, revealing to the fisherman that Ture was indeed the thief. The villagers marched to Ture's home and found him bloated and sleeping off his heavy meal. The story was told to all the children of the village to remind them that greed brings swift shame, and that the oracles will always uncover those who use sanza to deceive their neighbors