“Hale!” “Halele!”
Once upon a time there was a little girl who had lost her mother. Her father had remarried, and her stepmother did not love her. To her own daughter she gave the finest wraps and the best share of the meal; to the orphan, the chores, the leftovers and the reproaches.
One morning, the stepmother handed her a basket full of holes. “Go and fetch me some seawater, and don't come back until the basket is full.” The orphan walked to the shore in tears. At the foot of a great baobab sat an old woman with unkempt hair. “My child,” she said, “my hands are shaking. Will you pick the lice from my hair?”
The orphan put down her basket, knelt and gently combed the old woman's hair, without a word of complaint, even when she saw that the lice were scorpions and centipedes. “You have a well-mannered heart,” said the old woman. “Line your basket with leaves from this baobab, and draw your water.” The basket filled and leaked no more. When the orphan stood up, the baobab shook its branches: gold bracelets, necklaces and earrings fell from them.
Seeing the gold, the stepmother at once sent her own daughter to the ocean's edge. The old woman was still there. “My child, will you pick the lice from my hair?” “I don't have time, and your hair disgusts me. Give me the gold, that's all I want.” The old woman said nothing. The baobab shook its branches: wasps, thorns and dust fell from them, and chased the girl all the way home.
They say that the orphan, once grown up, was asked to marry a notable's son, and that she never forgot to help the old people she met. For you never know who is hiding beneath a stranger's white hair.
The respect owed to elders brings blessings: politeness is a treasure that never runs out.
What we know about it
This tale belongs to one of the most widespread families of stories in the world, that of the kind and the unkind girl: the politeness of one is rewarded, the arrogance of the other punished. The test of picking the lice from an old woman's hair, a spirit or djinn in disguise, is found in many versions. The tale teaches heshima, the respect owed to elders, which lies at the heart of Comorian upbringing.
It was reported to us as a classic of family storytelling evenings, retold by Salim Hatubou, who published the tales his grandmother told him in Milépvani. We have not been able to check his version; this one follows the most common outline of the tale. Read also: The beauty who turned down every suitor.
Further reading
- Voices of the archipelago Salim Hatubou, Contes de ma grand-mère (contes comoriens), 1994. L'Harmattan.