“Hale!” “Halele!”
Once upon a time there was a fisherman so poor that, on some days, he came home in the evening without a single fish to feed his children. That morning, once again, he cast his net into the lagoon, pulled it up… and found nothing in it but an old bottle, sealed with a stopper.
“Perhaps there is something precious inside,” he said to himself. He pulled out the stopper. At once, black smoke escaped from the bottle, rose towards the sky and took the shape of an immense monster with eyes like embers.
“Fisherman,” growled the monster, “I was shut up for so long that I swore an oath:
I will devour whoever sets me free. Prepare yourself.”
“But I am the one who gave you back your freedom! Is this how you say thank you?”
The monster agreed to ask the village chief for his opinion. The chief listened, thought, then declared: “An oath must be kept. Whoever does not keep their oath is unhappy all their life.” The fisherman thought his last hour had come.
“At least let me consult one last wise man,” he begged. And he went to find Boinawassi, the cleverest man on the whole island. The fisherman and the monster told him their story. Boinawassi scratched his head.
“There is something I don't understand. You, so big, fitted inside that little
bottle? I don't believe a word of it.”
“You doubt me?” roared the monster. “Watch!”
And the monster, offended, turned into smoke and went right back into the bottle. Boinawassi, quick as lightning, pushed in the stopper and threw the bottle far out to sea, so far that no one ever fished it out again. The fisherman went home, and it is said that ever since, he has been wary of sealed bottles.
Strength can do nothing against wit, and pride leads even the mightiest into the trap.
What we know about it
This tale is told in Mayotte by the storyteller Archimède Saïd Ravoay, who published it in 30 contes mahorais and tells it at the storytelling festivals held in Mayotte. It features the fisherman, the monster in the bottle, the chief who sides with the oath and the appeal to the cunning Boinawassi.
Boinawassi is a cousin of the trickster hero whom the Swahili coast calls Abunuwasi and whom Comorian storytellers call Ibnasya or Ibn'Aswia (see The pot that gave birth). The theme of the imprisoned genie who is tricked back into captivity is known all over the world, for example in “The Fisherman and the Jinni” in the One Thousand and One Nights; our ending follows the most common form of this story.
Further reading
- Voices of the archipelago Archimède Saïd Ravoay, 30 contes mahorais. CEMÉA Mayotte.
- Voices of the archipelago Saïd Abdallah, Trois ruses d'Ibnasya : contes comoriens. L'Harmattan.
- Voices of the archipelago Ahmed Ali Mroimana et Mohamed Ahmed-Chamanga, Contes comoriens de Ngazidja. Au-delà des mers, 1999. L'Harmattan, Archipel des Comores series.