Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Moti Wayeesa

Once upon a time, there was a husband and wife, and the wife became pregnant. So the husband began slaughtering many sheep and feeding them to her, so that she would become strong.

Very soon nine months had almost gone by. So the husband prayed to God and said, “Dear God, please keep the baby in my wife’s stomach a bit longer so she can eat more and become stronger.”

So, as God hears all prayers, the child stayed in the wife’s stomach. And in the meantime the husband continued living with his wife and she became pregnant for the second time, while the first child was still in her womb.

So after a period of nine months, she gave birth to two boys. In fact, they were twins but one was much older than the other, because he had stayed in his mother’s womb for such a long time.

Anyway, the twins were born and they grew up. And after some time the man and his wife died and the sons had to decide who should take the inheritance.

The older one said, “I am older, so I should take it.”

But the younger one said, “No, we were born at the same time, so you are no older than I am."

They went to the elders and the elders found this a very difficult case.

So they took them to a large lake and they said, “We cannot decide this, therefore what we’ve got to do is to let God decide it. We’ve talked to Abba Gedda, and the solution is that you’ve got to dive to the bottom of the lake and come up with whatever you find at the bottom.”

The brothers agreed and they both jumped in. After some time the younger one came up with a fish in his hand. But the second one came out with a keleche (an Oromo ritual object) in his hand. And this is how the Oromo people explain how they got the keleche. And they say that because of this, the elder sons have always been given the keleche instead of the younger ones.