the elephant girlie face - book 22 in the baba indaba children's stories

8/19/2019 The Elephant Girlie Face - Book 22 in the Baba Indaba Children's Stories

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THE ELEPH NT GIRLIE

F CE

A BUDDHIST JATAKA TALE

N

RR TED BY

B

B

I

ND B

PUBLISHED BY

ABELA PUBLISHING, LONDON

[2015]


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THE ELEPHANT GIRLIE FACE

Typographical arrangement of this edition©Abela Publishing 2015

This book may not be reproduced in its current formatin any manner in any media, or transmitted

by any means whatsoever, electronic,

electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical(including photocopy, file or video recording,internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other

information storage and retrieval system)except as permitted by law

without the prior written permissionof the publisher.

ABELA PUBLISHING,London, United Kingdom

2015

ISBN-13: 978-1-910882-22-1

Email: [email protected]

www.AbelaPublishing.com/girlieface.html


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INTRODUCTION

BABA INDABA, pronounced Baaba Indaaba,

lived in Africa a long-long time ago. Indeed,

this story was first told by Baba Indaba to the

British settlers over 250 years ago in a place on

the South East Coast of Africa called


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Zululand, which is now in a country now

called South Africa.

In turn the British settlers wrote these stories

down and they were brought back to England

on sailing ships. From England they were in

turn spread to all corners of the old British

Empire, and then to the world.

In olden times the Zulu’s did not have

computers, or iPhones, or paper, or even pens

and pencils. So, someone was assigned to bethe Wenxoxi Indaba (Wensosi Indaaba) – the

Storyteller. It was his, or her, job to memorise

all the tribe’s history, stories and folklore,

which had been passed down from generation

to generation for thousands of years. So, from

the time he was a young boy, Baba Indaba had

been apprenticed to the tribe’s Wenxoxi

Indaba to learn the stories. Every day the

Wenxoxi Indaba would narrate the stories and


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Baba Indaba would have to recite the story

back to the Wenxoxi Indaba, word for word.

In this manner he learned the stories of the

Zulu nation.

In time the Wenxoxi Indaba grew old and

when he could no longer see or hear, Baba

Indaba became the next in a long line of

Wenxoxi Indabas. So fond were the children of

him that they continued to call him Baba

Indaba – the Father of Stories.

When the British arrived in South Africa, he

made it his job to also learn their stories. He

did this by going to work at the docks at the

Point in Port Natal at a place the Zulu people

call Ethekwene (Eh-tek-weh-nee). Here he

spoke to many sailors and ships captains.

Captains of ships that sailed to the far reaches

of the British Empire – Canada, Australia,

India, Mauritius, the Caribbean and beyond.


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He became so well known that ship’s crew

would bring him a story every time they

visited Port Natal. If they couldn’t, they

would arrange to have someone bring it to

him. This way his library of stories grew and

grew until he was known far and wide as the

keeper of stories – a true Wenxoxi Indaba of

the world.

Baba Indaba believes the tale he is about to tell

in this little book, and all the others he haslearned, are the common property of

Umntwana (Children) of every nation in the

world - and so they are and have been ever

since men and women began telling stories,

thousands and thousands of years ago.


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W HERE IN THE W ORLD – LOOK IT UP!

This story was told to Baba Indaba by visiting

Arab sailor who had sailed the East Coast of

Africa, and further East across the Arabian Sea

and the Andaman Sea to lands where the

Buddhist people live. This was one of their

Jataka tales told to children to teach them howprecious all forms of life are.

Can you find the city of Mombasa and the city

of Sittwe on a map?


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THE ELEPHANT GIRLY-FACE

A story, a story

Let it come, let it go.

A story, a story

From long, long ago.

UMNTWANA IZWE! CHILDREN LISTEN!

This is a story about why you should not

believe everything you hear or overhear.

ONCE in a land far, far away, there lived a

King and the King had an Elephant named

Girly-face.

“Baba! You can’t call an indlovu (in-shloh-vu

– elephant) Girlie Face. The elephant is king of

the jungle. We all know that. Even the Zulu

King’s is call the Great Elephant and his kraal

is called Gingindlovu! (place of the big

elephant)”


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“Well young Sandile, THIS Elephant was

called Girly-face because he was so gentle and

good and looked so kind. "Girly-face never

hurts anybody," the keeper of the Elephants

often said.

“But you can’t call a boy elephant, Girlie

face!”

“Well this one was. Now, no more questions

and interruptions please, we must finish the

story……”

Now one night some robbers came into the

courtyard of the King’s palace and sat on the

ground just outside the stall where Girly-face

slept. The talk of the robbers awoke Girly-face.

"This is the way to break into a house," they

said. "Once inside the house kill anyone who

wakens. A robber must not be afraid to kill. A

robber must be cruel and have no pity. He

must never be good, even for a moment."


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Girly-face said to himself, "Those men are

teaching me how I should act. I will be cruel.

I will show no pity. I will not be good--not

even for a moment."

So the next morning when the keeper came to

feed Girly-face he picked him up in his trunk

and threw the poor keeper to the ground,

killing him.

Another keeper ran to see what the trouble

was, and Girly-face killed him, too.

For days and days Girly-face was so ugly that

no one dared go near. The food was left for

him, but no man would go near him.

By-and-by the king heard of this and sent oneof his wise men to find out what ailed Girly-

face.

The wise man had known Girly-face a long

time. He looked the Elephant over carefully


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So the wise man went back to the king. Said

he, "I think Girly-face has been listening to

bad talk.

If you will send some good men to talk where

Girly-face can hear them I think he will be a

good Elephant once more."

So that night the king sent a company of the

best men to be found to sit and talk near the

stall where Girly-face lived. They said to one

another, "It is wrong to hurt anyone. It is

wrong to kill. Everyone should be gentle and

good."

"Now those men are teaching me," thought

Girly-face. "I must be gentle and good. I must

hurt no one. I must not kill anyone." And from

that time on Girly-face was tame and as good

as ever an Elephant could be.

The moral of the story is:


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Don’t believe everything you hear.

Remember, good words are food,

bad words are poison.

Umntwana, here ends my story.

Salagahle umntwana!

(Salla-gah-shle Um-in-twaan-ah

Stay well my children!)


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www.AbelaPublishing.com

the elephant girlie face - book 22 in the baba indaba children's stories

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