You and I have never been together in setting traps.
You should not therefore expect to accompany me when I am visiting my traps.
Yasi nanu: Members of a Youth Club for setting traps for birds were routinely always together whenever they were setting traps and whenever they visited their traps. However, Mulungu preferred not to join the club. He set his traps alone and visited the traps alone.
During one of his visits to his traps he was frightened when he came face to face with a marauding young elephant. Thereafter, he abandoned his traps, and then regularly joined members of the Youth Club whenever they were roasting birds they had captured. Following tradition, Mulungu was always served with the share reserved for gate crashers (va-teeme).
On one occasion, after he had eating a slice of a bird meat Mulungu informed members of the Youth Club that he would henceforth accompany them whenever they were going out to visit the traps they had set.
Replying, Mbongo said:
(“No !
Don't come.
We don't want you.
" jae !
iso waa-sa !
osi-kee-ka li-ja !
isi-kovene ngundeli no wa, i-jo-ngene” !
You are not a member of our club.
Visits to our traps are reserved for members of our Club only.
Since we are not members of the club to which you belong we are similarly not expected to visit your traps).
Mulungu pleaded:
"Wonya-mowe koo-ko !
It is embarrassing to me, to continue to be served with slices of meat of birds, when I do not know where the birds are trapped".
Mbongo retorted:
“isi-ji kovene, ijo-ngene."
"You are trying to drive a hard bargain, so that following the requirements of tradition you will now become eligible also for a visitor's share of birds caught in our traps.
We don’t want you in our company".
No. We don’t want you in our company.
“isi-ji kovene, ijo-ngene."
Literally:
“No. We don’t want you.
No. Don’t attempt to drag me or get me involved into the dangerous situation that you have created for yourself as a consequence of your being foolhardy.
Lexicon:
ngundeli = a trap.
a koovi ngundeli = he has set a trap.
va-teeme = gate crashers. Tradition tolerates gatecrashers. The reasons being that:
"Yaa, vama-je ! (Yaa, they have already come. Yaa, they are already inside here.
Yaa, they are standing here and staring at us and at what is being shared”
wonya-mowe = countrymen; brothers and sisters; ladies and gentlemen; the audience.
Oma nanu.
Imba
Mola Mbua Ndoko
P.o Box 38 Buea, South West Province
Cameroon, West/Africa.
Email:[email protected]
Website: http://www.mbuandoko.com
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