African Food and Art

This blog explores the wisdom of African proverbs, the depth of folklore, the beauty of art, the stories of history, and the flavors of timeless African food recipes.

Pretend Kindness African-Folklore Story

Much of African ancient-folklore has succumbed to lost memories of a culture. 

A desire to preserve, before African-Folklore is entirely forgotten, some of the traditional stories, is preserved not only in ancestral memory but also in writing. 

African-folklore has attracted much and deserved worldwide attention. Iniko’s pretend kindness African-Folklore is a story about Iniko who pretend kindness and was really a gluttonous and selfish husband and father.

Pretend Kindness African-Folklore
Pretend Kindness African-Folklore Story

Pretend Kindness African-Folklore

Nuru asked her husband Iniko to attend to the food on the fire while she went to fetch water. On her return, she found her husband skimming off the stew from the top of the pot.  After he filled a calabash high with stew, he hid it inside the house.

Nuru did not let him know that she had seen him and went into the house, poured the stew her husband took from the pot back into the stew pot. She then returned the calabash to her husband secret hiding place.

At dinner, when Iniko, trusting in what he hid, said to his wife "give me only a little and let our children have plenty," she said to him "abdntsa ate bil- guro bigela gullemrni, father, don’t call spray spring!"  He did not understand what this meant until he went to eat what he had put aside for himself, and then found the calabash empty.

Did you know? If you dig deep enough you can find many truths in African folklore stories.


More short folklore stories from Africa to make you fall in love with myths and legends again from the motherland.

  1. Why the bunny rabbit has wiggly slits for a nose
  2. Love Takes No Less Than Everything Marriage Folklore
  3. Hunters Attack Cowards Tell the Story
  4. One Do Wrong All Get Punished
  5. Mighty Little Hedgehog

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