Hello everyone, how did your weekend go? Hope it was fun.
Well, i just thought i do share this with the community and hear what others have to say about it.
This myth or rather traditional story comes up from a clan in North Central Nigeria. This people do not eat the monitor lizards as it is seen as a totemic animal in the area.
Here goes the story of why this creature is deified.
Now, the ancestor of this clan married a lady from another clan and as was the culture then, the son in-law often helps the father in-law out on some farm jobs like cultivating the field and also harvesting.
During the yam harvest, their ancestor as usual went to help his in-law in harvesting the latter's yam.
After harvesting the yams, they gathered them in a heap so as to ensure easy trimming of the yams and covering.
This man saw that the yams of his father in-law were price wining. He desired some for himself but courtesy and shame would not let him ask so he kept mute.
After the day's work, his father in-law gave him some of the yams and they were on their way home. The son in-law intentionally left his hoe behind so as to have a reason to go back. He told his father in-law that he forgot his hoe and needs to go back to retrieve it.
He went back and started stealing the yams and stacking them in a different location.
After waiting for a while without seeing his son in-law, the father in-law decides to go back and check for him. On getting to his farm, he met his son in-law packing the yams from where they were originally kept.
He asked his son in-law why he was packing the yams from where they where originally stacked. Ashamed and afraid to say he was stealing, the son in-law told him father in-law that when he came back for his hoe, he saw a monitor lizard running into the yam heap and he was packing the yams to enable him kill it.
The father said okay, they should hunt it down together. The son in-law was shaky because he knew it was a lie.
After clearing the yams, coincidentally, they found a monitor lizard hiding in the heap and they killed it!
Being saved from shame and humiliation by the mysterious presence of the monitor lizard, the son in-law decided to reverence this creature and makes it a taboo for anyone to kill or eat it!
What do you think about this?
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