I sometimes wonder if the children of this current generation will ever get to experience what it is like to sit down quietly and listen to a certain story that relates to the Nigerian culture. Although some of these stories may be mythical, there is always a lesson behind the story. With the prevalence of social media, it is challenging to determine if there will be any repercussions for these stories. I guess nobody has the time to sit down and listen to tales anymore when they can simply Google it.
Generators have taken over the streets and neighbourhoods, with different kinds of sounds emanating from various flats when there is a power failure. I beg to differ. What was it like sitting around in a camping setting while there was an older person who told us a story about a certain thing? The closest to this example I have experienced in the past is the encounter at the Badagry center, which has iconic stories of the slave trade era, during a school trip. Over there was when I experienced something that seemed like moonlight tales, but the difference is this one was real. It happened many years ago.
I want you to imagine a beautiful evening where the sun has settled down, and the moon is getting ready to come out. Let's say something like 6 pm or a couple of muinutes passed 7 pm. Children all settled calmly around the storyteller. Forming a circle around the storyteller to get a clear audio of what the person has to say. Then you hear the word story story. The children respond by saying story. Then the storyteller goes again with once upon a time, the children respond as well; time, time.
There is a unique connection that exists with this interreaction that takes place between the storyteller and the children. It grabs their interest and, in that way, keeps the listeners engaged. I have a theory that interreactions from moonlight tales are what brought about audience engagement, carrying your audience. What famous artists do for their fans, where they allow their fans to sing along to their song while they keep quiet, has been in existence right from the time of Moonlight Tales. That is my theory.
The groundbreaking idea of these tales was not just to tell stories, but above all teach a lesson. Stories about a tortoise being greedy while trying to outsmart everyone is on the morals of not being greedy. I remember one I came across a while back, which talks about an event happening in heaven, and all animals were invited. But tortoise, being the greedy animal he is well known to be, decided to go ahead and attend the event with the name everybody. So when the time for item 7 came during the event in heaven, each time they brought out the food and drinks, the tortoise would ask Who is this for and the response was Everybody. So he would use that opportunity to eat the entire meal.
He ended up eating up the entire meal made for everybody, but when the event was over, it was time to go back home. Tortoise had forgotten that all this food had made him fat, and his friend, the bird, who brought him to the event, abandoned him because of his greed. With no other choice tortoise had to jump down, which caused his shells to crack and made him move slowly.
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
Stories like this were meant to teach the importance of not being too greedy; you might need the help of the person you were once greedy to. I sincerely hope my children get to experience some of these moonlight tales. I will for sure tell them as much as I can.
I am 
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Thanks For Reading!
