Sankofa Creative Competition #1: When men still talked with beasts

Thousands and thousands of years ago in far away west Africa. When men still talked with beasts, respected them and never killed them. When men ate only vegetables, walked naked and did nothing but eat, sleep, play, give birth and have sex everyday. When men spoke directly to the Creator. There lay a kingdom called Ntse.

Ntse from the original translation was "monkey". This was a kingdom made up of mainly monkeys, humans and little percentage of spirits because people rarely died and the Creator called "Ukwu" rarely took them back to himself. The spirits acted as the mediator between animals and the creator. The monkeys were hard workers, the humans also worked but the chimpanzees were very lazy.

One day the monkeys could no longer bare it. The would till the soil, sow and harvest and the chimpanzees would visit during harvest. The would eat, drink and even store the ones that they would eat in the next seven days in their stomach, when they got back home they would vomit them in their storage barn called "Abama". One chimpanzee could go for as much as twenty visits during the harvest. The monkeys noticed this and reported to Nrintse the great monkey, the one who has live for five hundred years, the one who had outlived generations of humans and monkeys, the king of monkeys and a senior chief in the Ntse kingdom to both monkeys and men.

Nrintse who was a very wise man sent for the representative of the chimpanzees but they had non. They were so proud to the extent that every chimpanzee in Ntse kingdom believed that they were kings. Although this is the way the monkeys viewed it but the chimpanzees saw it as self esteem and not pride. So when Nrintse sent for the chimpanzees they all came in their thousands and Nrintse started advicing them ,"we have lived in peace as distant relatives since time immemorial, I called you today to speak on your laziness and lack of organization. Although, the humans living in Ntse kingdom have no king they lived organized lives. The first born of every family the family leader. The oldest in a clan is a clan leader, the village leader is rotated between elders of clans and we all go to represent you at the meeting of the gods and spirits so that they could could take our appeals, wishes and prayers to the great Ukwu. The chimpanzees have never had any representative. I believe you should choose a king or some group of leaders".
At this point the meeting became volcanic. Shouting, scuffles, squabbles, railings and murmurings. Nrintse dropped dead because the chimpanzees trampled on him while arguing. They didn't even notice that he was dead. They all left the venue of the meeting arguing as the strolled home.

At the other side of the kingdom, where the monkeys lived, an alarm was raised  that the great Nrintse was missing. Two days later they saw his body at a far forest were the meeting was held. It was a gory sight.
The humans got angry and decided to fight for monkeys and avenge the death of Nrintse but the monkeys being peace loving people pleaded with the humans to forgive the chimpanzees. The chimpanzees were to appease the ancient spirits with seven chimpanzee heads, choose leaders and work hard.

They did well in the initial two but didn't know how to go about the last one. Their conversation became a folk song in western Africa.

Chimpanzees: What do we do?

Humans: Till the ground.

Chimpanzees: After tilling?

Humans: Plant your seeds.

Chimpanzees: After planting?

Humans: Weed.

Chimpanzees: After weeding?

Humans: Harvest your crops.

Chimpanzees: After harvesting?

Humans: Store them then eat

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Chimpanzees: If that is how you live your lives we don't like to live with humans again

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So the chimpanzees ran into the bush and lives there until this day.

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