One of the reasons I started writing about history on this blog is this; I wanted to really show young Nigerians that the ancestors were more or less the same as we are today.
Nothing is new under the sun, and stories like this one from “Baba of Karo” really illustrate this point, read more to get what I mean.
“It happened here in New Giwa three years ago at a naming-day feast. There was a young woman here who had a yaya, there was friendship between them, the kanwa would take a valuable gift to her yaya, and if she did anything wrong her yaya reprimanded her; the kanwa’s husband showed her yaya respect, he bowed down to his wife’s yaya.
When the feast was being held the young woman was in the hut of the chief’s wife, then she went outside for some fresh air and she looked for her yaya; she searched and searched, then she went to the hut in the forecourt of the company, and she saw two people inside–she peeped in and she saw her husband and her yaya. They were lying together.
Then there was fighting and struggling, the husband fled, the yaya fled. They were covered with shame. The girl returned to the hut where they were drumming, everyone knew; they made that song that I’ve just sung.
The next morning she went off and broke up her marriage, then her yaya broke up hers also and married the husband of her kanwar rana. That is what people do.
The yaya even told the kanwar rana that she should come back to her husband and be her co-wife, they would have yaya and kanwar rana together in the same compound! The girl refused.
Then the yaya and the husband disagreed and later he got rid of the yaya and brought back the kanwar rana to his compound. People behave like that a good deal, but a true kawa does not do that. Only a treacherous husband and a treacherous kawa do it, they break faith.”
This is a story of a woman “stealing” her friend’s husband in circa 20th century Nigeria.
Basically, if anyone tries to tell you how “the world is coming to an end” because of certain “modern” happenings, show them this blog.
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who start writing epistles about how “xyz (usually women) of nowadays” have gone down the drain and how they wish for the good old days
Every story not science fiction is quite frankly as old as whenever there were first three human beings in one location.