Folktale:why the tortoise shell looks cracked

If you haven't seen a turtle in real life, you must have seen it in pictures. Have you wondered why it's shell looks like it has been glued together? I think African folktales has an answer to this question.

There was once a time when the turtles shell was smoother than the human skin. He even took pride in the beauty of his spotless shell. All these changed long ago when the heavenly beings still interacted face to face with man and animals.

During that time, Mr. Turtle was known for his cunning behaviour. He made friends with the heavenly beings. He would always invite them to his house for feasts but they had never invited them for any. This was because they knew he had no means of coming to heaven. He had no wings.

Then there came a time in the animal kingdom when hunger struck. Animals began to suffer from lack of food and water. Mr. Turtle was not left out. So he decided to ask his heavenly friends for help. They decided to invite him to a marriage party.

In other to attend the heavenly party, Mr. Turtle made a deal with some hungry birds. They would each lend him a feather to enable him fly to heaven and in exchange, they would follow him to the feast.

On the day of the heavenly feast, the birds lent feathers to Mr. Turtle and they all flew together to heaven. While they were still on the way to heaven, Mr Turtle who did not want to share any food with the birds devised a trick on how to cheat them. He told the birds that any animal going to heaven is supposed to have a unique name. It is with that name that they would be identified in heaven.

The birds chose their unique names. Mr. Turtle chose to be identified as "All Of You". According to him, the name "All Of You" was what his heavenly friends knew him as.

When they got to the venue of the heavenly feast. They were all led to the seats reserved for earth creatures. When drinks was served, Mr Turtle asked the server, "please who exactly is this drink for?". He got the reply, "it is for all of you". He then turned to the birds and said, "you all heard the waiter, this drink is for 'all of you'. And as you all know, I'm the only one identified by that name". He advised the birds to wait for their own drinks. He drank everything alone. He still repeated the same thing when other things were served to the group. He ended up eating everything and leaving the birds hungry.

When it was time to go, the hungry birds decided to take back the feathers they had lent Mr Turtle. He pleaded with them to let him get home first before returning the feathers bit they refused. They told him to fly home with the food and drinks that he alone had consumed. They left him and went home.

Mr Turtle's heavenly friends were unable to help him because they were too busy with their party. He had no other option but to call out to his wife who was on earth. Mrs. Turtle was drying clothes under the sun when she heard her husband call from heaven. He told her to bring out all the soft things in the house and keep for him so that he would fall on them. Because of the distance between heaven and earth, she could hear was to bring out all the hard tools in the house.

When Mr Turtle fell from heaven, he fell on various hard objects instead of the soft things he expected. The impact of the fall was too much on his shell, so it broke into pieces. In a bid to help her husband, Mrs. Turtle used her saliva to glue the pieces of her husband's shell together and attach it back to his body. From that moment till now, Mr Turtle's shell has taken to the cracked form

All images are subject to Google

Thanks for reading 💖