Species: Western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)
Status: Critically endangered
The suitors of Princess Gorilla
Folktale from Gabon
King Njina, king of the gorillas, has a beautiful daughter. When she grows up, everyone wants to marry her, so the king sets a task: whoever can drink an entire barrel of a new kind of water, gets to have her as a wife. The "new kind of water" is rum. All the animals boast and try to drink the barrel of rum, but they all fail. After Elephant, Hippo, Hog, and Leopard, finally the tiny Telinga monkey takes a turn.
Telinga asks if he has to drink the barrel of rum at one go, or if he can take breaks. The king grants him breaks as long as he finishes the barrel in one day. Telinga drinks some, then goes to "rest" in the tall grass, before he comes back for more. What no one notices is that Telinga has his whole family hidden in the grass - and since they all look alike, they take turns drinking the rum until it's gone.
Telinga wins the beautiful Princess Gorilla. However, he doesn't get to marry her: the other animals get so angry that they chase him and his family up the trees, where they have been living ever since.
(I am not sure what species Telinga is. Something that is "very small" and lives in trees.)
Sources: Read the story here.
How can I help?
Read about conservation efforts here and here.
Fascinating folklore-
ReplyDeleteI thought he was going to spit it out, or vomit it up to empty his stomach! I never thought of others of his kind. I wonder what he was.
ReplyDeleteLOL! That little telinga fellow was very smart, but in the end that was not enough.
ReplyDelete@JazzFeathers
The Old Shelter - Living the Twenties
That was a smart move. Smart Telinga.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your tales - they teach me something about the endangered species and also take me back to my childhood when I loved stories like these.
ReplyDeleteAnd good that telinga didnt get to marry the beautiful gorilla - a husband that cheats from the very beginning!!! 😀
That is just so unfair - the other animals didn't know he cheated, they were just sore losers. Although I do think Princess Gorilla should have had a say in her husband anyway.
ReplyDeleteTasha 💖
Virginia's Parlour - The Manor (Adult concepts - nothing explicit in posts)
Tasha's Thinkings - Vampire Drabbles
Loved this tale. Such a clever plot. Sad, he got caught.
ReplyDeleteHe should've won the princess for his ingenuity.
Squirrels? So clever! I love to read your tales, they are always so great!
ReplyDeleteGreat gig you've got going on here. I enjoyed the story. As for getting our collective shit together... I can no longer even imagine such a scenario. I feel like we need to be happier with smaller more attainable achievements and see that they are equally real.
ReplyDeleteHahaha! That was a funny tale. I would've won that challenge quite easily. Barrell of Rum? Pfft! Bring it on, I say :D Btw, Gorilla used to be my son's favourite animal. He was the only kid in his school to talk about gorillas. These days, he's grown up a bit and started liking the Lion.
ReplyDeleteGuess the Telinga monkeys might be one of the tiny new world species like the Tamarins or Marmosets.
Smart chap, Telinga. Not fair he didn't get to marry the princess...
ReplyDeleteI'd guess a pygmy marmoset too like the poster before me.
Wise Telinga but lady luck was not on his side...sigh.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting folk tale.
That's a really cute story! I can easily picture monkeys playing a trick like that.
ReplyDeleteThat was funny. And sweet. Smart Telinga.
ReplyDeleteI love this. So much for being enterprising, he still didn't win the hand of the princess!
ReplyDeleteHahaha! What a smart lil Telinga! Interesting story :)
ReplyDeletewhat a great story! Very fun! See you tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteI don't think the monkey was a pygmy marmoset because Gabon is in Africa, not South America.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why being able to drink a barrel of rum would be a good trait for your daughter's husband? I hope she got to marry her own pick after that fiasco.
Finding Eliza
Fun story!
ReplyDeleteAn A-Z of Faerie: Gancanagh
I like Your blog a lot! I have a Polish-English channel with stories from around the world myself. You are doing a great job(sources and your introductions are wonderful)
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