A Hippos Tale - Alexandra Brown

One of my favorite parts of reading Carmody was when they told the tale about how the hippo's tail became short. I never before considered that oral peoples would have humor like ours. I've always enjoyed reading tall tales, and especially the "how the (insert animal)..." tales. As I was reading the story, it was amusing, but very much like the other stories i've read. And then came the part where the elephant pulled out a knife and cut off the hippos tail. I can't even describe just how shocked I was. Here's a story i'm assuming is told to children to amuse them, and they have an elephant just chopping off a part of the hippos body. My first thought was, "These people are seriously bloodthirsty," and then my next thought was, "OR they have some great humor." 1-elephants can't hold knives because of their lack of opposable thumbs. 2-I seriously doubt elephants get that angry. 3-the elephant definitely would've won the tug-o-war, hands down. So my final conclusion is: oral people have a wicked sense of humor, with a touch of morbidity. Something I can definitely appreciate.

Carmody, Denise, and John Carmody. Original Visions: The Religions of Oral Peoples. New York City, NY: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1993. Print.