Eating Yams

 Eating Yams

There was a village headman in a certain village. This village headman loved eating yams. In the morning, he would go to the forest and by noon, he would return with a whole basket of yams.

The village housekeeper would then prepare the yams by boiling them, grinding some coconut, and making a good spicy mix. When the yams were cooked, they would be served in a bowl. However, not all the yams would fall into the bowl; some would remain stuck to the pot.

When the village headman asked, "Is this all there was in the basket?" the housekeeper would reply, "This is all that was left after boiling and stirring them." The housekeeper also loved eating yams, so she intentionally left some yams stuck to the pot.

Eventually, the headman found out about this. One day, he secretly poured some coconut oil at the bottom of the pot. The housekeeper cleaned the yams and boiled them. This time, when she tried to take the yams out, all of them slid right into the bowl. The headman and the housekeeper started eating the yams together.

While eating, the housekeeper started a conversation and asked, "How did your father pass away?"

The headman replied, "Many in our family lived long lives. My father went to cut down a tree in the forest but caught a severe fever there. He came home shivering from the fever and ultimately couldn’t recover." The headman said this with tears in his eyes, noticing that most of the yams in the bowl were already gone.

Thinking he should also ask a question, the headman inquired, "How did your father die?" As the housekeeper was putting another piece of yam in her mouth, she replied, "Caught a fever, passed away," and put the remaining piece of yam in her mouth.

(Note: "Yams" are the type of root vegetable referred to in this story.)