Mbeku

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Mbeku // ^ⓘ (from the Igbo word for tortoise) is the trickster tortoise in Igbo and West African folktales.

In one aetiological tale Mbekwu gets taken by the birds to a feast in the sky. When he eats all the food, the birds stop him from flying back to the earth, and he falls, which is how the tortoises got the patterns on their shells.

In an Igbo fable Mbekwu (or Mbe) persuades Grasshopper (Ukpana) to help fake sadness on the death of his father-in-law, so that he can get food from his kinsmen, but breaks his pledge to share the food. The grasshopper betrays him to his kinsfolk, who kill him.

• The Flying Tortoise, Tololwa M. Mollel, illustrated by Barbara Spurll, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-540990-6.
• Anthropological report on the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria. Northcote W Thomas, 1913, London, Harrison

This article relating to an African myth or legend is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e