Honourable Minū

One day a poor man from Akim had to travel from his small village all the way to Accra, one of the big towns on the coast. The trouble was that he could speak only the language of his own village, and the people of the town did not understand it.

As he came near Accra he passed a huge herd of cows. He was amazed at how many there were and wondered who could own them all. Seeing a man with the herd, he asked, “Who do these cows belong to?”

The man did not know the Akim-man’s language, so he answered, “Minū,” which the story explains as ‘I do not understand.’

But the traveller thought Minū must be the name of the owner. “Mr Minū must be very rich,” he said.

Then he went into the town. Before long he saw a fine, large building and wondered whose it was. The man he asked could not understand him either, so he too replied, “Minū.”

“Goodness! What a rich man Mr Minū must be!” cried the Akim-man.

He came to an even grander building, surrounded by beautiful gardens, and asked again who owned it. Again came the answer: “Minū.”

“How wealthy Mr Minū is!” said our astonished traveller.

Next he reached the beach. There in the harbour a magnificent steamer was being loaded. He marvelled at the enormous cargo going aboard and asked someone standing nearby, “Who owns this fine ship?”

“Minū,” said the man.

“The Honourable Minū as well! He’s the richest man I ever heard of!” cried the Akim-man.

When his business was done, the Akim-man started for home. As he walked down one of the town’s streets, he met men carrying a coffin, followed by a long procession of people all dressed in black. He asked who had died, and he got the usual reply: “Minū.”

“Poor Mr Minū!” cried the Akim-man. “So he has had to leave all his riches and beautiful houses and die just like a poor man! Well, well. From now on I’ll be happy with my own tiny house and my little bit of money.”

And the Akim-man went home to his hut feeling quite content.

About this telling

“Honourable Minū” is story XVII in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917). The book explains the joke inside the story itself: minū is given as the townspeople’s way of saying “I do not understand.” The traveller is called an “Akim-man,” and Accra is described as one of the big towns on the coast, complete with a harbour and a steamer taking on cargo.

Barker describes gathering stories from teachers in training at Accra. The misunderstanding here belongs to this particular tale; the book’s spelling ‘Minū’ is not presented as a modern phrasebook entry.

Read the original: West African Folk-Tales on Project Gutenberg

Reading guidance: a short language-misunderstanding tale that ends at a funeral. Younger listeners may want to talk about the traveller’s thoughts on death and possessions.

An imagined owner of everything

The traveller hears the same response and links separate possessions to one imaginary person. Repetition makes the error seem better supported each time. The funeral extends the same mistaken rule, but leads to a reflection that does not depend on the invented Mr Minū being real: wealth cannot remove mortality.

Make two columns for what the townspeople mean and what the traveller hears. At which encounter could a drawing or a gesture have interrupted the misunderstanding? The joke is about a communication gap, not a lack of intelligence in someone who speaks another language.

Questions to ask

• What did the word “Minū” really mean?
• Why did the Akim-man think Mr Minū was so rich?
• How did the traveller feel about his own small house at the end, and why?

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