Maku Mawu and Maku Fia

Long ago there lived two men who were the closest of friends, so close that people seldom saw them apart; spot one, and the other would be just around the corner. Between themselves they used private names that no one else was supposed to use. The first was Maku Mawu, which means “I will die God’s death.” The second was Maku Fia, “I will die the King’s death.”

Over time, though, their neighbours picked up the names, and gradually the whole village stopped using the friends’ real names and called them by these instead. Word travelled until it reached the King of the land, and he wanted to meet the two men who had taken such odd titles. He called them to his court, and they arrived side by side. The King liked the man who called himself Maku Fia very much. The other man’s name, however, offended him, and he started watching for an opportunity to make him suffer for it.

When they had talked a while, the King asked both friends to a grand feast he would hold three days later. As they were leaving, he handed Maku Mawu a large, handsome yam, while his favourite received nothing but a little round stone. Maku Fia felt a bit cheated: a stone for him, and such a fine yam for his friend! After a short way he grumbled, “Dear me, why should I bother carrying this stone all the way home? If only it were a yam, I could cook it and eat it.”

Maku Mawu had a generous heart, and he answered straight away, “Swap with me, then. This big yam is wearing me out.” So they traded, and each went to his own house. Maku Fia chopped the yam and cooked it for his meal. Maku Mawu cracked the stone in two and discovered a set of lovely ornaments the King had hidden inside. He thought he would turn the joke back on the King, so he kept the find to himself.

On the third day the friends got ready for the feast. Maku Mawu decked himself out in every ornament from the stone, while Maku Fia wore his ordinary clothes.

The moment they entered the palace, the King saw with amazement that his treasure was hanging on the wrong man. He vowed that his next punishment would not fail. He questioned Maku Fia about the stone, and Maku Fia explained that he had traded it for his friend’s yam.

For a while the King could find no excuse to punish Maku Mawu, who had, after all, done nothing wrong. Then a plan came to him. Putting on a show of great favour, he pulled a beautiful ring off his own finger and gave it to Maku Mawu. In return the young man had to promise to come back after seven days and let the King see the ring, as proof that it was safe. If he failed to bring it, for any reason at all, his head would be cut off. The King’s real intention was to get the ring back by some trick and so have Maku Mawu put to death.

Maku Mawu understood the plot, and he decided to put the ring where no one could reach it. He dug a little hole in the wall of his room, pushed the ring in, and plastered the spot over with such care that the wall looked as if it had never been disturbed.

Two days passed. Then the King called for Maku Mawu’s wife and offered her a large reward if she could find the ring and bring it to him. Naturally, he said nothing about what the loss would mean for her husband. She hunted all over the house and came up empty-handed. The next day she hunted again, with the same result. So she simply asked her husband where he had put it, and he, trusting her, told her it was in the wall. The day after, while he was away, she went over the walls inch by inch until she found it.

Overjoyed, she rushed to the palace and gave the ring to the King. She took her reward home with her, with no idea that she had sold her husband’s life.

On the sixth day a message came from the King telling Maku Mawu to be ready for the morrow. Thinking of the ring, the poor man went to make sure it was still hidden. The hole was empty, and his heart sank. He questioned his wife and his neighbours, but every one of them said they knew nothing about it. He decided that death was certain.

The King, meanwhile, had dropped the ring into one of the dishes in his palace and thought no more about it. On the morning of the seventh day he sent messengers in every direction, calling the people to see a disobedient man punished. After that he told his servants to make the palace tidy and to carry the dishes from his room and wash them.

The servants were careless and did not look to see whether anything lay in the dishes. They took every one of them down to a nearby pool, and with them went the dish that held the ring. While it was being scrubbed, the ring slid out and sank into the water, and nobody saw it go.

When all was ready, the King went to get the ring, but he could not find it anywhere. He had no choice except to go to the Assembly without it.

Once the crowd had gathered, Maku Mawu was ordered to step forward with the ring. He went up to the King without flinching, knelt, and said, “The ring is gone, and I am ready to die. All I ask is a few hours to settle my affairs.”

The King did not want to allow even that much, but in the end he agreed. “Four hours, then,” he said. “After that you will come back here and lose your head in front of everyone.”

The innocent man went home and arranged everything. Then hunger came over him, and he said to himself, “I may as well have a meal while there is still time. I’ll catch myself a fish from the pool.”

So he picked up his net and his bait and walked down to the same pool where the servants had scrubbed the King’s dishes. Before long he pulled out a big, fat fish. He slit it open to clean it, and there, inside, was the lost ring. You can imagine how glad he was.

He raced to the palace shouting, “The ring! I’ve found the ring!” When the crowd heard, they cheered: “He chose the right name when he called himself Maku Mawu! Only the death God picks for him is the death he will die.” The King now had no reason to harm him, and Maku Mawu walked away a free man.

About this tale

“Maku Mawu and Maku Fia” is story XXV in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917), where its title is followed by a translation: “I will die God’s death” and “I will die the King’s death.” The whole plot tests those two names. The ending turns on a ring that slips into a pool and is found again inside a fish.

Sinclair’s drawing for the tale is titled “Maku Mawu catches a Fish.” Barker’s storytellers were teachers in training at the Government institution in Accra.

Read the original: West African Folk-Tales by Barker and Sinclair, Project Gutenberg

Best for ages 9–12 with discussion: a ruler sets a death trap for an innocent person, deceives his wife and prepares a public execution. The last-minute recovery of the ring is a story event, not a promise that innocence always prevents harm.

Reading the story closely

The first exchange defeats the king’s favoritism because a useful yam matters more to Maku Fia than an unexplained stone. The second gift is dangerous because the king hides its purpose from the wife and controls the penalty. The contrast is between friendship’s open exchange and a ruler’s manipulation of information.

Follow the ring through wall, palace dish, pool, fish and assembly. Label each transfer as deliberate or accidental, and note who knows where it is. The crowd reads the recovery as vindication of Maku Mawu’s name; the narrative also shows a ruler who has made his own law into a trap. His inability to execute the man is not evidence that he has become fair.

Think about it

• What did each friend’s special name mean?
• How did the King try to make sure Maku Mawu would lose the ring?
• Why do the people say at the end that Maku Mawu “named himself rightly”?

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• Ohia and the Thieving Deer — a man facing death before the assembly
• The Ungrateful Man — an innocent man saved on the day of his execution