On Truths and Lies

"Vérité et Mensonge" is one of the tales from Birago Diop's "Tales of Amadou Koumba" a collection of tales originating from Senegal and other African countries, transcribed and translated into French from the stories of the griot Amadou, son of Koumba.

It stars two characters, Fène-le-Mensonge and Deug-la-Vérité. The word Mensonge translates to (Lie) while Vérité means (Truth).

The tale begins with the perception of both characters of which one is most favored by God and men, as Fène-le-Mensonge believes that Deug-la-Vérité is favored by God, while Deug-la-Vérité thinks men's favorite is Fène-le-Mensonge. They go on a journey to put their beliefs to the test and find out the answer to their question of who is most favored.

But before their departure, Fène suggests that only Deug speaks whenever they encounter someone because he has always heard people say that God has always preferred the truth, and should he himself handles the speaking, people would receive them badly.

But throughout the journey, the first and second times they meet people, Deug-le-Vérité's honesty ends up being misunderstood by them. Then Fène suggests that it is not a good idea for Deug to keep talking for the both of them anymore because his brutal honesty was not well received, and he decided to handle things from there. He says that it is God who prefers the truth, but it is different for men, they prefer him instead. Along the journey, they encounter a king, and as Fène is the one in charge of doing the talk, he tried to convince the king to give him some of his fortunes by telling him lies that he liked, which proved that humans favored him instead of the truth because he ended up stripping the king of all his fortune.

These types of tales are not meant to convey a specific moral standpoint to the reader. It is just a mere reflection of the facts on how things are like in life. We get to see things for what they truly are without having to judge them. It is neither black nor white when it comes to which side to root for. Sometimes the lesson you are supposed to get out of a situation is that there is no lesson!