Fenda Maria

[00:00:00]In this fairy tale, a brother sells his sister into slavery so that he can marry a beautiful woman, but she returns richer and more powerful than everyone who betrayed her. It's called Fenda Maria and Naga Nazoua from Angola. After their parents die, a brother and sister, Naga Nazoua and Fenda Maria inherit a modest fortune and a goat. The goat Fenda's mother tells her to look after and think of as her parents. Fenda's brother falls in love with the governor's daughter, and she says, "Yeah, I'll marry you, but only if you give me your sister as a slave." And he does. After the wedding, Fenda loses not only her freedom, but her name. Her new sister-in-law, who is her owner now, starts calling her Kamaria instead. In very Cinderella fashion, she takes away her true name. Her brother silently watches as she has to gather firewood, haul water, wash clothes, and get abused. The one Joy Fenda has in her life is the goat that her mother and father left her. But of course, her evil sister-in-law doesn't want her to have any joy, so she orders the goat slaughtered. Afterwards, she orders Fenda to go to the river to clean the slaughtered goat's intestines. But as Fenda is cleaning them in the river, the fish and the river carry the intestines away, and she loses them. And fearing more horrible abuse, she just runs off into the woods. In the wilderness, she discovers a lonely old woman who's suffering from leprosy. But instead of running away from her, she of course befriends her and helps to care for her.

[00:01:19]Because of this kindness, the old woman in very fairy godmother fashion rewards Fenda by taking her to a room that is filled with cloth, ivory, wax, rum, money, slaves, soldiers, musicians, fine clothing, and everything she could ever want. The woman tells her, "Take all this stuff and go back home." And so she does. And on her journey, she runs into some forest spirits called the Makishi.

[00:01:41]They are magical guardians who also recognize Fenda's goodness and how she has been wronged. And they give her even more gifts. a box of food, a box of clothes, and a box of music. She arrives back at her hometown, and no one recognizes this woman with all of this splendor and servants and coaches and an orchestra traveling with her from that box of music is that poor slave girl that the brother sold. This obviously is a Cinderella sort of story. And in Cinderella stories, sometimes she goes to a ball every night where she is noticed by the town's people. And in some stories, she goes to church every Sunday and is in different splendor every time and gets noticed by people.

[00:02:18]In this version, she goes to church. The governor, the father of her evil sister-in-law, becomes obsessed with knowing who she is. He tells everyone at court and all his servants like, "If you can figure out who this girl is, I'll give you money." Well, a real lucky servant happens to see our girl transforming from her beautiful clothes into regular won't be recognized clothes and tells the governor who she really is, that former slave of his daughter.

[00:02:40]The governor summons everyone to his court, including her. And in front of everyone, she admits, "Yes, I was that former slave, and I'm also the sister of your son-in-law." And apparently, no one knew before that she had been a sister.

[00:02:53]They just thought she was some slave. So now they all find out that he sold his sister into slavery to marry the daughter, and everyone is horrified. And her brother, Nazoua, is horrified, too.

[00:03:02]It suddenly has occurred to him that what he did was horrible. Fenda, however, chooses mercy rather than revenge, and does something almost no other Cinderellas do. She does not marry the governor. She asked that her brother be released from his marriage and allowed to just live with her again like they did before all of this happened.

[00:03:20]She uses her magical gifts to summon an entire mansion and a warehouse filled with golden goods so that she and her brother can live comfortably together forever. And the cruel now ex-wife is sent away to find some other man. And that's how it ends. Not sure if I think the brother really deserves all that forgiveness, but it's what our girl wanted. And maybe the greatest revenge isn't punishment sometimes, but it's just becoming so powerful that the people who betrayed you have to ask you for things. Now, it's common in Cinderella stories that they get their revenge not through violence, but through being kind to someone else, someone other people do not necessarily want to be kind to, which is also a common pattern in Central African stories about how generosity and compassion will get you supernatural gifts.