DUBIAKU, (ashanti)

A man who almost cheated death. A mother with eleven sons asked Death to take some of them because they ate so much. In the house of Death, they slept on mats, each with a child of Death, but Dubiaku kept awake, sent Death on an errand and escaped with his brothers. When Death returned, she ate her own children in mistake for the brothers. When they were followed Dubiaku lured Death into a tree and caused her to fall to the ground and be killed. She was revived inadvertently by Dubiaku and took up the chase again. Ten of the brothers escaped by swinging themselves across a river and Dubiaku turned himself into a stone to escape Death. In some lore, occasionally referred to as Dubiaku.         ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------     Legendary Hero Kid and Outwitter of Death           Burdened with eleven sons, Dubiaku’s overworked mother couldn’t cope and asked the Gods for assistance. To solve the problem they helpfully sent Death.When Dubiaku’s mother said: “Dearest son, I’m going out tonight, but nice Mrs Death is coming to babysit”, no-one could blame him for being slightly suspicious. That evening, Mrs Death turned up with eleven of her own children, making it a kind of double babysit.   Dubiaku was on his worst behavior. He stayed up way past bedtime chewing tobacco, taking snuff and demanding snacks until Mrs Death didn’t know if she was coming or going. She decided to go outside and bang her head against a tree. Meanwhile Dubiaku got busy... Ten minutes later Mrs Death returned to the nursery with a sore head and a renewed sense of purpose. She ate the eleven children as she had been asked, and went to kiss her own children goodnight. Too late she discovered that Dubiaku had tinkered with the sleeping arrangements and sneaked his brothers out the back where they were hiding in a tree. Mrs Death had just eaten her own children. Cue bad attack of indigestion. Screeching with rage, she dashed outside to find the missing kiddies. As she stood under a tree scratching her head, the cocky little Dubiaku peed on her head. Not very clever. Mrs Death looked up and howled her Falling Down Dead Spell. All the boys fell out of the tree, except for Dubiaku who had already jumped to escape the spell. Mrs Death climbed the tree to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone, and Dubiaku turned the tables by shouting the Falling Down Dead Spell word perfect. Mrs Death fell dead. By one of those quirks of fate with which mythology abounds, the tree happened to be on the banks of the Water-of-Life river. So our young hero splashed his siblings with handfuls of water to restore them to life. In his exuberance he clumsily allowed a drop or two to splash onto Mrs Death, who sprang up and chased them all. But the boys leapt into the river and swam to safety, all except little Dubiaku who couldn’t swim. In a terrible rage, Mrs Death began throwing stones at the escapees. She picked up a particularly large one and hurled it towards the opposite bank. But it wasn’t really a stone — it was a cunningly disguised Dubiaku. So the eleven brothers escaped and Mrs Death trudged home in a foul mood.