The story of a mother’s legacy starts with Atule who lives in the village with her dear mother. She was the only child of her mother, a farmer, and she lost her father when she was quite little. Atule was a very beautiful girl and her beauty was appreciated by both women and men.
In the evening her beauty was even more evident especially when the beams of the sunset shone on her melanin skin. Atule was not only beautiful but also obedient and respectful. Soon she reached the age when she would assist her mother who had suffered to raise her.
However, instead of assisting her mother, Atule would rather spend time with her friends. She kept lousy company, which made her ill-mannered and hostile. Atule wouldn’t assist her mother at home and she focused only on her beauty.
Because of the bad company that she kept, her beauty started to go into her head and she also became disobedient. Atule wouldn’t help her mother with any household chores instead she would dress up to improve her beauty.
Slowly, Atule started showing off her beauty. Her mother and their neighbors tried all they could to convince her that she was taking the wrong step and it wouldn’t yield positive results. They all tried hard to convince her but she wouldn’t listen to their advice.
In the morning, she would go and return late at night. The next day she would bathe and get ready for the day. After a while, her mother became tired of her routine, so she punished her daughter.
Every time Atule came home when the food was ready, her mother would return to the kitchen. Although she had already added all the necessary ingredients to the food, she would still be in the kitchen to dust her palm in the pot.
Atule would sit down and watch her mother from afar and she thought that from watching her mother she would teach her to cook. Meanwhile, she had no idea that her mother was tricking her. Every time that Atule wanted to cook she would use the trick that she saw her mother use.
Atule would rub her hands to gather all the ingredients together and dust her hands over a pot of boiling water. Atule tried this several times, however each time she tried this nothing would happen. She thought that was how her mother cooked. Her mother deceived her, unaware that her mother wasn’t concerned about teaching her cooking skills but only about enjoying meals together.
Soon it was time for her to get married and her husband’s kinsmen wanted to try the new wife’s meal. They all gathered to see what she would cook, however, Atule didn’t know how to cook. Walking to the kitchen, Atule filled the pot with boiling water.
Then she started dusting her palm on the pot of water and started gathering all the ingredients together. While she was doing this, her sister-in-law came closer to see what their new wife was doing. When she got there, she was disappointed with what she found.
She ran to tell her brother what was happening and this news reached Atule’s mother-in-law. The mother then rejected her saying that it was against their tradition to marry a woman who couldn’t cook. Her husband’s family then came together and they told her that she could come back as their wife only if she learned how to cook.
Atule cried and cried, ashamed and sent back home, because she couldn’t learn how to cook from her mother. With nowhere to go anymore, she headed to her sister’s place to pick up cooking skills.