Keema, Monkey of the Heart-Deception Tale

Overview

Keema lives in a large tree at the sea’s edge, with branches extending over both water and land. He shares its fruit each morning with Papa, a shark who becomes his friend. After months of this arrangement, Papa invites him home in apparent repayment of his kindness. Keema objects that a land animal cannot travel through water, but Papa offers to carry him without getting him wet. Halfway through the journey, the shark admits the real purpose: his sick sultan is said to require a monkey’s heart as medicine.

Keema saves himself through a claim, not a demonstrated power to remove his own organs. He tells Papa that monkeys leave their hearts in trees whenever they go out. Pretending to prefer continuing to the shark’s home, he lets Papa insist upon returning for the supposed missing heart. Once back, Keema climbs high into the branches and remains silent. When pressed to depart again, he asks whether Papa mistakes him for a washerman’s donkey and narrates the embedded account of a donkey deceived twice by a hare’s proposal of marriage to a lion.

The embedded story ends with the hare hiding the donkey’s heart and ears, then telling the lion that returning after the first attack proves the victim lacked them. Keema uses that tale to explain why he will not submit to a second invitation. He sends Papa home alone and explicitly ends their friendship. Bateman’s introduction says the tales were told to him in Zanzibar and translated from Swahili; it does not identify an individual teller for this episode. The English names and dialogue belong to that particular mediated publication, while the animal speech and falsely claimed detachable heart are distinguished from verified anatomy.

Origins & earliest records

George W. Bateman, translator, Zanzibar Tales (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1901), I, The Monkey, the Shark, and the Washerman’s Donkey, complete pp. 17–28; collection introduction pp. 5–9.

Records & interpretation

Complete framing and embedded donkey story read through Keema’s explicit severing of friendship on p. 28. Publisher title page and Bateman’s collection claim inspected; unnamed local contributors are not replaced by Bateman as original creator. Keema’s heart claim is an escape deception, not an actual organ-removal event.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Zanzibar Tales

   George W. Bateman, translator; Walter Bobbett, illustrator · 1901

   I, whole pp. 17–28; To My Readers pp. 5–9 supplies the translator’s collection context.

2. 02

   Zanzibar Tales: Told by Natives of the East Coast of Africa

   Unnamed Swahili storytellers; George W. Bateman (translator and literary mediator) · 1901

   Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1901; translated from Swahili by George W. Bateman. Title, copyright leaf and complete To My Readers pp. 5–9, dated 1 August 1901, independently read.

Family & connections

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Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical collected tale in English translationBateman 1901 text: Monkey, Shark and Washerman’s DonkeyResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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