Type: Chain of Debt Collectors

Today's story — "How a Hunter Obtained Money from His Friends" — is from Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell, published in 1910 (for more stories, see the index). You can listen to today's story via LibriVox and which you can read online at the Internet Archive. The story is item 3 in the audiobook playlist:

Elphinstone Daryell [1869-1917] was a British colonial administrator in southern Nigeria who had an interest in anthropology and folklore. He later published a second book with more Nigerian folktales: Ikom Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria.

This story type is Chain of Debt Collectors. The essential feature of this type of chain tale is that a series of characters show up to collect on a debt, and they kill one another so that in the end the debtor pays nothing. The chain in this story goes: rooster-bushcat-goat-leopard-hunter. This story has an additional layer, where one hunter has borrowed money from another, which is why, in turn, he has to go borrowing from his animal friends.

To see another story of this type, take a look here:

"The Chain of Victims" in Jamaica Anansi Stories by Martha Beckwith. This is an Anansi story from Jamaica with the following chain: hog-dog-monkey-tiger-lion. Beckwith includes a list of African versions, including the one in Daryell's book.