# The strength of the little ones  
Animal stories represent a significant proportion of the oral narratives of the Bantu tradition remaining in Brazil. A central theme for nearly all of them is the ability of an apparently weak character to overcome a great difficulty, most often in the face of a seemingly strong opponent. The strength of the little ones, as I have named this series, lies above all in cunning, and sometimes even in malice, and an opposition is established between physical and intellectual (or mental) strength.  
The 'little' protagonist is a rabbit, a turtle (or tortoise), a frog or monkey. The most recurrent, in Angola and Brazil, is the rabbit. The turtle, very common in Angola, rarely appears in narratives recorded in Brazil, where the frog is a more frequent character. The monkey appears as a protagonist in the narratives recorded in both Angola and in Brazil. There is greater variation between the stories as told in Africa and Brazil when it comes to the 'big' characters: African narratives use leopards, hyenas and antelopes, which do not appear in the stories told in Brazil, where the 'big ones' (who will be defeated) are jaguars (also present in the real context of the Brazilian forests), and lions or elephants, of African provenance.