Before long his crops were ready to be harvested, and willing hands helped him to reap them – returning the help that Kimwaki had so willingly given to them. And when all the grain had been stored away, and his potatoes and beans sold, he found, to his joy, that once more his father’s fields were the richest in the land.
Kimwaki looked up and gave thanks to the little weaver birds, for showing him that only through unselfishness and hard work can peace and happiness be found.
THE BUSHBUCK’S HOUSE
KIKUYU
Once upon a time a bushbuck lived in a neat little house on the bank of a river. After paying a visit to his friend the goat one day, the bushbuck returned to his home to find his front door shut. A strange and very harsh voice was coming from inside. “Who is inside my house?” asked the bushbuck.
“It is I, the eater of bushbucks,” replied a rasping voice. “Beware, for I am coming out to eat you!”
The bushbuck was greatly alarmed and he ran as fast as his legs would carry him to tell his friend the goat about the dreadful monster in his house. On his way he met an elephant. “Friend,” exclaimed the elephant in surprise, “I have never seen anyone so frightened as you. Why are you in such a hurry on this fine and sunny morning?”
“There is a wicked monster in my house,” panted the bushbuck, “who says that he is coming out to eat me!”
The elephant laughed loudly at the bushbuck’s fear. “What utter nonsense,” he said. “I will go and see for myself.” So the elephant went boldly towards the river, while the bushbuck kept well away. “Who is inside the bushbuck’s house?” the elephant called out from a distance.
He was greeted by a throaty voice which croaked, “It is I, the eater of elephants. Beware, for I am coming out to eat you!” The elephant thought, by the sound of the voice, that this must be an even larger monster than himself so he tore off into the forest with his trunk in the air, knocking down trees left and right in his haste, while the bushbuck pelted along ahead of him.
They had not gone far before they met a lion. “Well, well, well! my friend,” said the lion in surprise. “Whoever has had the impertinence to frighten such a big creature as you?”
“There is a terrible monster in the bushbuck’s house,” stammered the elephant. “I – I laughed at the bushbuck when he told me this, good Lion, but now I know that he spoke the truth, and he was quite right to be afraid. A dreadful monster, good friend Lion!”
“Come,” said the lion good-naturedly, “the three of us will go together to see who dares to threaten the creatures of the forest.”
After a great deal of persuasion the two trembling animals agreed to return with the lion to investigate the matter. All three made their way to the little house by the river. “Who is in the bushbuck’s house?” roared the lion in a thunderous voice.
“It is I, the eater of lions!” came the harsh, grating reply. “Beware, for I am coming out to eat you!”
“WHAT! TO EAT THE KING OF THE FOREST?” bellowed the lion. “Then come out and eat me, for I am not afraid of you!”
There was muffled laughter from inside the hut, and the lion pushed aside the door to see a fat old frog sitting in the middle of the floor, chuckling and croaking to himself. “So,” said the lion, greatly amused, “you are the ‘dangerous monster’ who has dared to frighten my two friends?” It wasn’t long before all the animals of the forest heard how cowardly the bushbuck and the elephant had been, and needless to say they laughed at their own cowardice!
From that day onward, the elephant has been ashamed of himself, and admits that the lion is king of the animals, even though the elephant is the largest creature in the wilds.
THE CHAMELEON’S FALL FROM GRACE
KIKUYU
This unfortunate happening took place a long, long while ago: so long ago, in fact, that there was only one Man on the Earth, and he lived under the towering crags of lovely Mount Kenya. There were several women to wait upon him, but they didn’t count – and, in any case, that was a state of affairs that Man looked upon as his right.
It is true that the Great God N’gai had placed many other living creatures on the Earth; four-legged animals, birds, reptiles and insects, as well as the cold-blooded fish in the rivers, lakes and streams. But of the human male, the most important and perfect of all the labour of his hands, there was only Man himself.
Throughout the hours of daylight the Sun, N’gai’s most trusted servant, watched over all his children. Without fail, the Sun rose regularly above the tree-tops at the same hour each morning, shedding light and warmth upon the Earth. He must surely be male, for all his actions could be relied upon.
But not so the Moon. “She can only be a woman,” thought the Man, as he gazed at the sky, “for she never arrives or departs at the same time for two days running!” He would watch her silvery radiance grow smaller and smaller until she disappeared altogether sometimes, and these nights were dark indeed. “Most unsatisfactory,” thought the Man, so he sent a message to N’gai about it.
The Man had another complaint too. As time passed, and more humans were born on the Earth, Man found that death came to claim many of those who were both dear and useful to him. He came to realise that human life was limited. The fact that animals died was an entirely different matter, for had not the good N’gai put animals on earth for the benefit of Man? For these creatures, death had to come. How else could Man eat? But surely the Great God N’gai should allow Man the gift of immortality!
N’gai listened to these complaints with interest, and for a long while he thought deeply upon the two matters. Eventually he called the chameleon to him. “Go, my child,” N’gai instructed the little creature, “and take this message to ‘the two-legged-one’ who lives beneath the topmost crags of our Mother Mountain.”
The chameleon was an obliging little reptile and, with the message rolled in a leaf and clasped by the end of his long curly tail, left cheerfully to obey his Creator’s command.
The sun was shining brightly, and the lazy feeling of spring was in the air. Sweet-scented flowers and singing birds were all around him, as he hurried upon his way. The scent of flowers, of course, attracted insects – and insects for the chameleon meant food.
The chameleon remembered that it was a long while since he had eaten, and eventually he spotted a particularly plump and toothsome mantis. Such a meal would fill a chameleon’s stomach for a long time. So our little messenger left the path that he was following, and as the mantis followed a butterfly, so the chameleon followed the mantis. He was soon caught up in such an exciting chase that he forget all about the task he had been given.
The butterfly flitted from flower to flower, and the mantis chased it, just out of reach of the chameleon’s long, sticky tongue. Suddenly, before he realised how he had got there, N’gai’s trusted messenger found himself racing down a dark and twisting ant-bear hole.
Deeper and deeper into the earth he went until, finally, he found himself among a host of ugly, frightening creatures. It did not take him long to realise that he had reached the dreaded Underworld.
The chameleon had many desperate adventures before he escaped from this fearful place, including some narrow escapes from cannibal giants of his own kind – and it was a long, long while before he remembered the rolled-up leaf that he still grasped so tightly in the curl at the end of his elegant tail.
At the thought of the punishment that Great N’gai would give him for his disobedience, the little chameleon felt a prickly, tingling sensation steal all over his body. His skin turned from its normal bright green colour to a sickly yellow. Who knows? This might have been how the chameleon became able to change his colour in order to hide from those he fears.
It took N’gai’s messenger many weeks to find his way back to the sunlight and safety of the Upper World, where he was met by a very angry Lord of All Things.
“What have you been doing this long while?” asked N’gai, in a voice of thunder. “From now onwards and for ever
more, you will be looked down upon and cursed by man, because the message that you carried to him was the gift of immortality. My message would also have saved the Moon from her time of banishment from the heavens each month. Now it is too late. Because of your disobedience, Man shall continue to die, and the Moon shall for ever leave the sky from month to month. Go, you are disgraced for ever more!”
And that is the reason why the chameleon is hated not only in Kikuyuland, but in many other parts of Africa as well.
HOW THE OSTRICH GOT HIS LONG NECK
KIKUYU
Mr. Ostrich was a sober-minded, serious husband, who was always willing to assist his wife in her family duties. “My dear,” he said to her one evening, when their large clutch of eggs seemed almost ready to hatch, “my black feathers cannot be seen in the darkness, so I will guard our eggs by night, and at the same time keep them warm for you. That will leave you free to relax and enjoy yourself until daybreak each morning.”
He settled down clumsily to his unaccustomed task, while his flighty wife was more than thankful to be relieved of a duty which she already found a trial. She fluffed up her feathers and, to show how pleased she was, she set off in a joyful high-stepping dance among the low termite-mounds that surrounded their nest.
The big birds had chosen the site with care, for they knew that a sitting ostrich hen, with her head down, looks from the distance like a grey mound of earth. They had decided to rear their young on the short-grassed plain lands because they could see all round them, for in those days the ostrich had a short neck like a guinea-fowl and partridge. They had learned the hard lesson that in long grass their enemies could attack them before they realised their danger.
To keep their precious eggs safe from the dreaded fires that swept across the plains, the two birds had carefully scratched away a broad band of dusty earth in the grass round the slight hollow that was their nest. On the whole they were a happy pair, although from time to time the husband had disapproved of his wife’s high-spirited ways. At this particular time, she should behave more sensibly as she had her eggs to look after. He wriggled his massive thighs on the ground as he had seen his wife do, to shift the position of the eggs so that they lay more comfortably in their bed, and settled down to his long night’s wait.
It was full moon. The silvery light shed strange shadows and threw up ghostly figures among the surrounding mounds of earth. His head was beginning to nod with weariness, when he became aware of his wife’s hissing laugh. He was wide awake in a moment. Straining his short neck to its utmost limit, he saw her dodging in and out between the termite-mounds in a wild game of hide-and-seek with a handsome young ostrich in hot pursuit.
This would never do. He half rose from the nest – but sank down again with a sigh. He dare not leave the precious eggs, whatever the reason. What if they were to grow cold while he went to tell his flirting wife what he thought of her disgraceful behaviour?
He settled down again with a feeling of annoyance, but strained his neck further and further, to try to catch sight of her as she dodged and raced between the termite-mounds on the moonlit veld.
From time to time he did catch a glimpse of her, and heard her foolish giggles – and each time that he did so, he strained and stretched his neck trying to see further and yet further between the nearby termite-mounds. At last, the long, tedious night came to an end. As it did so, his wife appeared out of the grey distance to take over her duties once more.
The ostrich rose stiffly, prepared to punish his wife for her undignified behaviour; but as he did so, he felt a strangeness in the muscles of his neck. He looked down at his feet, and was alarmed to discover how very far away from his head they were – and he realised with a shock that, as a result of all the straining that he had done during the long night, his neck had stretched, and stretched, and stretched. He tried to shake it back to its former length, but no matter what he did, it stayed just the same: he had stretched beyond return.
And that is why the ostrich has a long neck – a lasting memory of a flighty wife.
THE HYENA AND THE CALF
KIKUYU
On the slopes of Mount Kenya, the animals once called a meeting to discuss the lack of gratitude among many of the creatures of the wilds.
“We should give thanks, to the Great Lord N’gai, for all the good food that he puts before us,” said King Lion, “for how can we expect him to provide us with food every day, if we do not show our gratitude? Surely those who fail to praise his goodness will have these gifts taken from them one day!”
The animals nodded their heads in agreement, for the Good Lord N’gai was indeed the Father of them all and, as food had been scarce for some time, they had begun to wonder if they had not taken his favours too much for granted? The meeting ended, and the animals returned to their homes, determined to improve their manners in the future.
Not long after this, the greedy hyena was walking along a path, when he came upon a calf tied to a tree by a strip of hide. “This must be a present from Good Lord N’gai,” he said to himself “Who else could have put this calf here for me to eat?” and he smacked his lips at the thought of the splendid meal ahead of him.
In his excitement, however, he forgot to give thanks to N’gai for leading him to such a rich feast. “Where,” he wondered, “shall I begin my meal. Shall I start with this tender calf and leave the hard dry hide round its neck to the end? Or should I leave the calf to the last?”
He thought over the problem and decided to eat the hide first, thinking that he could enjoy looking forward to the pleasure of the tender second course even longer. “Yes,” he said to himself, “this is a real feast. I will eat the hard, dry hide first, and then I will eat the calf.”
He set to work with his powerful jaws, close to the poor calf’s neck, and as he swallowed the lumps of indigestible rawhide, he got nearer and nearer to the tree to which the calf had been tied. The foolish creature was so occupied with thoughts of his meal, that he did not notice that the calf, no longer tied up, had lost no time in returning to its owner’s hut.
Only then did the greedy creature remember that Lord N’gai had given him a generous meal, and he had failed to say thank-you. He hastily did so, and called loudly to N’gai to make the calf stand still, so that he could catch up with it. But as so often happens in life, the hyena was not given a second chance. The calf reached the safety of its owner’s hut, while the ungrateful hyena had to be content with the piece of hard hide for his supper.
Now, every time you hear the hyena’s mournful cry in the stillness of the night, you will know that the greedy animal is asking the Good Lord N’gai to give him back the calf that he was stupid enough to lose.
WANJOHI AND THE BIRD
MALAWI
Long, long ago, there lived a poor man called Wanjohi and his wife. They were so poor that he had to go searching in the forests for food to eat. Sometimes it would mean only a meal of roots and berries, but occasionally Wanjohi was lucky enough to catch a bird or animal in one of the traps and snares he set.
There was, however, a large and very beautiful bird which had proved too clever to be tempted into even his most carefully hidden traps. Besides this, it seemed to mock him as he saw it every day, cleverly just out of range of his bow and arrow. Eventually he determined to capture it.
One day, when Wanjohi was on the point of returning home empty-handed and even more hungry than usual, he remembered a trap that he had failed to visit. He retraced his steps and gave a shout of joy for there, securely caught by a leg, was the lovely creature that had escaped him so often.
He rushed forward and seized the bird by the neck. “Today I have got you, my friend!” he cried and took out his knife to kill it. He would have at least something, if only a bird, to take back to his wife that evening.
“Mercy, human, mercy!” spluttered the poor creature, as the grip upon its throat tightened.
“Spare my life, and I promise that you will not regret your kindness.”
/> The man loosened his grasp and stepped back in surprise. This rare, golden plumaged creature could actually talk! “Although my only earthly possessions are these golden feathers, yet in them lies a magic that will provide you with both food and drink for ever more. Set me free, good human, for this noose has cut painfully into my leg.”
Now here was a problem indeed. What if the bird was lying? He would lose the precious food that would keep himself and his wife from hunger: and yet, the bird itself might also have a wife – and maybe even babies – waiting for his return as anxiously as his own dear wife.
Suppose the bird spoke the truth? Why, he would be able to sit back in idleness for ever. Surely he could trust a bird that spoke like a man? Wanjohi decided to risk it, and untied the snare that had bitten so deeply into the poor creature’s leg.
Thankfully the lovely bird stretched its aching limbs then, carefully pulling a goldencoloured feather from each wing, it gave them to him. “With this gift, human,” it said, “I also give you words of warning: if you wish to keep the magic of these feathers, you must never speak to others of your good fortune. Should you do so, their power will vanish, and you will be left as poor as you are today. Do not treat my warning lightly. Hold these feathers in your hands and wish, and they will give you your heart’s desires.”
The man thanked the bird for its gift and hastened home, wishing as he hurried along the path that he would find plenty of food waiting for him at his journey’s end. Which would he find, he wondered – starvation, or riches?
The golden bird was as good as its word, for inside Wanjohi’s hut the pots and bowls were full to overflowing, while the dried-up spring nearby gushed out with sparkling waters once more, so that his wife no longer had to walk miles to the only water-hole they knew. Life smiled upon the couple at last, and Wanjohi was able to relax for the first time in his life, just making a wish for all the things that made life sweet – and they arrived out of mid-air.
The Best of African Folklore Page 7