African Myths of Origin (Penguin Classics)

by Stephen Belcher

  The snake swelled up. He knocked down the door and burst through the walls, he was so big. He began to slither away from the homestead, down towards the swampy areas by the stream. Ilo came back and found the signs of the snake’s departure: the breach in the wall where the gate had been, the empty hut. He saw the traces of the snake’s path and followed him, running in his haste to catch up with his brother. It was night when he came to the swampy area where the snake had gone, and to his surprise Ilo found himself surrounded by cattle. The snake spoke to him. ‘These are my water cattle, Ilo,’ he said. ‘Cut yourself a stick of ñelbe wood and begin to touch the cattle. Each cow that you touch will remain with you, to give you milk and make your wealth. The rest shall come with me into the water. The prohibition has been violated, and I must leave you.’ And with that, the snake began to move through the swamp towards the deep-flowing currents of the great river beyond it, and the cattle, lowing in the darkness, gathered and followed him.

  Frantically, Ilo cut himself a stick, and that stick has become the emblem of the Fulbe herdsmen to this day. He rushed into the herd, touching cattle left and right, and those he touched turned aside from their course towards the river and moved backwards. And the snake, followed by all the cows which Ilo did not touch, slipped into the waters of the great river and vanished.

  Ilo was the ancestor of all the Fulbe herdsmen.

  A MUSLIM VERSION FROM NORTHERN NIGERIA

  Muhammad sent disciples to west Africa to bring Islam to the peoples there. One man was named Yacouba, and he married a king’s daughter. She had four children, two legitimate and two illegitimate: people knew they were not Yacouba’s children because they did not talk in Arabic or in their mother’s language, but instead used a quite different form of speech: Fulfulde, their own language. So eventually Yacouba rejected his wife and the two illegitimate children. He performed a divination, and then wrote out a Koranic talisman and placed it around his wife’s neck, and sent the three down to the river, saying that there she would find her lover and the children would find their father.

  When they came to the river, a handsome man came out of the water and greeted them. He told the children he had a gift for them: he would give them cattle, which before then were unknown. But thereafter they must follow the cattle in the bush; they could not live in villages, but must wander from place to place. He said that when the cattle began to come from the river, the children should walk away without looking back, calling ‘Hai, hai, hai’, for if they looked back the cattle would stop coming out of the river.

  So the children turned and walked away, calling out ‘Hai, hai, hai’, and a flood of cattle followed them. But eventually one child looked back, and the cattle stopped coming out of the water.

  THE FIRST COW: WHY FULBE ARE HERDSMEN

  The first cow appeared in Masina, in the floodplains of the middle Niger delta; she appeared with her calf, and a Labbo, a woodworker, was the first to see her. He watched her grazing and then saw her disappear into the water. He came back the next day with two friends, a Pullo and a Bambado. Among the Fulbe today, the Pullo is the nomad and the Bambado is a musician. They saw the cow appear, followed by her calf, and they watched the animals grazing on the fresh shoots of grass. They decided they would try to catch her, and so they set up a trap baited with clumps of grass on the path they saw the cow taking. The next day they caught her in their noose, and after a considerable struggle they were able to subdue her. They tied her in one place, and after some time the calf which had run away returned to its mother.

  After they caught it, there was some question who would take care of it. The Labbo had his woodworking business to take care of – he carved calabashes and made bowls and utensils for people. The Bambado was something of an idler who preferred strolling around and passing the time of day with people to any regular activity. So the Pullo was the one who took care of the cow. He brought her food and water and he watched over her carefully. He even imitated the calf one day, sucking at a teat to see what the milk tasted like. He found it delicious.

  The other two, co-owners of the cow, caught him at this treat one day and asked him what it tasted like. He squeezed some milk into a bowl and gave it to them to taste, and they too found it delicious. Thereafter it was agreed that each of them would get a bowl of milk in the morning. But the two co-owners let some days pass without coming for their milk, and although the Pullo dutifully collected it into calabashes for them, it seemed to be going to waste sitting there, and likely to spoil. Still, when they did finally come and ask for their milk, he showed them the calabashes he had saved for them, expecting his friends to be disgusted by the stale milk. But he was amazed to see them smacking their lips in pleasure at the new taste of curdled milk, and when he asked what was so good they let him taste this new product.

  After some time, the Pullo realized that he was the only one taking care of the cow, and so he decided to steal away so he could enjoy the fruits of his herding by himself. He slipped off one day and found himself a campsite some distance away from his friends’ dwellings, in a place where the grass was green and fresh and there was good pasturing for his cow and her growing calf. He made musical instruments for himself, and he would sit playing to his animals as he watched them graze.

  But his friends noticed his absence, and after some time they went looking for him. It took them a month or two to locate his campsite, and they found him one evening sitting with the cow and calf nearby, playing a tune on the stringed instrument he had devised and singing to the cow. They paused for a moment, struck by the beauty of the scene, and then they greeted the Pullo, and he, after a start, returned the greeting and invited them in. They asked him where he had been. He said he had been worried about the cow and wanted her to have fresh grass, especially since the calf was now growing and eating as well, and needed tender new shoots, and he thought that the new spot was doing well. He also thought that the cow might be pregnant, for he had seen her in the company of a male that came out of the waters near where they had found her. He said nothing about having wanted to take the cow away from them.

  The two friends agreed that the cow looked very well. Then the Bambado asked the Pullo to let him have the stringed instrument he had been playing, for he did not think he could live without that music. ‘What can I give you for the instrument?’ asked the Bambado, and the Pullo hesitated, not thinking to ask a price for something he had made. ‘I shall give you my share of the cow,’ said the Bambado, ‘but on condition that periodically you shall give me one of its male offspring which you won’t need for milk.’ Surprised and delighted, the Pullo immediately accepted the offer.

  ‘And I shall give you my share,’ said the Labbo, ‘for I see that you know how to take care of these animals. But I too shall ask a condition: that I may have milk whenever I ask for it.’ And naturally the Pullo agreed to this price.

  Since that time, the Pullo gives milk freely to the Labbo and periodically gives a bull-calf to the Bambado, since to withhold their price would bring disaster down on the herds that have grown up since that original bargain. And the Pullo is the one who leads the cattle to their grazing grounds and lives with them, and knows them.

  10

  THE MAASAI OF EAST AFRICA

  The Maasai are probably the best known of all African pastoralists, since their pasturing grounds abut many of the most famous game parks of east Africa and they count as one of the tourist attractions. They are considered the quintessential cattle-herders, and, by repute, to be Maasai is to be a cattle-herder: to live and travel with the cattle, defending them from lions and other predators (hence the distinctive large shields and long spears), living on milk and blood drawn from the necks of the living beasts. But in fact the specialized pastoralists are a small part of a larger group of Maa-speakers, and throughout their range, in the plains between the Kenyan highlands and the coast, stretching south into Tanzania, there is considerable variation in patterns of cattle-ownership and herding practices. Maasai who
have lost cattle to drought may be forced to settle down for a time until their herds are rebuilt (and in the past, warfare was another means of winning or losing cattle), and at all times the nomads depend on the farmers for grain. The stories below explain why it is the Maasai who own the cattle, rather than other peoples. Both stories were collected around 1900.

  THE ORIGIN OF CATTLE

  Naiteru-Kop, one of the gods of the Maasai, walked the earth at the dawn of the world and he found it already held some inhabitants. He found a Dorobo (a member of a hunting people, also known as Okiek), a snake and an elephant living together. After Naiteru-Kop had passed by, the Dorobo found a cow in the bush and took it as his property. After that, the Dorobo would take the cow out into the grasslands to watch it feed, and then return to the homestead that he shared with the elephant and the snake at night.

  The snake often sneezed, for it crawled in the dust which was trampled by the man, the cow and the elephant, and when it sneezed it sprayed its venom in the air. The elephant did not feel anything, its hide was so thick; but the man became very uncomfortable and developed rashes. The Dorobo complained to the snake, and the snake answered that the sneezing was not its fault, but happened because of all the dust around their camp. That night, while the elephant and the snake were sleeping, the Dorobo took a cudgel and crushed the snake’s head. Then he cast the snake’s carcass in the bush. The elephant asked after the snake in the morning, and the Dorobo said he had no idea where the snake had gone. From his manner the elephant guessed that the human had killed the snake. But they continued to live together.

  A season of rains came, turning the grass green and covering the land with small puddles in which the Dorobo’s cow could drink. But after the rains had passed the waterholes dried up until there was only one left. This was the elephant’s favourite spot; it was the elephant’s custom to graze upon the tall grass, harvesting it by the bushel with its trunk, and then to go down to the waterhole and loll in the water and the cool mud. During the rainy season, the elephant gave birth to a calf, and the two of them would do this together.

  When the rains had ended, the Dorobo could find no other water for his cow than the elephant’s waterhole. He asked the elephant not to muddy the hole, so that he could water his cow, but the elephant answered that its custom had always been to enjoy the hole and it did not wish to change. So in secret the Dorobo made an arrow, and then one evening he shot the elephant and it died. When the mother elephant died, the calf went away: the older elephant had warned it about the Dorobo and how the man had killed the snake, and now the man had killed the elephant. The calf went to another country.

  There, the calf met a man, a Maasai named Le-eyo, and they talked. The elephant calf told the Maasai why it had run away from the Dorobo who had killed the snake and the elephant to protect himself and his cow. Le-eyo said he wished to see this man, and so the elephant calf agreed to show him the way. They went back to the camp. There, the Maasai was very surprised by the hut the Dorobo had built: it was built on end, so that the doorway looked up at the heavens. While they were standing there, Naiteru-Kop called out to tell the Dorobo to come out the next morning. Le-eyo heard the message, and so the next morning it was the Maasai and not the Dorobo who went to learn what Naiteru-Kop wished to tell him.

  Naiteru-Kop gave Le-eyo instructions, and he followed them carefully. He built himself a large enclosure, and to one side he built a little hut of bent branches and grasses. Then he searched the bush and found a thin calf. He took it back to his enclosure and slaughtered it. But he did not eat the meat. Instead, he spread out the calf’s hide and piled the meat upon it, and then he tied it up into a great bundle. He built a very large fire in the centre of his enclosure, and when it was roaring he lifted the bundle of the calf’s meat and threw it into the fire. Then he hid in the hut. As he did so, the clouds gathered thickly overhead and thunder rolled over the plains.

  While the man was hidden in the hut, a leather cord dropped from the heavens and cattle of all sorts began to come down the cord into the enclosure. They descended until the enclosure was filled and they were bumping against each other to make space. One of them then put its foot through the wall of the Maasai man’s hut, and he cried out in alarm and surprise. At the sound, the cattle ceased coming down the cord from heaven. Naiteru-Kop called out, and Le-eyo went out to answer his call. ‘These are all the cattle you shall receive,’ said Naiteru-Kop, ‘because by your cry you have stopped them coming. But they shall be yours to tend, and with them you shall live.’

  Since that time, the Maasai have herded their cattle. The Dorobo have become hunters, using clubs and bows and arrows to kill their prey. When people who are not Maasai own cattle, the Maasai presume that the cattle have been stolen from Maasai and try to reclaim them.

  *

  Later, Naiteru-Kop told Le-eyo what to do in the case of death: the body should be disposed of, and he should say, ‘Man, you have died and shall return. Moon, you shall die and not return.’ But the first person to die was a child, not of Le-eyo’s family, and so when Le-eyo took the body into the bush he said, ‘Child, you have died. Do not return. Moon, die and then return.’ So the child did not return, and the moon began to wax and wane. Later, one of Le-eyo’s own children died. He took it into the bush and said, ‘Child, you have died and you shall return. Moon, you shall die and not return.’ But Naiteru-Kop spoke from the sky and said that he could not change matters now; what he had said at first would be the rule for humans.

  When Le-eyo was close to death, he called his children and asked them what they wanted of his belongings. One son answered that he wanted a share in all his father’s wealth. So Le-eyo gave him cattle, goats, sheep and grain. The younger son answered that he wanted only the fan which his father always carried under his arm. His father smiled at that, and promised him that because he had chosen well he would always have power. So the younger son became the ancestor of the cattle-herding Maasai, while the older son’s descendants are considered to be inferior.

  WOMEN AND THE CAMPS

  An old man had three children: a son and two daughters. The son was made responsible for the family’s cattle. There came a time of warfare with neighbouring peoples, and so no one dared leave the group or take the cattle far to graze or to find the salt-licks which the animals loved. After some time, the animals began to suffer from the lack of salt, and so the son decided that he would venture out to the salt-lick. The elder daughter accompanied him. The brother told the younger sister that if she saw a great smoke, it would be a sign they were safe. He and his sister then established a small camp. During the day, the sister stayed in the camp while the brother tended the cattle in the bush.

  After some days, though, the brother noticed odd footprints in the enclosure he had made of thorns and branches, and he guessed that while he was in the bush, men had come to visit his sister. But the sister told him nothing of this. So the next day, the young man drove the cattle off as usual, but then circled back in secret and spied on the cattle-pen. His suspicions were justified. After he left, warriors from the enemy group came from the bush and approached his sister; clearly, they were on terms of intimacy. As they left, she told them to stay nearby and listen for her voice: when her brother was busy milking the cattle she would begin to sing, and they would then be able to seize his cattle.

  The brother took the cattle back into the bush, and at the end of the day he returned to the enclosure. But he did not take his weapons to the shelter, as was his custom. Instead, he laid them on the ground near him in the enclosure. Then he fetched the gourds and began to milk the cattle. As he did so, his sister came out of the hut and began to sing. Immediately, one of the enemy leaped over the thorn-fence. But the brother was expecting this; he had seized his spear, and the enemy died immediately. Another man leaped the fence; he too was killed. The brother killed five men before the others fled.

  He then collected firewood and burned the bodies of the enemy. The smoke rose high, and far awa
y his younger sister saw it. She announced to the family that her brother had signalled that he was safe, and so the family moved out to join him at the salt-lick.

  There was discussion of the behaviour of the elder sister. Her father immediately found her a husband, because he said that it was frustration that had made her betray her brother. Since that time, women have been free to come and go at the warriors’ camps, because it seems safer to allow them the liberty than to attempt control.

  11

  THE GREAT LAKES I: THE ORIGIN OF CATTLE (RWANDA)

  The highlands between the great lakes of the Rift Valley have been compared to an earthly paradise. The altitude moderates the equatorial heat and draws ample rainfall, the volcanic soils are fertile, and humans have settled there and prospered. The kingdoms of the region are treated individually below (Chapters 27–30: Bunyoro, Buganda, Rwanda, Burundi), but cattle are sufficiently important for representative stories from this region about the origin of cattle to be given as well as other stories of cattle. These stories are part of larger dynastic narratives, and were collected in the early twentieth century.

  Gihanga was one of the first kings of Rwanda, and he is said to have invented the making of vessels and containers from wood and gourds. He travelled, and married two women from different places; the first gave him a daughter, Nyirarucyaba, and eventually the second wife also became pregnant. Gihanga provided for his wives by hunting. When he returned from the hunt, he would give to each of his wives in turn the hide of his kill. But one day he brought home the hide of a cerval, beautifully spotted. Both wives wanted the skin and began to fight over it. The daughter, Nyirarucyaba, ran to the aid of her mother and struck the second wife, who was still pregnant, with a sharpened stake. She pierced the belly, and the woman died. But the child was saved: it was a boy and they named him Gafomo because he had been born before his time.