Daimon Publishers
A girl lay ill. She was lying down. She did not eat the food her mother gave her. She lay ill.
She killed the children of the water; they were what she ate. Her mother did not know that she had killed the water's children, that they were what she ate. She would not eat what her mother gave to her.
Her mother was there. They went out to look for ant eggs. The mother spoke, ordering the girl's sister to remain at home. The old woman said that she must look at the things that her elder sister ate.
They left the child at home, and they went out to seek ant eggs. They intended for the child to look at the things that her elder sister ate.
The elder sister went out from the house of illness and descended to the spring, as she intended to kill another water-child. Her sister was in the hut. She went and killed a water-child, and she carried the water-child home. Her sister looked on as she boiled the water-child's flesh; and she ate it; and she lay down; and she again went to lie down. Her sister looked on as she did all this.
Their mother returned. The younger child told her mother about it; for her elder sister had gone to kill a handsome thing at the water.
Their mother said: "It is a water-child!"
But their mother did not speak about it after that. Instead, she again went out to look for ant eggs.
And when she was seeking about for food, the clouds came up. And she spoke, she said, "Something is not right at home; for a whirlwind is bringing things to the spring. For something is not going on well at home. Therefore, the whirlwind is taking things away to the spring." Because her daughter killed the water's children, the whirlwind took them away to the spring. Something had not gone well at home, for her daughter had been killing the water's children. That was why the whirlwind took them away to the spring, because she had killed the water's children.
The older girl was the one who first went into the spring, and then she became a frog. Her sister became a frog. Her mother went into the spring, following the whirlwind. Her daughters were frogs. Their mother also became a frog. The whirlwind brought them all to the spring. Her daughter was already in the spring. She was a frog.
Her father also came to become a frog, for the whirlwind brought her father - who had been at a hunting ground far away - to the spring, to the place where his daughter was. Her father's arrows grew into reeds out by the spring, for the great whirlwind had brought them to the spring. He also became a frog. Likewise his wife, she also became a frog. That whole family became frogs, and all because one of them ate the water's children.
A man of the early race married a narru bird, the little bird whose plumage looks like that of an ostrich. The narru put dusty ant eggs into a bag after her husband had dug them out of the ground. She went to wash the ant eggs. Then they returned home.
They went out the next day to seek more food, she and her husband. The husband dug out ant eggs; he put the ant eggs into his leather bag. And the husband again dug out other ant eggs. He again arose and found other ant eggs. He dug them out from the earth. The bag became full.
They arose the next day, and the husband dug out other ant eggs. He found other ant eggs; he dug them out, he dug them out. And he exclaimed, "Give me your little bag so that I may fill it with ant eggs."
And the wife said, "We are not accustomed to putting dirty ant eggs into our bag, we who are of the house of narru."
And he exclaimed, "Give me, give me your little bag so that I may fill it up with ant eggs."
And the wife said: "You should put the ant eggs back into the ground, for we are not accustomed to putting dirty ant eggs into our bag."
And he exclaimed, "Give me, give me your little bag so that I may fill it up with ant eggs."
And the wife exclaimed, "You should put the ant eggs back into the ground and cover them up with dirt."
And he exclaimed, "Give me your bag!" And he snatched the bag away. His wife's entrails were inside the bag, and they poured down.
And he, crying, exclaimed, "Oh dear! Oh my wife! What shall I do?"
The wife sang,
We, who are of the house of narru,
We are not used to putting earthy ant eggs
Into our bag;
We, who are of the house of narru,
We are not used to putting earthy ant eggs
Into our bag.
while she walked on replacing her entrails. She sang:
We, who are of the house of narru,
We are not used to putting earthy ant eggs
Into our bag.
Her mother, sitting in a tree, heard her song. She exclaimed to her other children, "Go find the place where your elder sister went to seek food, for the noise of the wind sounds like her song. I think that her husband is not treating her well. The noise of the wind sounds like a person, singing windward."
And her children stood up and flew away. They came back and said, "Your daughter comes, falling down on the path."
Then the mother said, "See for yourself! This is how human husbands behave. They do mad things, for they do not understand. They marry us as if they understood anything at all about us.
Then she ran to meet her daughter. She went to put the little leather bag upon her daughter. Holding up her daughter's entrails, she bound her daughter with bandages. She slowly took her daughter home to her hut.
She was angry about what had happened to her daughter. When her daughter's husband wanted to come to visit his wife, she was angry. Her daughter's husband went back to his own people, for his mother-in-law had driven him away. She said that her daughter's husband should go back to his people, for none of them understood the ways of the birds. Therefore, her daughter's husband went back, and the narru wife continued to dwell there with her mother. Thus it is that humans and birds do not live in each other's houses today.
A young man was out hunting. He ascended a hill. While he sat on the crest looking around for game, he became sleepy. And he thought that he would lie down, for he was very sleepy. What could have happened to him? He had not felt like this before.
He lay down and slept.
A lion came. It went to a pool of water there on the crest, because the noonday heat had made it thirsty. The lion saw the man lying asleep, and it grabbed him up and took him away.
The man awoke, startled. He saw that it was a lion that had taken him up.
He decided to stay still, for the lion would kill him with a single bite if he stirred. He decided to see what the lion intended to do, for the lion appeared to think that he was dead.
The lion carried him to a wormbush tree and laid him in its branches.
The lion thought that it would not be able to slake its thirst if it ate the man right away. The lion decided to first go to the water and drink its fill, so that it could eat the man afterward without being thirsty.
The lion trod on the man, pressing his head between the branches of the wormbush tree. Then it stepped back away from the tree.
The man turned his head a little.
The lion saw this and thought, why had the man's head moved? The lion thought that perhaps it had not put the man away in the tree carefully enough. So it again trod on the man, pressing his head into the middle of the branches of the wormbush tree. And then it licked the man's tears.
The man had cried, and so the lion licked his eyes. A stick was poking into the back of the man's neck, right there in the little hollow at the back of his head.
The man turned his head a little, looking steadfastly at the lion. He turned his head just a little bit, to move away from the stick that was poking so sharply.
The lion looked to see why it was that the man had moved again. And it licked the man's tears. It stepped on the man again, thoroughly pressing down the man's head, sure that this time the man would be tucked away inside the tree and would not move.
The man sensed that by now the lion was thinking that he was not really dead. This time he did not stir, although the stick was still piercing him.
The lion saw that it appeared as if it had put the man away nicely, for the man did not stir. The lion went a few steps away and looked back at the man. The man peeked out through his eyelashes. He saw what the lion was doing.
The lion went away, ascending the hill. The lion descended the hill on the other side, while the man gently turned his head to see whether the lion had really gone. He saw that the lion stood peeping behind the top of the hill, because the lion thought that it seemed as if the man were alive.
The lion saw that the man was lying still. He decided to run to the water and get a drink. Then he would come back and eat the man. By this time it was very hungry. It was very thirsty, and very, very hungry.
The man lay looking at the lion. He waited. The man saw that the lion had disappeared. It seemed as if it had gone away. But the man waited. He thought that he would lie still, to see whether the lion would come peeping over the hill. For the lion is a cunning thing. It might, the man thought, try to deceive him, acting as if it had really gone away.
The man waited while the lion peeped over the hill, then crept away, then pepped over the hill, then crept away again.
Finally, the man saw that a long time had passed since the lion had peeped over the hill at him.
He did not arise and go running away. He arose slowly, and the first thing he did then was to spring to a different place nearby. He did not want the lion to know where he had gone. Then he ran in a zigzag direction up and down the hill, hoping that the lion would not be able to smell out his footsteps. He knew that the lion would come back and then start looking for him. His people knew that the lion never abandons an animal that it has killed. It does not leave it uneaten.
When he came down to the bottom of the hill, he called out to the people at home, saying that he had just been stolen away by a lion while the sun stood high. He had been carried off, he yelled.
The young man told his people to gather up some hartebeest skins and wrap him up in them. He thought that the lion would come looking for him. His people knew that the lion would never abandon its prey.
Therefore, he called, his people should hide him from the lion.
And so the people did. The people rolled him up in reed mats and hartebeest skins. They wanted to be sure that he was well hidden when the lion came looking for him.
Then the people went out to look for koeisse, an edible root. They dug out koeisse and brought it home, and they baked it.
An old Bushman was going along gathering wood for his wife, so that his wife could make a fire and bake her koeisse. He saw the lion as it came over the top of the hill, just at the spot where the young man had descended. He saw that the lion was following the man's tracks. He called out that the lion was coming over the crest of the hill.
The young man's mother said, "You must not allow the lion to come into our huts. You must shoot it dead before it gets here."
And the people slung on their quivers and went out to meet the lion. They were shooting at the lion. They shot and shot, but the lion would not die.
An old woman said, "You must give the lion a child. Then the lion will go away from us."
The lion answered with a roar. It said that it did not want a child. It wanted the young man whose tears it had licked. He was the one it wanted.
The other people said, "In what way were you shooting the lion that you could not manage to kill it?"
And an old man said, "Can you not see that the lion must be sorcerer? It will not die when we are shooting at it. It insists on having the man whom it carried off."
The people threw children to the lion. But the lion had no interest in them. The lion did not want the children. It sniffed at them but left them alone.
The people were shooting at the lion while it sought the man. The people were shooting at it. The people said, "We must get assegais. We must kill that lion."
The people were shooting at it. But it seemed as if they were doing nothing, for the lion did not die. They were stabbing it with assegais. They tried to stab it to death. But it seemed as if they were doing nothing, for the lion did not die.
The lion continued to look for the young man. It said that it wanted the young man whose tears it had licked. He was the one it wanted.
It tore the people's huts apart. It scratched them. It tore the huts to pieces.
And the people said, "Can you not see that the lion will not eat the children we have given to it?"
And the people said, "Can you not see that it must be a sorcerer?"
And the people said, "We must give a little girl to the lion. Maybe the lion will eat her. Maybe then it will go away."
But the lion did not want the girl. The lion wanted only the man whom it had carried of. He was the one it wanted.
And the people said that they did not know what else to do. It had been midday when they first started shooting at the lion, and the lion would not die. Now it was sunset. "We do not know what to do," they said. "The lion has refused the children. It has refused the little girl. It is destroying our huts."
And the people said, "Say to the young man's mother that she must, even though she loves the young man, she must take him out of the hartebeest skins, she must give the young man to the lion, even though he is the child of her heart. She can see that the sun is about to set, and the lion is still threatening us. The lion will not go and leave us alone. It insists on having the young man."
And the young man's mother said, "You may give my child to the lion. You must not allow the lion to eat my child, however. You must kill the lion."
And the people, when the young man's mother had spoken, the people took the young man out from the hartebeest skins in which they had rolled him up. They gave the young man to death.
The lion bit the young man. As it was biting the young man, the people were shooting at it. The people were stabbing it. The lion bit the young man to death.
And the lion spoke. It said to the people that this time it would die. It had got hold of the man it had been seeking. It had got hold of him and killed him!
And it died, while the man also lay dead. The lion also lay dead, beside the man.
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