Carl Einstein’s African Legends

Beginning in 1912, the German-Jewish art historian and writer Carl Einstein (1885–1940) worked for Franz Pfemfert’s expressionist magazine Die Aktion. For the European literary and expressionist avant-garde, he took some of the most original positions with his texts and works from the very beginning.

Gottfried Benn praised Bebuquin, Einstein’s anti-novel first published in 1912, as “absolute prose” and noted, “he had something going for him, he was far at the top.”

Einstein was one of the first art historians to deal intensively with the “Art of the Primitives,” publishing the books Negerplastik (1915) and Afrikanische Plastik (1921). Already in Negerplastik he defends the “primitive” art of the Africans against racist prejudices of the European high culture. His selection of African Legends, first published in 1925, is related to this.

In 1903, Einstein went to Berlin without a high school diploma and after an aborted bank apprenticeship and studied art history and philosophy without enrollment. He actually acquired his comprehensive education as a pure autodidact.

The demand on his work and works was relentless: “… I could change every sentence I write for the rest of my life”. He distrusted language. He created his own world of ideas and concepts.

His literary and art historical sophistication fascinated Braque, Malraux, Gide, Cocteau, Mayakovsky, Kandinsky and Picasso, who were among his circle of friends.

With his rashly retrospective work The Art of the 20th Century, published in 1926, Einstein “wrote absolutely definitive things about the art of our time,” his friend Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler described him.

Like no other, Carl Einstein embodied the balancing act between my-thology and modernity, and took flight forward into the “frenzy of the revoltingly new.” “The artistic begins with the word different” was his credo.

What the sources of his African Legends are is still unexplored today, but they speak for themselves. From the creation of the world, the history of the masks to the origin of the sun, moon and death, these legends open up an unexpected insight into the myths of various African tribes, most of which no longer exist today. A wild mixture of fairy tales, myths and horror stories that invite us to discover the original African culture. A wildness and originality that was irresistible to Einstein.

On the occasion of the first English-language edition of the African Legends, first published in German in 1925, I reproduce some of them here.

Dirk de Pol

African Legends (ed. Carl Einstein)

Togo

Why people die

I.

Uwolowu said to the sub-gods: If a person dies, may he rise again. The chicken said: “As a person dies and rises, I also want to be resurrected.” Uvolowu refused. The chicken said: “Verily, Kokoliko, I am coming, day is coming. I come and the sun has risen Verily, Kokoliko. ”That is why people die and do not rise again.

II

Uvolowu and the people were. The people sent the dog to Uwolowu to tell them that if people die, they want to be resurrected. The dog went. On the way he was starving. He came to a house where a man was cooking magic herbs. The dog sat down with him and thought he was cooking food. The frog also went to Uwolowu, but uninvited to tell him that if people die, they don’t want to be resurrected. The frog overtook the dog, who thought that if I ate, I would catch up with the frog. The frog arrived and said to Uwolowu: “If the people die, they may not be resurrected.” Then the dog came and said to the Uwolowu: “When the people die, they want to be resurrected.” Uwolowu said to the dog: “These two I don’t understand words. Since I heard the frog’s speech first, I will do as he said,

The leprosy

Since Uwolowu created diseases, he took fire and cold. Fire is sickness, cold is healing. Uwolowu said to Sropa, a man: “If you are cold, don’t go to the fire.” But he went to the fire. God shouted loudly on his head, and Sropa said to Uwolowu: “I wanted to die, that’s why I went to the fire.” Sropa did not obey Uwolowu. Uwolowu let the rust-brown Ikono (bird) drive out of the fire, Ikono flapped Sropa with his wings; the leprosy broke out of him. The Ikonos’ flutes are a reminder of Sropa’s stubbornness.

Uvolowu and his wives

Uwolowu married two women. One was a frog, the other a kingfisher. He loved the frog more than the kingfisher. He gave all beautiful things to her. One day Uwolowu intended to test both of them; gave each of them seven pots and pretended to be dead. They should weep into the pots. Frog cried first. Krofia tiwe Krowui kro.

As her tears fell, the ant licked them up. Kingfisher cried too, and her tears filled seven pots. Frog wept again, but the ant licked up all the tears again; Uwolowu rose again and said: “The one I did not love, she wept seven pots full of tears; The one I loved didn’t cry much. ”So he sent the bird into the air so that it would always be happy; He kicked Frog and directed him into the muddy river bank.

Uvolovus’ child

Uwolowu took a wife and had a child for her. The child was very beautiful. Then one day it happened, when the child was in his father’s arms, that it suddenly disappeared. The child moved to another city and did magic. Now it was big, it made the inhabitants of this city unbearable. At last it returned to its city to make war; for it no longer knew that it was its father’s city. It killed a lot of people there. Then it wanted to kill Uwolowu too, it had already pulled the trigger on the rifle, but the rifle failed. Now Uwolowu got up, took his arm and slapped his back with his hand. Then it was turned back into a child. Uwolowu asked: “Since I fathered you, are you coming and wanting to kill me?” So the war came into the world. -

The contractions

Since Uwolowu wanted to create man, he sent a chain down to the earth from above. He began to create a woman and commanded her not to eat salt. When the woman had given birth, and there was still no man, her belly cut off and she ate salt. Uvolowu asked the woman, “What did you not do according to the law that I set, and eat salt?” Hence, when a woman tries to give birth, it hurts.

Uvolovu’s son

Uvolowu took a wife and fathered a son, and the son seemed smarter than him. Whatever Uwolowu said, the son knew better. One day he tried the son. He gave him money to buy the sun and moon. But he did not say this; to himself he thought to check his son whether he knew his thoughts.

On the way the son thought what he should buy, since his father hadn’t said anything about it. So he took hair and feathers from all birds and animals, covered himself with them, and hid himself behind the garbage heap; but he didn’t buy anything. The grandmother, who had swept the room, wanted to empty the garbage, saw it, screamed, ran away and told the people. People came, saw him and were afraid. A child spoke to his mother, Uwolowu’s son knows everything, calls him, he will tell us what it is. They went to Uvolowu and told him. But he said he had sent his child to buy the sun and moon. The son heard this behind the garbage heap. Uvolowu knew it was the son, but he didn’t want people to laugh at his child. Uwolowu’s son went to buy the sun and moon and brought them to him. Uwolowu said to the people: “True, the child is wise.” But he only said that; for now he knew that the son did not surpass him in wisdom, and that is why he did not want to argue with him. The sun and moon have been in the world since that toe.

Uvolovu’s power

Uwolowu told his children to worship the sub-god in order to hunt a lot of game. They did so, killing and cooking a lot of game. Then Uwolowu said: “If the meat is done, you shouldn’t eat it.” So he said; because he wanted it to be so. He said, “Carry it under the tall tree.” So he spoke so that the people might know that he had created the sub-god.

When they had thrown the meat under the tree, a larva came and said: “I cannot pass the meat, I have to eat it.” When she ate it, the tree sank into the ground; when she stopped, the tree rose up. As she ate of it again, the roots turned upwards and tore the larva and meat upwards. As the animals passed by, the larva asked that the tree be felled so that it could return to earth. Then the dwarf antelope came and the larva said to it: “Cut the tree for me.” The dwarf antelope replied: “I can’t, my life stands with Uwolowu.”

The chameleon came and the larva said to him: “Climb up to me and get me down.” The chameleon climbed up. When the larva saw the chameleon’s sharp ridge, it scoffed, was afraid and said: “Don’t climb up, your back wants to hurt me.” The chameleon said: “Just get on my back; I won’t cut you. ”As they got downstairs, the larva poured hot water over the chameleon.

Since then, the chameleon changes color when it sees something else.

Uvolovu’s daughter

Uwolowu once gave birth to a girl, he did not want anyone to marry her. So he bought ten men and a dog to watch over the girl. Two of the men went out to make rubber. The girl wanted to get firewood, so the other men went with her. Then a man came and said: “Marry me.” But the girl refused and said: “My father forbade me to marry.” The man asked a second time, the girl consented and the man led her with the eight men and the dog away. On the way the bridegroom devoured five of the slaves; when they got home he devoured the other three. Then he took off his head, as is the custom there. He hid his head and wanted to devour the girl. If anyone came to see the girl, the dog chased them away. During the night he also devoured the dog. Before dawn the girl fled up a tree. Then the bridegroom and his people began to cut the tree. The girl was crying up here, and the people under the tree licked up their tears and said, “If the tears taste so sweet, how delicious must the girl taste.” As the girl was crying, one of the two men heard her and told him other; but he didn’t believe it. Since she was crying the second time, the other heard it too. They loaded the rifles and went where the crying screamed. When they got there, they told the girl to go down. Since she had risen to the ground, the enemies reached out to grab the girl and eat her. Then the slaves killed two of the pursuers, the rest they struck with the sword and led the girl, where they made rubber; they killed a game fed the girl and brought her home in the evening. Uwolowu asked the two if they had found the girl in the bush; for he did not know that it was his child. The two men said: “Eat first, then talk.” As they had eaten, they told Uwolowu that it was his child that he had given them to look after. It went into the bush and was grabbed there by people who wanted to kill it. The next morning he gave the girl to the woman who had a goiter. who would have wanted to kill it. The next morning he gave the girl to the woman who had a goiter. who would have wanted to kill it. The next morning he gave the girl to the wife who had a goiter.

Uvolovu and the larva

Uvolowu and the larva were. The larva said to Uwolowu: “What should be placed on the clouds so that they are light?” Uwolowu told the larva to go to the blacksmith and get the thing that he wanted to put in the clouds. The larva went and wondered what to do because it did not know the thing it was supposed to get. The larva asked each bird for a feather, flew back to Uvolowu and asked him where the larva was. He said he sent them. And Uwolowu said: Since there was nothing in the firmament, he had sent her to fetch the thing that he wanted to put in the firmament. The larva asked again: “What should the larva get?” Uwolowu replied that he had sent them to the blacksmith to forge the sun and moon, and when they glowed and sparkled, she should put these things in her bast sack and bring them to him. When the larva heard this, it flew away again, gave the feathers back to the birds and carried out the task at the blacksmith. The blacksmith gave it to her, and the larva carried it to Uvolowu. Uwolowu asked her: “Who taught you that?” She said: “I thought it up.” Uwolowu now told the larva to put the sun in its place. The larva did so. In the evening, Uvolovu told the larva to put the moon and stars in their place. The larva did so; the moon and stars shone. In the evening, Uwolowu told the larva to put the moon and stars in their place. The larva did so; the moon and stars shone. In the evening, Uwolowu told the larva to put the moon and stars in their place. The larva did so; the moon and stars shone.

The animals of Uvolovus

The animals were. The animals tilled the field. The dirt road was overgrown, Uwolowu gave the law to clear. Everyone prepared to leave, but for the time being they ate. When they ate, they told the dog monkey. The monkey said he had to go to the field and get yams first. When they had eaten, they asked the monkey to go with them; but the monkey said his food was on the fire and had to cook. They went and sent messengers to the monkey to come now. He said he was washing and stayed at home. When they had cut the way, they made a large mound of earth. Now the monkey came too and sat on the hill. Then the little antelope came and asked: “Who is sitting on the hill?” The monkey said: “Me.” The monkey wrestled with the little antelope and threw it down. The hartebeest came; the monkey wrestled with her and threw her down. The buffalo came and said: “Who is sitting on the mound?” The monkey said: “I”, wrestled with him and threw him down. Then the elephant came, wrestled with it and was thrown down. Now the turtle came and asked: “Who is sitting on the hill?” The monkey said: “I” and wrestled with her; the turtle threw the monkey down. The monkey said it had slipped and that a hole should be digged. They did so. They struggled again; this time too the turtle threw the monkey down. Then the monkey got angry, took tree bark and covered the turtle with it. The turtle took a dagger and put it in the fire. When it glowed red, she stabbed the monkey in the buttocks. Now the turtle came and asked: “Who is sitting on the hill?” The monkey said: “I” and wrestled with her; the turtle threw the monkey down. The monkey said it had slipped and that a hole should be digged. They did so. They struggled again; this time too the turtle threw the monkey down. Then the monkey got angry, took tree bark and covered the turtle with it. The turtle took a dagger and put it in the fire. When it glowed red, she stabbed the monkey in the buttocks. Now the turtle came and asked: “Who is sitting on the hill?” The monkey said: “I” and wrestled with her; the turtle threw the monkey down. The monkey said it had slipped and that a hole should be digged. They did so. They struggled again; this time too the turtle threw the monkey down. Then the monkey got angry, took tree bark and covered the turtle with it. The turtle took a dagger and put it in the fire. When it glowed red, she stabbed the monkey in the buttocks. The turtle took a dagger and put it in the fire. When it glowed red, she stabbed the monkey in the buttocks. The turtle took a dagger and put it in the fire. When it glowed red, she stabbed the monkey in the buttocks.

Nabala and death

Death stood on the market path. If a person came, he attacked and killed him. A young man and a virgin came; he attacked this to kill her. Nabala said to death: he should leave them for the time being, so that they can find firewood for him. Having done this, Nabala said to them: “If death says put down the firewood, then refuse and tell death to help you put the firewood down. When he takes the firewood off your head, take a sword and strike him. ”Nabala gave a sword to cut up death. Now that they had struck death, they cut it in half; the legs went up; Head and arms sank into the earth.

Mkwule

The first two people

There were many people up with God. God said, “There shall be many people on earth too,” and hurled two mature people down. One was a man, the companion was a woman. He threw them down with a little seed of any kind and a grain for food. God said to them: “Grind a grain of grain, cover it with the wing.” When they lifted it off, they found a lot of grain to fill themselves for two days. They were served with spinach, pumpkin and beans. God also gave them two fish. They put them in the water in which the fish multiplied for food.

The innocence

At first they didn’t know anything about the witness. One day the woman said to the man: “I have a wound in my body, boil water to wash it.” He sott, washed, washed. It didn’t heal. He said: “What is this, the wound does not close?” God saw the people what they were doing and said: “They are simple-minded, that I may send them the Son of Wisdom to teach them.” So the knee swelled the woman, swelled, swelled. One day a child came out. The wise, the knower. As he fell on the earth, he began to say, “What you wash is not a wound. Know the woman that she is giving birth to a man. ”The man went, recognizing his woman who was giving birth to a girl.

The sin

The girl grew up and got married. Then the mother-in-law gave her a grain and said: “Grind this one grain on the stone, cover the flour with the wing.” The mother-in-law went into the field. The bride stayed behind and said: “How are we supposed to be satisfied with a grain, I’ll take a lot of grain, a basket full.” When the mother-in-law returned to the village, she saw what the bride had done, wept and said, “Oh, you are spoiling man’s earth, now we have to work every day; must die of hunger. “God came and said:” You are spoiling the earth, now you have to plant a lot, you have to die to death. “

Resurrection

I.

One day people said, “We want to question sheep and dog.” They gave the sheep meat, they gave the dog bones. An obsessed old woman said, “You are wrong. Give the dog meat. “The people agreed, exchanged, gave the dog the meat, gave the sheep the bones and said,” Whoever devours and speaks: his words should count. “The dog hurried, gobbled the meat and barked : “Huhu, we die, we perish.” The sheep quickly gnawed the bone without devouring it, at last it said: “Bee, we are dying, we will be back.” The people said: “Woe, the dog came first. «They beat, chased the dog away.

II

Since the earth was spoiled by the woman, a person died in the village. They buried him and said: “Let’s leave the village. It’s bad here now; let’s pardon, let’s build elsewhere. ”So they did. On the way an old woman said: “I forgot my cup, wooden spoon and broom; I have to go back to the old village. ”The others resisted, saying:“ No, you mustn’t go back. ”The old woman ignored the words and returned. The others said: “She has a ghost in her body.”

Since the people had left the village, God said to the deceased: “The people fled, it is bad here now. The grass grows tangled, don’t be alone here. Rise, step out of the grave. ”The person stirred in the grave, began to rise and rose to the center of the body. Since the old woman — she was possessed — returned to the old village, the human being was struck by the resurrection. It spoke to him. “I said so, when you die, you shouldn’t come back; return to the grave from which you emerged. ”He returned to the grave.

The child of wisdom

The man was with grains in his hair. The wise man said to him: “Let’s go out, chop tree branches.” He chopped, burned them. The wise man scratched man’s hair, scattered seeds on the earth where the tree branches had been burned. The man returned to the tree, looked, said: “Verily, the grass sprouts from the seed.” He came again, saw the grass as the heads above became reddish. He said to his followers: “Harvest that we may see.” They reaped, cleaned in the mortar, spread under the sun, ground on the stone, saw flour, it was white. The man said: “Boil it in a pot so that we can see.” They cooked, tasted, were happy, said: “It’s sweet, how very much.” Now people knew the gruel, their food.

Dahome

Why woman is subject to man

Since Mahu had created man and woman, he set them apart; but so that they could hear each other when they were talking. They had eyes, they didn’t see. They had legs, they were of no use to them. They rolled like cans of palm oil.

Mahu thought to leave her like that for a while to see what was happening. He waited and looked at you every day. -

The man would have liked to approach the woman, but he was afraid of disturbing Mahu if he rolled on the dead leaves that covered the ground. One day the woman caught a toad; she put them on the wood and cracked them. The toad poison stained her face, she rubbed her face heavily. With this movement she opened her eyelids. She was amazed to see.

Her first wish was to go to the husband. She sprinkled the leaves fearing that their noise would disturb Mahu.

She came to the man and told how they rubbed sight. She told him something else, so that the parting seemed too quick to them.

This narration made the man want to see the light. He went to find the woman and ask for a toad from her.

Unfortunately, he did not wet the dry leaves. Mahu heard the noise and ran to it.

“Ah,” he said, “the woman recognized the man. It should never happen to her as a punishment. Now await the man’s call. “

A slippery story

Long before Dahome was founded, there was a king named Dadase.

One day, when he was visiting the market, he saw a young boy whose face was handsome and his limbs well formed, so that he took him for a young girl and asked her to marry her. The latter wanted to clear up the error for the king, but the fear of angering him and the thought of the great honor with which such a marriage shone upon him prevented him from confessing the truth. So he married his boy under the name Dausi, stating that Dadase would allow him to bathe separately and not need him as a wife until a year had passed. -

The king consented, and when he had returned to his castle, he immediately ordered walls to be erected so that the new wife could do her ablutions protected from the eyes of her companions. When they bathed, they only hid fences made of palm leaves.

The way Dadase looked after Dausi and the numerous gifts he gave him soon aroused the jealousy of the other women. One of them was angry at everyone. That was Aluba, the old woman to whom the companions owed obedience. She decided to watch the new intruder, to catch her mistake and to sue the king if he shared her mat one night. With this intention she bored a hole in the mud wall, behind which Dausi took her baths; as she brought her eye to the opening and observed, she noticed that the newcomer was a boy. As soon as she could, Aluba informed the king of what she had discovered. Since Dadase did not want to believe it, she said, “Well then, order the women to go to the source for your fetishes.”

When the women go to the spring because of the fetishes, the king sits down in front of the great gate of the palace to watch them pass. As they pass by him, all open the only protection with which she dresses. They adorn themselves this day, anoint their bodies with fat, dust their necks and arms with Atike powder and wear the most beautiful pearl belts and all their bracelets.

The new wife, when she heard what custom the king had ordered, complained: “Dadase perceives that he is being cheated and he will chastise me severely.”

So she decided to escape from the palace, but had to go through forty gates, each guarded by a dog. So she made forty balls of boiled cornmeal, which she poured into a calabash. When night came she left. Every time she came to a door, she gave the watchful dog a bullet to prevent it from barking. -

So she managed to win the bush without waking.

There she met the hyena.

“Hyena,” she said, “I am very unhappy, carry me away.”

But the hyena struck off.

Then she met the panther.

“Panther, carry me away.”

The panther struck off.

She meets death.

“Death, carry me away.”

And death said to her:

“I know your grief. Why complain. I will turn you into a girl. “

Spoke, and with the dry grinding of his knife cut off a thing that is usually not a girl’s gift. He blew over it, turned it into cassava, and gave it back to Dausi.

“Take it,” he said, “and above all be careful not to eat it if you don’t want to become a man again.”

Dausi, relieved of her grief, returned to the palace. The dogs they fed recognized them and let them go; they caressed the one who walked.

The day came, she began to sing cheerfully and the song rang in Aluba’s ears. Aluba came in at once; she found Dausi busy peeling cassava.

“Who gave you that?” She asked.

Dausi replied:

“Do you want some of the cassava my father sent me?”

The old woman refused to be asked, but when she had started to eat she felt an itch in the most hidden part of her body. She scratched, but the more she scratched, the more she felt a limb forming and growing in this area, which she had previously lacked and which soon reached the usual size and made her look like an extremely well-educated boy in all respects. -

It was her turn to moan. It was time to go to the source, and all the women, ready, met Dausi to pass before the king.

Dadase examined one after the other carefully and saw that Aluba was missing. One went to inquire; yet they were not found; the king began to get restless and sent to search the palace several times. At last they found Aluba crouched in a corner, moaning and moaning, they brought her.

Since she was before the king, she was forced to open the apron, which she stubbornly fastened, and she showed herself as she was. At such a sight the king’s wrath and fury were terrible.

“You are the liar,” shouted the king. “A mean slanderer who drove me to chase Dausi away. I want to hunt you. This morning we caught a hyena; go with her. “

He ordered Aluba to be tied to the hyena. She carried them away into the bush.

The origin of fish and darkness

Formerly the sun shone surrounded by her children, just as today the moon shines with its own, the stars.

The heat was intense during the day so that people could not come out of the huts and could hardly find anything to eat. So they quarreled with their fate.

The moon thought, then it went to the sun. “Our children,” he said, “cause grief. You make people grumble. If you agree, each of us will put our children in a sack and throw them into the water. “

So as the moon spoke, it collected small white pebbles. He put her in a sack, then went to the sun to see if she would do it by agreement.

The sun was ready. She followed the moon to the river bank and threw in her sack after him.

When night had come, the sun saw all the stars gathered around the moon. In anger she said: “You have betrayed me. Tomorrow I will take my children again. “

The first of her children that the sun drew out of the water died immediately, and so the second and third that she tried to take. They still shone, but they could no longer see their father. He left them in the water for fear of seeing them all perish.

This is the origin of the fish.

Since then the sun has hated the moon. She always pursues him and sometimes catches him.

Evening and morning

Evening and morning are brothers.

Her father, Mahu, did not treat them alike. To his elder, the morning, he gave innumerable subjects and all riches. In the evening he gave only a calabash filled with two kinds of pearls, the nana and azanmun. These were the only things he didn’t favor Tomorrow with. -

Tomorrow got sick. The wizard was called to look after him. The guaranteed recovery only if you create the pearls of nana and azanmun for him. The subjects went to look for the precious pearls full of restlessness. So some came that evening and told him the sorrow.

“If I get you the pearls, what do you give in return?” Asked evening.

They replied: “Countless cowries.”

The evening took the calabash his father had given him, opened it, the pearls flooded in abundance across the floor.

The evening was left alone. He found himself wishing his brother many illnesses and thought that he had noticed that the leaves of the calabash closed as he walked in the morning. He went to a magician whom he instructed to question Fa fate to see if he would get sick tomorrow if he put the fully opened leaves of the calabash under his feet. He agreed, and then he did. He made sick in the morning whenever he pleased, and so he dipped all his pearls against his brother’s cowries.

Evening had become much richer than morning, since men were created, so he could give them much more than his brother. So they chose him to be king. They gave him twelve little boys to accompany him; they say:

“Evening, you are honored to be a king.
As tomorrow was king, the land would fall apart.
Royalty cannot last
In the hours of the scorching day. “

Sayings of the Fang

Sun, moon and stars

In the beginning the sun and moon were man and woman. They lived together and had many children. The children of the sun and moon are called stars. The sun, moon and stars do not eat the same foods as we do. They feed on fire and that is why they shine. In the beginning, the sun and moon were man and woman.

They lived together. One day a powerful chief came into their village, whose name and country I don’t know. He brought many boxes full of goods. So great were its beauty and riches that the moon’s heart immediately aflame. When the chief left, the moon gave him a sign. At the bend in the road they wanted to meet secretly in order to flee quickly.

The sun soon noticed that the moon was no longer at his side. “Where is she,” he yells at his children. They don’t know the answer. “Where is she, I ask you?” His face sparkles with anger so that all the stars are afraid.

“Ah,” he shouts, “it’s you who helped your mother.” He immediately chased her. Every time he can grasp a star, he devours it and no one speaks of the star anymore. But these are so scattered and so numerous that some still remain, and many even. Since then, the sun has followed the moon and stars every day. As soon as she sees him rise at the edge of the sky, she hurries to disappear into her hut. When he has covered the whole part of the firmament, as we can see, he hurries to the other side, never tires and does not rest a day. As soon as he has disappeared, you see the moon shine, now here, now there; for she often changes hiding place to lure her husband off the trail. Sometimes he surprises her, and with a bite of his teeth he pulls out a piece. Sometimes, if the moon is too late in the midst of their children, it will still meet them in the sky and will devour them. So far he has not succeeded; because the moon is very nimble. As soon as the husband reaches her, she quickly escapes and the pursuit begins again. Sometimes the sun discovers his wife’s hiding place. It approaches softly, softly, and for long hours the moon hides itself.

But when she is free, she quickly runs into the midst of her children, the stars; because she loves them very much and like a good mother she never eats them. She goes from one hut to the other and visits them one by one. Sometimes she celebrates weddings with them; she then throws a wonderful ribbon around her head, which she wore on the day of her marriage to the sun. As soon as the sun reappears from the other side of the earth, she quickly flees with all her children. She leaves only one thing behind, always the same star, so that it brings news in the event of danger, and it watches carefully morning and evening.

The persecution has been going on for a long, long time. But a day will come when it will end; for after all man is master of things and he must be right. Without him things would be bad. This day the sun will close the moon in a deep pit in the bottom of the earth, and he will never let it rise. If the mother is in prison, the children will be eaten up quickly.

“What then happens to us humans?”

“I don’t know, my brother.”

The story of Ngurangurane, the crocodile man

A long time ago there lived a great wizard, called Ngurangurane, the crocodile man. It tells how he was born; that’s the first thing. What he did and how he died is the second thing. To relate all of your deeds is impossible; and also who could remember them. -

At that time the Fang lived on the bank of a great river, so wide that you couldn’t see the other bank. They fished on the bank, they did not go into the river. No one had taught them to hollow out boats. Ngurangurane taught them that.

A monstrous crocodile lived in the river. The power of this animal was wonderful. His head was longer than the hut, his eyes bigger than a whole kid, his teeth tore a person in two, his scales made a person invulnerable to the strongest lance. It was a terrible animal; so this had ordered the Fang:

‘You are to feed me a slave every day; one day a man, the other a woman, and every new moon a girl, carefully painted red, shining with grease and red powder. If you do this, you should live in peace; if not, great misfortune will afflict you. ”The frightened people were silent, and the next day the crocodile was offered the required sacrifice. One day a man, the next a woman, and every new moon a girl, shiny with oil and powdered red. The crocodile’s name was ombure. The waters obeyed Ombure. The forests obeyed Ombure. He was lord of the forest, he was lord of the water. The Fang twice tried to evade the tribute imposed by Ombure and left the country in which they lived. One day the great chief gathered all the chiefs in his house. He spoke for a long time; the others spoke long after him. When the palaver was over, the great chief said, “So the question of departure is settled. We’ll go far, far from here, beyond the mountains. When we are far from the river, far from here, Ombure will not be able to reach us. “All answered:” We want to go; if we are far, very far from the river, Ombure cannot reach us; we shall be happy. ”So it was decided not to renew the plantings and that the whole tribe would leave the river banks at the end of the rainy season. beyond the mountains. When we are far from the river, far from here, Ombure will not be able to reach us. “All answered:” We want to go; if we are far, very far from the river, Ombure cannot reach us; we shall be happy. ”So it was decided not to renew the plantings and that the whole tribe would leave the river banks at the end of the rainy season. beyond the mountains. When we are far from the river, far from here, Ombure will not be able to reach us. “All answered:” We want to go; if we are far, very far from the river, Ombure cannot reach us; we shall be happy. ”So it was decided not to renew the plantings and that the whole tribe would leave the river banks at the end of the rainy season.

So was done. At the beginning of the dry season, when the rivers dry up and travel is easy, the tribe sets off. The first day was quick, quick; as fast as you could go. Every man drove his wives on; the women hurried in silence, hunched over under the weight of supplies and tools; you carried everything with you, pots, dishes, baskets, everything, everything. Every woman had her burden. The great chief was at the head to lead. The first day many looked behind them and thought they heard the crocodile; but they didn’t hear it. On the second day the march was the same; but nothing was heard; on the third day the march was the same; nothing was heard.

On the third day the crocodile climbs out of the water as usual and comes to the place where they brought their sacrifice. Nothing. “What is that?” Immediately off to the village. He doesn’t hear a sound, he enters. All the huts are deserted. He goes to the plantations, all the plantations are deserted. He goes through all the villages, all the villages are deserted, he goes through all the plantations, all the plantations are deserted.

Ombure becomes terribly angry and dives back into the river to question his fetishes. He sings.

“You who command the waters, You who command
the woods.
All of you who obey me, I call you.
Come, come to your Lord’s call,
answer right away.
I want to send the lightning, send the thunder that grumbles.
The rain that falls from the clouds,
The storm that uproots the banana trees,
All will answer the voice of their Lord.
All of you who obey me tell me the way,
the way that the fugitives took. “

After questioning his fetishes, Ombure knew the route the refugees had taken. In vain did they hide their traces. Ombure knew her way. Who had taught him? The rain, the wind, the storm had told him; the thunder, the lightning, the forest had taught him.

The Fang continued their march, long, long. They crossed the mountains, and the great chief questioned his fetish. “Shall we stop here?” The fetish, the Ombure obeyed — but the chief did not know this — the fetish replied: “No, you will not stop here.” They crossed the valleys, and the great chief asked his fetish: “ Shall we stop here? ”The fetish, which Ombure obeyed, but the chief could not have known this, answered:“ No, you will not stop here, this is not a good place. ”They crossed the plain, and since it was crossed and one had found the great forest, the forest that does not end, the great chief asked his fetish again: “Shall we stop here?” And the fetish replied again: “Go on.

The Fang had migrated for many days and many moons. The little children had grown up, the young men had become young warriors, and the young warriors had become mature men. They had hiked many days and moons. They stopped on the lakeshore. New villages were built and plantings were created. When everything was ready, the chief united his men to give the village a name and it was called: “Akurangan, the liberation from the crocodile.”

That same night around midnight, they hear a great noise. All come out. Ombure was in the middle of the village. He was in front of the great chief’s hut. What to do? Where to flee and hide? Nobody knew, and as the great chief came out of his hut to see what was happening, Yu, that was the first Fang. With one bite, Ombure broke it in two. “Here you have the exemption from the crocodile,” said Ombure and went back to the lake. The trembling warriors chose another chief. A slave was taken and tied as a sacrifice on the lake shore. Ombure, when evening had come, devours his prey, then penetrates into the village and imperiously demands someone else. “Every day,” he said, “you give me two offerings; one day two men, the other day two women, two girls every new moon. Unless, so you will perish. I am Ombure, the king of the forest, I am Ombure, the king of the water. “

This has been the case for many years. Every day Ombure received two sacrifices, one day two men, another day two women, and every new moon two girls. In order to satisfy the blood sacrifice, the Fang waged war everywhere and were victorious; because the great crocodile protected them. They became great warriors.

After many years the Fang forgot migration and the misfortune that followed it. Tired of the tribute imposed by Ombure, they wanted to revolt and flee.

The Fang went to the forest; this closed itself to them on Ombure’s orders. They were forced to return to the lake and Ombure now claimed two girls as victims every day -

Every day two girls are brought to Ombure, two girls, painted in red, glowing with oil. They cry and complain in the evening. In the morning they no longer cry or complain, you can no longer hear them. They live on the bottom of the lake, in Ombure’s cave. They serve him and prepare his food. One day this happened:

The girl who was sacrificed by the lake that evening was the chief’s daughter. She was young, she was beautiful. In the evening she and her companion were tied up by the lakeshore. The companion did not return, but when the day appeared the chief’s daughter was still there. Ombure had spared them. Nine months later the chief’s daughter gave birth to a child, a boy. That boy was Ngurangurane. Ngurangurane is the son of Ombure, the crocodile chief, and is the first story.

The death of the crocodile

Ngurangurane, the child of the crocodile and the chief’s daughter, grew every day; the child becomes a young man, the young man becomes a young man. Then he becomes the chief of his people. He was a powerful chief and a skilled magician. In his heart there was a great desire to avenge the death of the chief, his mother’s father, to free his people from the tribute, with which the crocodile oppresses them. It tells what happened.

There is a tree in the forest, you know that; the tree is called a palm, so the sap flows, it flows abundantly. If you close it in a clay vessel and leave it in it for two or three days, you have the dzang, the drink that delights the heart. We know that now, but our fathers didn’t. Ngurangurane found it, and the crocodile was the first to drink the dzang.

Who taught him the dzang? Ngonomane, the stone fetish his mother gave him. So Ngurangurane did: “Prepare,” he said to the women, “all the clay pots you have, all of them, and go into the forest, to the clay brook, to make others too.” The women did so.

“Let’s go into the forest,” he said to the men, “to cut the trees that I will show you.” Everyone went with axes and knives. They cut the trees that Ngurangurane showed them. These were palm trees. Since they were all cut, the juice was caught, which flowed in abundance from the wounds struck by the ax. The vessels were brought; so did the women; the old jugs and the new ones. Since everyone was there, they filled everyone with dzang. The women carried them all into the village. Ngurangurane tasted the drink every day. The men wanted to do like him, but he forbade them to do so with a big eki (taboo). A man drank in secret, despite the ban, and his head turned immediately. Ngurangurane killed him in one fell swoop for breaking the ban and disregarding the eki.

Three days later he gathered his people, men and women, and said to them, “Now is the time; take the vessels and come with me to the shore of the lake. ‘They took the vessels and went with him. Since one was on the lake shore, Ngurangurane orders his people: “Drag all the vessels to the shore”; they did. “Carry the earth that I made you look for,” and two large pits are built on the lakeshore out of fresh earth. They were carefully trampled on, carefully smoothed with the thumbs. Then you pour all the dzang from the vessels into the two pits, every drop. The vessels were broken and thrown into the lake. The two victims were tied to both pits; all return to the village. Ngurangurane remains alone and hides by the pits.

At the usual hour the crocodile comes out of the water. It approaches the prisoners who are trembling with terror. “What is it,” he said when he came to the pits, “what is that?” He tastes the liquid a little, the drink seems good to him, and he shouts in a loud voice: “That’s good, I’ll be tomorrow order the Fang to deliver these to me every day. ‘When he had finished, he sang:

“I drank the dzang, the drink that delights the heart.

I drank the dzang, my heart is delighted, I drank the dzang.

The chief whom everyone obeys, it is I, the great chief.

It is me, Ngan, it is me, the Lord of the Waters, the Lord of the Forests. The chief whom all obey, it is I, the great chief.

I drank the dzang, the drink that delights the heart. “

He sings and sleeps happily on the beach, ignoring the prisoners.

Ngurangurane approaches the sleeping monster with a strong rope, supported by the prisoners, he ties it to a pole. Then he hurls his javelin with all his might and hits the dumb animal. The lance bounces back from the dense scales without wounding. The crocodile twitches only a little and says in its sleep: “A mosquito bite me.” Ngurangurane takes his strong stone ax, and with a terrible blow he hits the asleep animal. The ax rebounds without wounding the monster. The two prisoners flee frightened. Ngurangurane, the Lord of Thunder, calls lightning to help. Lightning refuses to obey. He grabs his stone, the stone of Ngurangurane, in his name he orders lightning to help him. This obeys now. He hits the crocodile on the head and between the eyes,

Ngurangurane hurries back to the village. “All of you, people of the village,” he says, “come all. Come to the lakeshore. The crocodile is dead. I killed the crocodile. I have avenged the chief of our people. I set you free. I, Ngurangurane. “

Everyone was happy, they danced the great crocodile dance around the corpse.

The worship of the crocodile

The crocodile lies stretched out on the lakeshore. So the next morning Ngurangurane does:

He takes the knife, the stone sacrificial knife, and orders his men to turn the corpse. You turn the body over. Ngurangurane now splits the skin. He splits them from throat to tail, he splits them lengthways, and he splits them twice in width. He cuts them up on each side. The flesh is carried away and put on the fire. Each of the men takes his part, each his part. For Ngurangurane the heart and the brain, for the old the soft parts, for the warriors the meat, for the women and children the entrails. Everyone has their part, everyone their part.

The skin is dried and carefully sewn together. Ngurangurane distributes pieces of wood to strip them off. Since everything is ready, the great chief has his skin set on the sea. She swims on the surface. Ngurangurane then had the fins serve as oars and the flexible tail as rudders. He goes here and there, to the right and left, forwards and backwards. Until then the Fang did not know what a pirogue was. As ngurangurans did with the crocodile skin, so they did Fang with the logs and hollowed them out. She taught this art to Ngurangurane, and the first pirogue hollowed out of tree trunks mimicked the construction of the crocodile. From that time the Fang went out to sea and began to catch large fish; because until then they feared the crocodile and only caught river fish. This is not all. After Ngurangurane avenged his people, he thought that he was the son of the crocodile and ordered great funerals, the great feasts that set the spirits of the dead free. For thirty times thirty days the women wept for the crocodile, for thirty times thirty days they sang the song of mourning in the evening and in the morning, and the lamentations resounded. For thirty times thirty days the hair was loosened and filled with earth, the face and chest were painted with white clay, and they sang the praises of the father of Ngurangurane; During thirty lunar times the angry spirit of the crocodile hurried through the villages, seeking its revenge and persecuting the living. — For thirty times thirty days the women wept for the crocodile, for thirty times thirty days they sang the song of mourning in the evening and in the morning, and the lamentations resounded. For thirty times thirty days the hair was loosened and filled with earth, the face and chest were painted with white clay, and they sang the praises of the father of Ngurangurane; During thirty lunar times the angry spirit of the crocodile hurried through the villages, seeking its revenge and persecuting the living. — For thirty times thirty days the women wept for the crocodile, for thirty times thirty days they sang the funeral song in the evening and in the morning, and the lamentations resounded. For thirty times thirty days the hair was loosened and filled with earth, the face and chest were painted with white clay, and they sang the praises of the father of Ngurangurane; During thirty lunar times the angry spirit of the crocodile hurried through the villages, seeking its revenge and persecuting the living. — During thirty lunar times the angry spirit of the crocodile hurried through the villages, seeking its revenge and persecuting the living. — During thirty lunar times the angry spirit of the crocodile hurried through the villages, seeking revenge, and pursuing the living. -

The hoopla of death roared every day, the dancers followed one another. Ngurangurane led the service. On the last day all men and women are united. Near the village, in the neighboring forest, Ngurangurane had trees cut down and a round square created. The women bring clay, and the great chief kneads the ancestor’s portrait with his own hands. He kneads an enormous crocodile, it is decorated with white and black, with black and red, and when it is completely prepared, the circling dances around the ancestor began. They lasted all night until morning; the hoopla sounds. Then Ngurangurane approaches all alone. He leads two prisoners in front of the picture, he sacrifices two men in front of the picture. In front of the picture he sacrifices two women. The pieces of meat were placed in front of the crocodile, the heads on its head and the bodies on its body. Then everyone withdraws. He donates the death donation. When everything is over, he orders: “Every year we will honor the crocodile in the same way. Every year we will celebrate his memory. His pacified spirit goes to the land of the dead. «From that day on, the Fang, freed from tribute, remain loyal to the new service.

The death of Nguranguran

Ngurangurane is a great chief. He leads the Fang to war, they always win. Ngurangurane knows when the enemy is approaching. That’s how he knows.

In the evening Ngurangurane looks for herbs in the forest; the herbs that one must know. The three-leaf kela, the thistles with the glowing tips, the strongly smelling Osim, the ka with the bitter juice and many others. Then he grinds every herb and tree in his mortar, sings and mixes hyena sap in it.

When everything gives a viscous mass, is well mixed, Ngurangurane covers his whole body with it. His whole body is covered, and no one is allowed to look, no one to look at him; death is certain to the curious. Magical song resounds for a long time; then Ngurangurane changes, feathers grow on his body: he was human, he will become a falcon, he will become a vulture, his arms are wings, his legs are claws, his fingers have claws. He left as a man, as a bird he flies away; very high, very high in the air. He hovers under the clouds and his frenzied flight carries him over the enemy villages. Invisible he hears the advice. He counts the warriors, he knows the path they will go, the stake tips they will drive in. He follows their nocturnal march, and when he returns to his village, again as a person, he leads his warriors, destroys the enemy’s attacks and wins. Ngurangurane is a great chief, the chief of Fang.

Abiere is his wife. Abiere, Ndonge’s daughter. He loves her above all other women. Abiere is young and Ngurangurane is old. His hair has almost disappeared, his beard has been bleached over the years, his strength is beginning to run out. Ngurangurane loves Abiere, but Abiere does not love Ngurangurane. She loves Ava, Nzogo’s son, he is young and handsome; she loves him and she wants to be his.

Abiere flees with Ava, but Ngurangurane calls the spirits of the forest and the water and pursues the refugees. Soon he grabs her; Ava escapes him, but he catches Abiere. He chastises her terribly and forgives after he has cut off her ears.

Abiere is shameful and can no longer mix the dances of her companions. She must remain hidden in her hut, she vows to take revenge. Since Ngurangurane is asleep, she steals the fetish stone that he holds from his mother and that he always carries around his neck in a small sack. With cunning and prayer she learned the wonderful secret of this stone from him, without him Ngurangurane can be enchanted into a bird, but once transformed he cannot regain human form without the help of this stone. Abiere gives the fetish stone Ava. At this time the Ye-Kwa break into the land of the Fang. Ngurangurane rushes to turn into a bird. He flies away, observes the enemy’s movements, so calculates and hurries back to the village. He returns to his hut.

Ngurangurane, the vulture bird, has returned to his hut. He hurries to become a man again and to command his warriors. In a corner of the house, sitting on her mat, Abiere grinds almonds and sings. She prepares the sacrament and sings:

“The bird flies in the air,
Its wings are for flight.
The bird can’t go,
fly bird in the air,
why are you staying here?
Fly bird in the air.
See, I’m grinding almonds.
No bird eats such,
angry woman takes revenge,
fly in the air, you bird. “

Ngurangurane feels his heart turn. He begins the words of his song, he smears oil on his body, grinds herbs and sings:

“That my wings round my arms again.
That my claws turn into legs,
feathers dwindle.
Vogel, I want to become a man. “

But its wings remained wings, its claws remained claws. Its claws and feathers do not fade. He starts over twice. It stays the same twice. His heart turns in his chest. With his beak and claws he tears up the sack containing the magical stone. He disappeared. Angry, he rushes at Abiere, he knows where his misery is coming from. He wants to tear out her eyes, tear her bowels apart. But Abiere has already fled, she opens the door, she hurries to tell Ava everything. Ava takes bow and arrows. He hurries and penetrates the hut of Nguranguran. Since he sees him, the bird man flies. It flies very fast, but Ava has already drawn his bow and the arrow flies faster than the bird and reaches the target. Ngurangurane is hit in the chest and falls to the ground. His blood flows drop by drop, life is leaving him. Since Ava rushes on him to complete him, Ngurangurane, the great warrior, is already a corpse.

Ava cuts off his head, pulls out the feathers, makes a bouquet out of it to put in his hair on the days of the dances. He goes back to the hut, he has taken revenge on the enemy.

Meanwhile, the warriors await Ngurangurans. You wait a long time, you call him for a long time. You ask the fetishes, and the fetishes answer, “He’s dead.” You ask the fetish, who is the murderer? “Drink elun juice,” that is the answer. Men, women, and children, each come forward to drink elun juice; but two subject, Abiere and Ava; Ava and Abiere are guilty of killing Ngurangurane. They are immediately sacrificed, death is avenged and the funeral begins. The whole village is in mourning, the tam-tam roars every day. The spirit of the dead will be pacified. The festival lasts six months. Since everything is over, a new chief is elected after the dance of death, and Ngurangurane crosses the great river of the dead. What remains of him, here it is, the song that I told you. This is the end.

The three sons of Ada

A woman named Ada gave birth to triplets. The men of the tribe wanted to kill them as usual. Ada begged her to leave the children with her until evening. Some wanted, others didn’t. The chief of the village came and said, “Let’s leave the children until tomorrow.” So they were left.

At night Ada got up, carried the triplets away and escaped with them into the mountains, far, far, and they could never be found. The names of the three children, here:

The first was called Etarane, the second Mendore, the third Bisonge. Mother carried her into the forest, and when she was far, very far, she built a hut out of palm leaves. There she stayed. There was a large tree above the hut, and the fruit it bore was good and large. This fruit is called: Angonglongo. Many of them were on the tree, many on the ground.

One day Etarane, the first, screamed a lot; to amuse him, Ada went to get him a fruit of the Angonglongo. Etarane did not yet know how to leave. He takes the fruit, bites into it, finds it sugary and eats. He eats them whole; when he has finished it, he stands on his legs, goes under the tree, and chooses another fruit. He also eats them all up, then he tells his mother:

“I want to go to sleep in the hut.” The mother looks at him with great astonishment; because Etarane had never spoken before. The other day, when Ada wanted to feed her son, he had become a young boy. He said to his mother, “I’m going to go fishing in the river, give me line to make a net.” His mother gave it to him.

A few hours later he came back with a full basket of fish. “Take my catch and cook the meal; from now on I will feed you. “Ada was completely charmed; she looked for the most beautiful fruit of the Angongongo, she brought it to Mendore, who cracked it. He eats them whole; when he is finished he stands on his little legs, goes under the tree, chooses another fruit; He also eats them all up, then he says to his mother: “I want to go to sleep in the hut.” His mother looked at him with great astonishment; because Mendore had never spoken before.

The other day, when Ada Mendore wanted to breastfeed, he had become a young boy. He replied to his mother, “I want to go into the forest to look for game and set traps. Give me wood to build traps. ”Ada gave it to him. A few hours later he came back with a sack full of animals. “Here is my booty, take it,” he said to his mother, “from now on I will feed you.”

Meanwhile Ada spoke to herself: “Look, two of my sons are a bit tall. Soon they will leave their mother. If Bisonge eats the fruit of Angongongo, too, he becomes like his brothers, and what will become of me? “She sang:

“The mothers are for the young children.
The small children are for the mothers.
Small children grew up, mothers grew old.
Bisonge stay a little child.
I have my arms to look after you.
I have my milk to feed you.
I have my body to protect you.
Bisonge stay a little child.
The small children are for the mothers.
The mothers are for the young children.
I have my heart to love you.
Bisonge stay a little child. “

Ada picks up all the fruits of the Angong Longo. She hides them under the leaves. She carries them far away into the forest. While she is doing her best, a fruit falls from the tree and rolls to Bisonge. He takes the fruit, bites into it, finds it sugary, eats it. He eats them whole. Since he’s finished, he gets up on his little legs and walks all alone. Ada no longer has a small child. The other day, when Ada wants to breastfeed Bisonge, he refuses the milk. Like his brothers, he had become a young boy. “I want to kill birds, give me wood to make a bow.” His mother gives him wood to make a bow. He goes into the forest and brings back a sack full of birds that evening. “From this day on,” he says to his mother, “it is I who will give you food.”

Meanwhile, Etarane, Mendore, and Bisonge continue to eat fruits of the tree. They eat, they eat. The other day they wake up they have become young men. “I’m going to fish,” says Etarane, “give me a harpoon.” In the evening he comes back with an enormous fish, the size of which we have never seen. In the morning Menore said to his mother: “Give me wood to make a spear.” His mother gives a wood. He makes himself a spear, the point of which is well hardened in the fire, and goes into the forest. In the evening he comes back with a tiger on his shoulder. “Here,” he says, “take the meat; Cut the fur and make me a cap and a weir sling. ”His mother does as Mendore tells her. -

In the morning Bisonge said to his mother, “Give me some thread to make a net out of it,” and his mother gave it to him. He worked all day tying a net. When evening had come, the brothers mocked him: “Bisonge, Bisonge, what have you done today?” But since the three brothers were very fond of each other, they were not angry and shared the booty from hunting and fishing; they were good brothers.

Meanwhile her mother sang:

“Children of Adas what have you become?
See, see, the tree of the forest bends before the strong.
Ada no longer has children, no young children.
Who is she going to hold to her chest now.
Angonglongo, Angonglongo, you stole my children from me. “

The sons didn’t love the song. They ordered her to be silent and to roast new fruit. They ate from it; they ate a lot, they became great, great men, of superhuman stature. The next day Etarane says to his mother: “I’m going to the forest to cut bamboo to make a fish barrier out of it. I want to catch all the fish in the river. ”He goes into the forest. In the evening he carries an enormous load of bamboo and begins to build the barrier. Three days later the river was completely blocked by a river high as a man. Etarane took whatever fish he wanted. “From now on,” he said, “we shall live in abundance.”

The next day Mendore says to his mother, “I want to cut a tree in the forest to make myself a spear. I want to kill all the animals in the forest. ”He goes and cuts a tree, puts an iron spike on it, and leaves. When he returned, he carried two elephants on his shoulders, twice as high as a man. He said: “Let’s look for the third animal together. I left it in the forest to kill others; for they are mourning because I killed the leader of the herd. “When Bisonge heard these words, he quickly ended his net and said:” I will go hunting this evening. “Indeed, when the night was black, he went, his net on his shoulders, in the woods. Finally he comes to the place where his brother killed the elephant. More than ten others had run up and stood around the body, stirred it with teeth and trunk and tried to bring it back to life. Without wasting time, Bisonge spreads his net over the clearing, and since it is completely covered he hurries back to his brothers’ hut.

“Hurry,” he says, “come with me quickly, the elephants are trapped.” Immediately they get up and hurry to the clearing. The elephants are in the net, they cannot escape. The three brothers hurriedly killed her. They carry teeth and meat back to the hut; they eat and drink long days and rejoice together, and they rejoice with their mother.

One day Etarane was catching fish by the river. A little time had passed before he had left, then he quickly returned to the hut, where the brothers were still sleeping.

“I saw the dzun” (mythical monster), he said, and rushed before her. “Come help, we want to kill him.”

The three brothers hurry. They come to the river, everyone has their weapons, they are preparing to attack the Dzun. This stayed on the bank. As soon as he sees the hunters, he rushes at them to crush them under his mass. Every step he takes shakes the earth and digs a pit so deep that a man could hide in it. When a tree meets his steps, it kinks it like a blade of grass. His teeth were long as a man and tore the rocks in the air like little pebbles. He comes up to the hunters, snorts like a storm that uproots the trees. You are waiting for him; As soon as he is close, Etarane throws the harpoon in his stomach, Mendore pierces his eye with the thrown spear, Bisonge throws the net over him and rolls him into the middle of the mesh. The furious animal lashes out in vain meanwhile Mendore pierces his other eye. Etarane stabs his heart with the big blow, and Bisonge cuts off his head with his sword. They return to the hut, bring the dzun on their shoulders. They make a seat out of the skull to sit down and make pipes out of the thighbones to scare away evil spirits. From the skins three shields, from the ears two tam-tams, as big as huts. They make a hunting horn out of one of the horns to call each other from afar, and a pipe out of the other to smoke the Kakuba. They use the thigh bones to make pipes to scare away evil spirits. From the skins three shields, from the ears two tam-tams, as big as huts. They make a hunting horn out of one of the horns to call each other from afar, and a pipe out of the other to smoke the kakuba. they use the thigh bones to make pipes to scare away evil spirits. From the skins three shields, from the ears two tam-tams, as big as huts. They make a hunting horn out of one of the horns to call each other from afar, and a pipe out of the other to smoke the kakuba.

Etarane, Mendore, and Bisonge were three formidable hunters, and their reputation spread far and wide. When they felt hungry, they went hunting. The elephants fled from them; they quickly grabbed hold of them, rolled them onto their backs by teeth and legs like a turtle and then carried them back to the hut, dead. They loved such things. Often times they attacked the Abvi, and despite the strength and malice of this animal, they effortlessly killed it to eat its meat and take away its fur, which is hard as iron.

At that time several Bibibi lived far from the village of the brothers. These monsters were widely feared. Ogres are terrible; but Bibibi is much more than that. They kept all the tribes subdued; in the middle of their village was a large hut full of men, women and children from more than ten tribes. Every day they ate ten men, ten women and ten children from the same tribe. Every tribe had its day. When the Bibibi heard of the great deeds of the three brothers, they said to one another, “We want to kill them.” One day they left. One of them goes ahead, enters the three brothers’ hut and asks for food. “Who are you?” They ask him. “A Bibibi man.” “We don’t know these people, you have to go.” Meanwhile the Bibibi quickly takes a numbing powder from his sack and throws it into water with his fetish. The smoke rises in the air; then the three brothers fell asleep. The Bibibi runs to say to his brothers: “The three brothers are asleep, you come to kill them.”

The three brothers sleep: their sleep is deep, deep that no noise wakes them. The three brothers are sleeping. Ada, their mother, is with them, she shakes them; she knows the danger. The three brothers are asleep, their sleep is deep, deep that no noise will wake them. The three brothers are sleeping. Startled, she shakes Ada. “Wake up, my sons, wake up.” She takes the fire brandy and holds it close to her eyes. The three brothers are sleeping. Ada, Ada, your efforts are useless, more powerful than you is the fetish that takes them away. The three brothers are sleeping; her sleep is deep, deep that no noise will wake her. The three brothers are sleeping.

Ada took Bisonge, the youngest child, in her arms. She carries him with great difficulty, she drags him out of the hut; she hides him in the deep forest. She saves him a second time; she hastily returns to the hut to rescue the other children. -

The Bibibi have already surrounded the house. Ada, Ada you can no longer enter. The Bibibi roar.

“Oh Etarane, oh you Etarane, those who
think are sleeping and snoring and knocking out.
Oh Etarane, oh you Etarane,
the men woke up without sleeping.
Who of us remains alive,
listen, the ogre is shaking the earth.
Listen, the ogre is shaking the earth in the yard.
Pan he sleeps, pan he snores, pan pan. “

The Bibibi have entered the hut. They killed Etarane, they killed Mendore. The knife has cut off the heads, the iron has penetrated the throats. The brothers are dead, sleep will never leave their eyelids. Death crouches on the eyes. The elephants in the forest no longer fear the hunters. Who else will come to kill, the two brothers are dead. The Bibibi set the hut on fire; since they cannot find Ada and Bisonge, they go to come back the next day.

Bisonge sleeps in the forest, Ada watches over him. Only in the morning does he wake up and find the hut destroyed, the brothers dead. Ada tells him how it happened. This is how it happened: ‘A Bibibi came to ask for hospitality; he threw his fetish into the fire and you all fell asleep. I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t. I carried you out of the hut, you, my son Bisonge. I went back to carry your brothers away. But the Bibibi were already there and killed your brothers without my being able to help. It is up to you now to avenge them. “

Bisonge got into a terrible anger, he prepared his large knife.

“Kwi, Kwi, cut my knife, cut.
You will eat this evening.
Take the blood that gives life,
you will drink this evening. “

Sharpened the knife, Bisonge tells his mother: “Give me my net.” Ada gives him the net, Bisonge says: “I’m going.”

He walks through the forest, far, far. He comes to Bibibi’s house; these had gone to look for him. He enters the house and hears a great clamor of voices: “No, no, it’s not us, it’s the men of Yenzum. No, no, Yengoak’s are on it… No, it’s up to you, the rest of you. ”He opened the door, and there stood all the people who had locked the Bibibi in to eat them. They already believed that it was time for dinner, which each tribe delivered when it was their turn. Bisonge freed them, then surrounds the house with his net. He surrounds it completely, only leaving the door open. He surrounds it with many meshes, then he waits.

The Bibibi came back early, because it was still black, angry that they hadn’t found Bisonge. “We’ll have him tomorrow, we’ll go tomorrow, and he’ll die tomorrow.”

No sooner have they entered than Bisonge drops his net over the door. They are trapped like the elephant in the ngol, like the fish when the fisherman throws his throwing twine over a train of sardines. You are trapped. In the dark night, in the darkness, when one is afraid, the voice of Bisonges calls out: “Bibibi, Bibibi … you ogres who devour people, I call you, Bisonge, the brother of both you who killed.” The Bibibi overthrow to the door, go out, stumble and are caught in the net, like in a trap. You try to break loose and cut the mesh with your sword. Bisonge knows the fetish that hardens the yarn to iron, there is no way to escape.

“Ah, ah,” says Bisonge, “there they are, the notorious ogres, oh, now we want to see light”; he takes fire blight, throws it on the roof, the whole house is on fire. The bison torch, there it is. He gathers the net, narrows the mesh, he catches the crushed and bleeding Bibibis. He loosens one after the other, heads everyone, slits everyone’s stomach. All the people they had sat the day before escaped into the forest. Soon you won’t see them anymore.

Bisonge has finished chopping off their heads, the last one has a stomach slit, he says, “That’s good, that’s good.”

He carefully collects the heads, colors them red, puts them in a box and keeps the fetish. The people of all tribes recognized him as their chief, and he ruled over them for a long time; his sons followed him, and the others followed suit.

Angonzing and Ndongmba

Giants and dwarves are present. Every chief has called his warriors, all have heard the call of the Tam-Tam. The giants advance through the forest. Ndongmba leads them, armed with the three magic arrows. The first reaches what it aims at above the clouds, the second pierces the deepest water, the third penetrates the bottom of the earth. Nlutangmba carries the famous crossbow. Instead of arrows, she hurls huge rocks. Under the impact of this load, people are crushed like ants. The blood flows like oil squeezed out of palm nuts. A strong hunter carries the famous crossbow.

The attack has started. The dwarfs’ little arrows fly through the air from all sides. Wui, wui, wui they bore into the bodies of the giants, stab them from all sides, hit them on the head, on the arms, on the navel, on the legs. Wui, wui, wui the big heads fall to the ground, pum, pum, the big heads fall to the ground. The giants furiously knock down the trees, kick them down, break one after the other. They completely surround the forest with a circle of cut trees, since the circle is closed, they start a fire. The big trees are on fire, the forest is on fire, the wind chases the flames up and carries the smoke into the distance. The wild animals scream desperately; you can hear the meow of the tiger, the elephants roar, but the giants keep a good watch. The dwarfs cannot escape, they will all be roasted like grasshoppers.

The three arrows will be useless to him. Angonzing, the chief of the dwarves, has recognized the danger. He and his people withdraw to the middle of the forest, they advise. How to escape from danger? Angonzing cuts up the palaver. At his command, the dwarfs dig holes like termites. Everyone digs their house. Everyone hurries; for the wind of fire is hot and everyone loves to live. Once the holes are dug, they stay in their caves and await what is to come. To feed, they have ants in their burrows, ants full of fat, and they wait patiently. The forest flames for three days. The giants keep a good watch around the fire for three days. Finally the fire begins to subside; at once they penetrate the immeasurable embers, which go out. With the point of the spear they rummage through the hot ashes; here and there they find charred bones. The dwarves are dead, the giants are victorious. They return to their village and sing the song of victory and dance the victory dance; they return to their village. As soon as they are gone, Angonzing comes out of hiding and calls all the companions. Everyone comes out laughing at the good trick they played on the enemy. The winners are the dwarfs, the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads. the giants are victorious. They return to their village and sing the song of victory and dance the victory dance; they return to their village. As soon as they are gone, Angonzing comes out of hiding and calls all the companions. Everyone comes out laughing at the good trick they played on the enemy. The winners are the dwarfs, the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads. the giants are victorious. They return to their village and sing the song of victory and dance the victory dance; they return to their village. As soon as they are gone, Angonzing comes out of hiding and calls all the companions. Everyone comes out laughing at the good trick they played on the enemy. The winners are the dwarfs, the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads. they return to their village. As soon as they are gone, Angonzing comes out of hiding and calls all the companions. Everyone comes out laughing at the good trick they played on the enemy. The winners are the dwarfs, the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads. they return to their village. As soon as they are gone, Angonzing comes out of hiding and calls all the companions. Everyone comes out laughing at the good trick they played on the enemy. The winners are the dwarfs, the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads. the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads. the people of the night, the people of the dark forest. When the darkness has hidden the sun, when the giants devour animals and drink palm wine and fermented sugar cane in their villages, the dwarves’ arrows are aimed from all sides. Wui, wui, wui, they sting, wui, wui, wui pum, pum, dum, the big heads of the giants fall to the ground, pum, pum, pum they fall to the ground, the great heads.

Rrrii, the first fight is over, Rrrii, Rrrii.

The giants, angry at their defeat, attack again. Once again they invade the dwarf forest. These resist to the best of their ability. They are brave, but they are not strong. The giants are brave and they are strong. Evungnzok leads them, and no one can resist his weapon. His brother Eyangnzok is at his side and no one can be like him. As a weapon he carries an enormous net, in the mesh of which he can grasp an entire forest. He hides it in his stomach, when he fights he flings it up to the clouds, a terrible bird. His piercing eye sees everything, and when he sees the enemy he jumps up, throws and hurls his net, and the enemies hang in the mesh. Then, when everyone is caught and entangled in the mesh, with no strength to defend himself, he spits the hammock, who is hidden in his bowels, and bruises one by one the head. When attacked, he turns his back on his enemies; his back is invulnerable. On his skin, hard as iron, arrows and spearheads splinter. When all the enemy’s arrows and projectiles are gone, he turns around, the game is up to him and no one escapes him.

Angonzing saw the enemy approaching from afar in the forest. He lets the arrows of his warriors pierce it; but, seeing Eyangnzok hurling and unfolding the deadly net, he and his men hurry quickly into the deep forest, where the trees are full of thorns. There he doesn’t fear the net. They cannot catch the mesh, the thorns tear everything. The giants have to resort to other weapons. But once again the circle is closed. This time the giants don’t start a fire. They chase the dwarves from tree to tree and are incessantly gaining terrain. They poke the smallest hole with their lances, destroy the anthills and look under the rocks and dead tree stumps. Nothing can escape them. Even the animals fall under their blows, and as night falls join forces to completely close the circle again. The dwarves are trapped. The animals have disappeared, only herds of monkeys remain, hopping, jumping, jumping from branch to branch, from liana to liana, forwards, backwards, to the side, to the right, to the left in the huge trees on the tops of the lianas. Here and there they show their curious heads, then they flee quickly.

The giants fight. The closed circle narrows more and more; the warriors touch, the dispersed groups are united. Where are the dwarfs? Disappeared without leaving a trace. Where to look Confused, the giants withdraw and return to their villages. They no longer sing the song of victory, they no longer dance the dance of victory. As they come to the hills that dominate the land on all sides, they hear drawn-out wailing and distressing sighs. The dwarves were in the village before them, taking all the children with them.

How did you get away? Since Angonzing found himself completely surrounded, he ordered his men to kill all monkeys that were seen and each one went into the skin of one of the animals and they quickly escaped through the air.

Rrrii, Rrrii the second fight is over. Rrrii, Rrrii.

The third fight with the dwarves has begun. Mborenzork commands the giants. Mborenzork, who, like his brother Eyan, can fly in the air and hide in tree hollows.

No one can escape it. Arrows serve as weapons, the three magic arrows. The first reaches its destination, in the height of the air, the clouds, the second in the deepest depth of the water and the third in the deepest hole on earth. Who could escape it? He chases the dwarfs into the hidden corners. They try in vain to resist. In vain their arrows hiss, wui, wui, the giants keep advancing. Soon the dwarfs will be on the river bank, near the great waterfalls. All retreat is cut off, all they have to do is die. Angonzing is still the leader. He consults his most powerful fetishes, and these promise help. Take refuge in the bottom of the water, they told him, take refuge in the bottom of the water. Angonzing seeks the meaning of these words to make him fall for his men. Wui, wui, wui the arrows fly, and hit, wui, wui, wui. Suddenly he understood. Since the night has fallen black as the water, his men slide one after the other along a narrow path, one after the other through the rocks, soon they have disappeared into the waterfall, under the waters that tumble down roaringly. Angonzing is a skilled man, his warriors are well protected.

In the morning the giants look for enemies everywhere. You don’t find it. They had to cross the river, they were probably far away, but where? how, who will say it? Eyang flies high, he circles above the clouds. His gaze wanders vast distances. The forest, the mountains, the valley do not save the enemy. Where should he throw his net? He descends without discovering anything. In his place Mborenzork swings up. Soon he will descend; he was no happier than his brother. Then he grabs the magical arrows that never miss the target. The arrow of the air, flung by his strong hand, snaps, hisses, flies, seeks the target and goes back to the Lord. The enemies are not in the air. The arrow of the earth, flung from its mighty hands, flicks, hisses, flies, pierces the earth, seek the goal and return to the Lord. The enemies are not in the earth. The arrow of the water, flung from his mighty hand, snaps, hisses, flies, cuts the water, seeks the target. It penetrates across the waterfall and penetrates the heart of a companion of Angonzing. But the latter quickly orders the head to be cut off, the body filled with water, thrown into the water, and when the corpse comes to light, pierced by the arrow, Mborenzork calls out: ‘They are all dead, here they are at the bottom of the river River, they preferred to kill themselves rather than fall under our blows. “ It penetrates across the waterfall and penetrates the heart of a companion of Angonzing. But the latter quickly orders the head to be cut off, the body filled with water, thrown into the water, and when the corpse comes to light, pierced by the arrow, Mborenzork calls out: ‘They are all dead, here they are at the bottom of the river River, they preferred to kill themselves rather than fall under our blows. “ It penetrates across the waterfall and penetrates the heart of a companion of Angonzing. But the latter quickly orders the head to be cut off, the body filled with water, thrown into the water, and when the corpse comes to light, pierced by the arrow, Mborenzork calls out: ‘They are all dead, here they are at the bottom of the river River, they preferred to kill themselves rather than fall under our blows. “

The giants return to the village. All night they slaughter animals and prepare fermented drinks to celebrate victory. The dances have started, the hoopla resounds. See there, a new sound flies. The dwarves’ arrows hiss and drill into the dense crowd, wui, wui wui.

Rrrii, the third fight is over. Rrrii, Rrrii.

Akulenzame, the man with the sack

One day a young woman was walking through the forest to pick the fruits of the Oba, to prepare oil. On her way back to the village with a basket full of fruit, she met Otutuma, the spirit of the woods. After returning to the hut, she gave birth to her firstborn son. The father, after putting him on the leaf of a banana, recognized him as his child and called him Akulenzame, that’s the madman. This is the birth of Akulenzamen.

Akulenzame grew up like the other children in the village without anything special to be noted about him; became a youth and wanted to get married. Since he was small and ugly, the young girls didn’t like him, and none of them wanted to get involved with him as he wandered around the villages and gave them various gifts, one or the other.

In the village the mother was in despair; for she was old, her arms got tired quickly, it was getting harder and harder for her to meet Akulenzamen’s demands and to satisfy his hunger. Because I have to tell you, this Akulenzame ate like hell. Despite his small stature, what ten people like you and me eat in ten days was barely enough for him in a day. Where did he put this amount of food? You think in his mouth. Oh no, he put them in his sack, which he always carried with him. His mother made a bundle, kyo, kyo, was it already in the bag, another, kyo, kyo, was it already in the bag, and so always. As soon as a bundle was prepared, the sack opened, and if the stuff was in it, Akulenzame demanded so urgently, made such noise and threatened so badly that his mother hurried, to run into the fields and come back, bent over from the burden, to prepare new bundles again. The poor woman died right. She grew leaner and thinner, and her breasts hung like empty tubes; it was really a terrible thing to have Akulenzame for a son, such a glutton.

One day Akulenzame met a girl with red make-up, adorned with chains and pearls, in his hallways. He met her by the river, where she was cleaning her copper chains with sand. He immediately decided to marry her. She was the daughter of a great chief.

This Akulenzame had two peculiar habits. At first he didn’t leave the sack hanging over his shoulders for anything in the world; not by day, not by night. He never hung it on a hook, never allowed anyone, whoever it was, to open it or even put an eye in it. “Eki,” he said, “that is forbidden, that is sacred.” He had another habit. If someone died in the village or in the neighboring village, a young person who was famous as a warrior or a hunter, a young woman who was known for her industry or her corporation, Akulenzame never failed to go to the hut, the funeral service attend and do the dance of death. Why he did this nobody knew and he took care not to say it. The reason was: he had learned from his father, the forest spirit, to seize the souls of the dead. When a soul left the body, Akulenzame would run to it, and while the soul ran invisibly around the body it had just left and was still clumsy to make use of the freedom it had regained, Akulenzame caught it and put it quickly and deeply into the sack ; for she was unable to escape because she was bound by the power of the fetish. For this Akulenzame needed so many bundles that he had to nourish the souls well. since she was bound by the power of the fetish. For this Akulenzame required so many bundles that he had to nourish the souls well. since she was bound by the power of the fetish. For this Akulenzame needed so many bundles that he had to nourish the souls well.

So one day Akulenzame met a young girl with red make-up, all adorned with necklaces and pearls. He met her by the river, where she rubbed her copper chains with sand. He was immediately determined to marry her. Akulenzame went to her father and said: “I want to marry your daughter.” The father called the daughter and said: “Here is Akulenzame who wants to take you away as a wife.” To be able to love ugly people. “The father said to Akulenzame:” You heard my daughter’s answer. “Akulenzame replied,” A woman’s heart is a banana tree. What does the father mean? “

“If you are rich and powerful and you give me many presents, I will recognize you as a son-in-law. It all depends on the price you pay for my daughter. “Akulenzame said,” Command what you want, I will pay it; because I love your daughter. “

The chief said to himself: “This is a boy, that seems a clever one.”

“To begin,” he said to his future son-in-law, “I want to test your strength. For a long time I have wanted to change my village and settle somewhere else. Tomorrow I will go with you to show you the place where I want to take it. ”“ Good, ”said Akulenzame,“ you will show me. ”This evening he put no bundle in the sack. The souls fasted.

The next day the chief and Akulenzame went together. They came to a place in the forest where the ground was level, but there were tall trees. The chief said, “Here it is, you will help me cut the trees.”

“I want to do that all by myself.”

“Oh, oh, that’s a wonderful thing, one year wasn’t enough for you.”

“I have time and I’ll be ready quickly. Let’s return to the village. ‘They returned to the village. As soon as Akulenzame has returned to his hut, he lets the dead souls out of the sack and shows them the location of the future village with the order to cut down the trees immediately and set them on fire. “You will fast until the whole thing is over.” Immediately the souls depart, begin the work, felling, cutting, chopping off and setting a fire. The men of the village had not yet finished the night watch when the cut trees were burning and the withered leaves, blown away by the wind, came into the village. When the people saw a great glow over the forest, they said among themselves: “Who wants to prepare his plantings and cut trees so close to us? Tomorrow at dawn we want to fight these strangers. We will not allow our country to be invaded. ”The next day, in the glow of the dawn, the war tamam rang out, drummed by the chief’s nimble hand. All the men hurried over. The forest was still burning. Well-armed, they sneak quietly on secret paths to the scene of the fire. They come and look in all directions. In the middle of the bush a little man is working his way to pieces, he hits the last tree with countless blows. More than a hundred lay on the ground, and since the tree fell, Akulenzame, it was he, brushes his forehead and says, “That would be done.” He throws the ax on his shoulder as if to return to the village. drummed by the chief’s nimble hand. All the men hurried over. The forest was still burning. Well-armed, they sneak quietly on secret paths to the scene of the fire. They come and look in all directions. In the middle of the bush a little man is working his way to pieces, he hits the last tree with countless blows. More than a hundred lay on the ground, and since the tree fell, Akulenzame, it was he, brushes his forehead and says, “That would be done.” He throws the ax on his shoulder as if to return to the village. drummed by the chief’s nimble hand. All the men hurried over. The forest was still burning. Well-armed, they sneak quietly on secret paths to the scene of the fire. They come and look in all directions. In the middle of the bush a little man is working his way to pieces, he hits the last tree with countless blows. More than a hundred lay on the ground, and since the tree fell, Akulenzame, it was he, brushes his forehead and says, “That would be done.” He throws the ax on his shoulder as if to return to the village.

At the same moment the men surround him, the chief speaks to him: “How can you cut down all these trees?”

“Are you counting me for nothing?”

“How, is it you, Akulenzame, who cut the forest?”

“Yes, I, Akulenzame, didn’t you tell me yesterday that I want to build a new village here? See it’s done. Let’s go back together. “

The chief goes into his hut and says to his daughter: “Akulenzame is a real guy.” She says: “Oh, if only he were a little prettier.”

That was Akulenzamen’s work sample. No one had seen the souls at work; at first because Akulenzame was careful not to speak of it, that would have meant immediate death; and then because early in the morning he had gone alone into the woods. As soon as the work was finished, he had ordered his ghosts to crawl back into the sack immediately. ?

On the same evening Akulenzame said to the chief: “Give me your daughter, that I will take her with me to the village.” The chief replied: “I saw that you know how to plant plantings, cut forests and build new villages. Your arms are strong, but nothing assures me of their dexterity. My daughter is very fond of fish. Can you satisfy her lust? ”Akulenzame replied,“ I can. ”He returned to his hut and ordered all his ghosts to cut bamboo and build a huge barrier in the river so that no fish could slip through. Then they should go very far back, lock all fish in a narrow space and build a second barrier.

“Go,” he told them, “do it as quickly as possible; for until we return, not to eat any bundles, there will be severe famine. ”The spirits hurried to do the work they were asked to do.

The next day the women had gone to the river to draw water. Akulenzame set up the last grate. “There,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “it’s ready, you can take the fish now.” Who was standing in astonishment? It was the women; for they had never seen a dam in this area. They hurried to the village. “Come quickly,” they shouted at the men, “come quickly, Akulenzame has dammed the river.” Akulenzame was standing at the landing site. As soon as he sees her coming: “It’s done,” he says, “you can take the fish.” “But what’s going on?” “You see, the river is blocked by the trap.” The chief checks the work great amazement. This was probably too understandable; for the river was wider than a village. “But that’s not all,” added Akulenzame. “Come with me.” The chief obeyed. All women, all men all children follow. You go upstream, a little further up, a second dam. The chief’s eyes bulged in amazement, as did the others. Between the two dams it shone with fish. One saw carp jumping, sardines, barbels, large, small and medium-sized fish. A harpoon was thrown and ten fish were impaled. The villagers rushed on. Fish was caught for more than 15 days, fish were dried and fish were preserved for the rainy season to sell and give away. You ate fish so much that if you looked at the ground and bent your head, no one in the village could see your feet, your belly had become so big. But as Akulenzame could eat, there was no one. It was boiling, baking and roasting incessantly in his hut. The bundles burned on the fire; as soon as they were done, kyo, kyo, kyo, they disappeared in the sack. For a heavy eater, Akulenzame was a huge eater.

One day he visited the chief. “I want to marry your daughter, the girl with the copper chains. You now know I can satisfy her need to eat fish. “

“I know my daughter will be safe with you. I want to give it to you. But when she has a child, she will no longer want to eat fish, but meat. Are you as skilled a hunter as you are a good fisherman? “Akulenzame replied,” I will be. “

In the meantime the chief went to see his daughter: “This Akulenzame will be an excellent husband for you.” “One might fall for a worse one,” she replied. “Yes,” replied the father, “you don’t have to look at the skin of the cassava.”

That same evening Akulenzame, as soon as he has entered his hut, opens the sack, orders his spirits to come out and tells them this: “You have been living in abundance for fifteen days. You keep eating bundles. It’s over today. You will go into the forest to build a ngol (barrier), to lock ten elephants in it. Kui, kui. ”The souls could not be repeated. Immediately they went through the door, kui, kui, through the window. There they were at work.

Two days later the village hunters went to hunt elephants. Far away in the forest they hear a man singing. They are approaching. This man was Akulenzame, he made lianas and rolled them tightly around the trees. “Here,” he says, rubbing his forehead when he sees the men, “here, that would be done.” But what are you done with, Akulenzame? “But Akulenzame puts his finger on his mouth, tells them to be quiet to stay, and on many detours he leads them through the forest to the round palisade. Ten wonderful elephants stood in the lattice. Each of her teeth was higher than me. The hunters did not recover from the astonishment. They rushed to the village: “Hurry, hurry, come here,” they call out to the warriors, “Akulenzame has built a ngol and there are ten elephants in it.” The warriors, the chief, run to see the miracle. They climb into the trees and sift through the elephants with arrows. There the ten animals lie dead. You rush on them, hack the axes, cut the knives and chop the meat. The women run up with large baskets. The pieces of meat pile on their backs. The neighboring villages have been informed, people hurry up from all sides, there is slaughter everywhere, one eats, one eats, one continues to eat. Oh, the happy people; but no one ate like Akulenzame, incessantly boiling, roasting and baking meat in his hut. The bundles burned on the fire; when the meat was done, kyo, kyo, kyo everything disappeared like magic. The housewives brought him huge chunks of meat as a present. What an eater was the sack of Akulenzamens. cut the axes, cut the knives and chop the meat. The women run up with large baskets. The pieces of meat pile on their backs. The neighboring villages have been informed, people hurry up from all sides, there is slaughter everywhere, one eats, one eats, one continues to eat. Oh, the happy people; but no one ate like Akulenzame, incessantly boiling, roasting and baking meat in his hut. The bundles burned on the fire; when the meat was done, kyo, kyo, kyo everything disappeared like magic. The housewives brought him huge chunks of meat as a present. What an eater was the sack of Akulenzamens. cut the axes, cut the knives and chop the meat. The women run up with large baskets. The pieces of meat pile on their backs. The neighboring villages have been informed, people hurry up from all sides, there is slaughter everywhere, one eats, one eats, one continues to eat. Oh, the happy people; but no one ate like Akulenzame, incessantly boiling, roasting and baking meat in his hut. The bundles burned on the fire; when the meat was done, kyo, kyo, kyo everything disappeared like magic. The housewives brought him huge chunks of meat as a present. What a devouring sack of Akulenzamens. Everywhere there is slaughter, one eats, one eats, one still eats. Oh, the happy people; but no one ate like Akulenzame, incessantly boiling, roasting and baking meat in his hut. The bundles burned on the fire; when the meat was done, kyo, kyo, kyo everything disappeared like magic. The housewives brought him huge chunks of meat as a present. What an eater was the sack of Akulenzamens. Everywhere there is slaughter, one eats, one eats, one still eats. Oh, the happy people; but no one ate like Akulenzame, incessantly boiling, roasting and baking meat in his hut. The bundles burned on the fire; when the meat was done, kyo, kyo, kyo everything disappeared like magic. The housewives brought him huge chunks of meat as a present. What a devouring sack of Akulenzamens.

One day he visited the chief again. “I want to marry your daughter, the red girl with the copper chains. You should get ten pairs of elephant teeth in exchange. “The father replied:” Tomorrow we will celebrate the wedding. “” Good, “says Akulenzame, and the father goes to see the daughter. “Tomorrow we will celebrate the wedding.” “Good thing,” says the girl, “my heart is satisfied. But there is one thing I will ask of my husband. “” Which one, “said the father?

“Between you and the neighboring chief, you know, there is death of men. In order for the fight to end, he should marry me. When he hears of my marriage to Akulenzame he will be angry and I will have to fear him. “” That is true, one can sometimes find cunning even in the antelope, “and with that the father went to tell Akulenzame. “I’ll fix it,” he replies.

That evening he opens his sack and calls the souls. “For a long time I have fed you better than ever. But this is over now, until you have served me again. “” What do you have to be served with? “” You go to the neighboring village and lead the chief here. Tied hands and feet. ”“ That’s easy, ”they replied. They are already gone, kui, kui, through the door, kui, kui, through the window. Before that day the chief was a prisoner, in Akulenzamen’s hut, his feet tied and his hands tied, and he is dragging a large log of wood behind him; was very astonished at this thing and half dead with fear. -

In the morning Akulenzame calls the chief into the hut. “You asked your friend here.” The chief does not recover from astonishment. He calls his men. “Look,” he tells them, “Akulenzame went alone to catch the enemy and brought him here. He’s a great warrior ”and everyone shouted yo, yo.

The enemy chief was taken. The women tore his head, sprinkled crushed pepper on his head, in his eyes, in his nose, and he was taken to the center of the village to attend the festival. When it was finished, his neck was cut off.

The evening came, Akulenzame and his wife returned to his hut, and the next day the chief came to ask for his wedding present. A wretched father-in-law, thought Akulenzame to himself. The old chief said: “Akulenzame, you are my son now, I only ask one thing of you. I see you are powerful. Keep me safe from death. ”“ Good, ”Akulenzame replied,“ if you repeat your wish in front of everyone. ”The chief does. Night came, Akulenzame opened the sack, took care that no one saw it, and ordered the spirits to come out. “You have served me well,” he told them. “I am satisfied with you. As a reward you should have your freedom. Only one thing remains to be done. ”“ And what? ”Asked the ghosts, delighted. “You should take my father-in-law with you.

Akulenzame went out into the harness room, where the father-in-law was warming himself. “My promise is to be fulfilled. You will be brought to safety from death, ”Akulenzame said. “I am eager to see this.” At the same moment the ghosts entered. Everything wanted to save itself. They were already gone and dragged the old chief with them. He has never been seen since then. Then Akulenzame says, “Now he is forever safe from the fear of death; because you only die once. That was a great warrior. ”Everyone said“ yes ”. Akulenzame put on a wonderful funeral service, for a whole month the fanfare rang out and the dance of the dead was danced. Akulenzame then succeeded the father-in-law as chief.

Bingo

It happened, Nzame descended to earth. He enjoyed the river and drove himself in a boat that swam all by itself. Nzame did not row. He landed at the big village where he wanted to go unnoticed to question the people. A girl came to the river to draw water. Nzame saw and loved her; for she worked well and was just as hard at work as she was beautiful. He gave her a son and took her with him far into the country from which one does not return. Mboya, that was the girl’s name, never returned. -

When the time came Mboya had a son and named him Bingo; why, I don’t know, nobody told me, that might be a name from there. Bingo was growing every day, and Mboya loved it more than any other thing in the world. She stuck Elali, birds’ dearest flower, into his hair, and stuck a fringe of pearls into his little nose. His neck and arms were adorned with copper ribbons, which were carefully cleaned every morning.

Bingo kept growing, and Mboya loved him more than any thing in the world.

Nzame became very angry, and one day he was angry because Bingo, the child, had stolen a fish from his trap. He pushed Mboya into her hut, hit bingo and threw him down from the heights.

Bingo fell for a long time, he was almost dead, then the floods of a great water opened beneath him, which was surrounded by the mountains; that was fortunate for him. Better yet, it was close to the bank. A fisherman sat in his boat with his nets to catch fish. He caught bingo and took him to his hut. The old man’s name was Otoyom.

No sooner had Nzame thrown bingo than Mboya rushed to his aid.

Sometimes you have seen crazy light in the forest at night. Who is walking and moving? Have you heard the voice of the woman who goes far, calling and complaining under the branches? Fear nothing; Mboya is looking for her child. Mboya never found him. A mother does not tire.

Bingo fell, Mboya moved away. Nzame rushes after. He wanted to find bingo again at all costs. He searches on the mountains, he searches the sea: “Sea, sea, do you play bingo?” On earth: “Earth, earth, do you play bingo?”

The earth and the sea answered: “No, no.”

Impossible to find him. Otoyom, the great magician who knew the high lineage of bingo, did not want to hand him over, he carefully hid him.

Bingo and the spider

Bingo has taken refuge in the depths of a cave. The cave is deep and black. Bingo thinks in his heart, I am safe here and he will stay there for a long time.

Meanwhile, Nzame pursues him tirelessly, and every day he said: “I will find bingo again and eat his heart.” But bingo was in the deep cave in the middle of the forest. Nzame comes into the forest and he meets the chameleon. “Chameleon, haven’t you seen bingo?” This gave nothing away and said: “I saw a man passing by, but who told me his name?”

“And where did he go and where is his village?”

“He went now here, now there, his village is on the other side of the forest.”

“Is it far there?”

“The days are long, every day is a long time. Yes it is far. “

Nzame went away disappointed. Nzame goes away, and while he’s looking for bingo tracks everywhere, the chameleon runs to the cave. “Bingo, watch out, your father is looking for you.” It goes a little further, to the top of a rock.

Bingo carefully wipes out the traces of his footsteps on the floor, then walks down an open, often trodden path over hard ground, and from there he returns to his cave.

Carefully he goes backwards, with his back forward, he arrives and hides in the depths. Immediately Ndanabo, the spider, makes its web, a dense, strong web, and the chameleon hastily throws mosquitoes and insects into the mesh.

Nzame searches tirelessly. He meets the snake: “Viere, have you seen bingo?” Viere answers: “Yes, yes, he is in the cave of the forest, yes, yes.” Nzame hurries, he comes to the grotto. “What is it,” he says, “footprints that are disappearing?” He sees the spider web, the mosquitoes that are trapped in it. “A person cannot be in it,” he says, and the chameleon from the top of the rock says:

“Ah, you came here, good afternoon.”

“Hello, chameleon, did you see bingo in this cave?”

“Yes, but that was a long, long time ago, he went away, I think you can still see the traces of his steps on earth.”

“Really, they are there, I want to follow them. Chameleon, you have done well! ”Nzame continues in pursuit.

It’s already far, far, very far, then bingo comes out of the cave. “Chameleon, you have done well, here is your reward. You should be able to change colors as you wish, so you can escape your enemies. “The chameleon says:” That’s good. “Bingo says to the spider:” You have done well, what can I do for you? “

“Nothing,” replied the spider, “my heart is satisfied.” “Good,” says Bingo, “your presence should bring happiness.”

He went. On his way he found Viere, the serpent, and crushed its head with the kick of his heels.

At last Nzame, tired in vain pursuit, climbed back up and left bingo. This had inherited the wisdom of his foster father Otoyom. When he died, he washed his body, anointed it carefully; He kept the skull to honor it and to keep it in his house. He painted it red and oiled it on festive days; so remained the spirit of Otoyom with bingo.

Bingo has taught us to preserve the skulls of our ancestors, to honor them and to keep their spirits with us. Shame on those who do not honor the heads of the ancients. As bingo grew up, it went through the world, all people, all tribes. He was good and taught people to be good and to do good. He worked all kinds of miracles with a green stone that he wore on his neck. God had drawn his name on this stone and gave it to Mother Mboya the first day he saw her. Mboya in turn had given the green stone to bingo; when bingo wanted, he left his body; the arrows did not reach him, the axes did not wound him, the poisoned spikes did not injure the foot.

Legends of the Ababua

I.

It was a long time ago a man called Mba, he wove the earth and all things. After that the sky was below and the earth above. But Mba, who found nothing to eat, said: “Now the sky must go up and the earth down.”

A woman kept all the water in her pot. She cooked many foods and called people to eat from them. All died. Then Mba came and said, “Ha, why did this woman hide the water?” He killed her with the lance, and the water began to flow so strongly that Mba was carried away until he could attach itself to a large tree. Now when people eat they say “drinking is good” and when we drink it is thanks to Mba, who killed the woman who hid the water. -

II

Mba ate honey, met women on the riverbank and said: “What are you doing there?”

The women said, “We’re going to eat gravel.” Mba said, “Your brother won’t eat this, this is honey.”

As the women had eaten the honey, Mba began to scream, “My honey, my honey, where is my honey? I bought it at Powka for an ax. “

The women gave him fish.

Mba met the buffalo and said: “What are you doing?” The buffalo said: “I eat limes.” Mba said: “Your brothers do not eat these things. There is fish here. “

The buffalo gave him its tail in thanks.

Mba met the blacksmith who was making a hatchet. Mba chased away the flies that swarmed around the blacksmith with her buffalo tail and said: “Why does a person who knows how to make beautiful things stay naked?”

Mba gave him an old raffia apron. As the blacksmith sat down by his fire again, this seized the apron, which was completely burned.

Mba began to scream: “My kilt, my kilt, why did you burn my beautiful kilt?” The blacksmith gave him the hatchet, and Mba carried the hatchet to Pokwa.

III

Another time Mba went to the elephant’s village. The elephant said: “See, you are there.”

The elephant says to his wife: “Cut wood, make a fire.” The elephant said to his wife: “Find a liana and lace my leg.” He put his foot in the fire and fat came out, which he gave Mba.

Mba says, “I don’t want to sleep here,” and returns to the village.

Mba says to his wife: “Cut wood, make a fire.”

Mba says to his wife: “Find a vine and lace my leg,” and he put his foot in the fire and burned it so that only the bone remained. Mambotete, his wife, screamed terribly.

The elephant’s son came, healed him and said, “If you want fat, you must come to the elephant’s village.”

IV

Another day Mba went to the pangolin village. The pangolin said: “The rain falls, which drives the ants out, let’s go into the forest.” Mba says: “Let’s make a basket to carry the ants.”

The pangolin says: “I’ll carry it myself.”

They went into the forest. All the ants that crept out attached themselves to the pangolin skin, so it carried them into the village.

Mba says, “I don’t want to sleep here today. I want to see if my ants don’t come out. “

Mba says to Mambotete: “Our ants are crawling out.”

Mambotete came with baskets, but Mba cut the baskets with the knife and said, “I’ll carry the ants myself.” He went into the forest, but the ants didn’t come on him. So he ate them all and went back to the village.

Mambotete says: “Where are the ants’”

Mba, with a skilful mouth, pointed to his stomach, which was swelling up because he had eaten so much. “You see, I brought her with me.” But he had eaten so much that he mucked all over the village and Mambotete said angrily: “What is that?” What’s this? Mba, leave those disgusting customs. “

The pangolin ‘s son said: “If you want ants, ask the pangolin to carry them.”

V

Another time Mba went to his friend Sumbani’s village. When he came to the plantations, he saw that it had set fire on the fallen tree trunks.

Sumbani says: “That all fire come to me.” All flames came to him. Then he saw Mba and said: “See, you are there, come to the village.”

Mba says: “I’m not going to sleep here today, I have to burn out my plantings.” He quickly returned to his village, Mambotete says: “Eat the cooked bananas.” Mba did not want to, and went straight into the plantations, he lit them Tree trunks and says: “All fire come to me.”

The flames came to him and Mba was so burned that he fell dead.

The son of Sumbani came into the village and said to Mambotete: “Where is Mba?” — “He’s burning out his plantings.”

The son of Sumbani found Mba as charred as a log. He healed it and said, “If you didn’t know the magic of fire, what would you want to burn out plantings like Sumbani?”

Mba, feeling quite well, replied, “I made a fire because I was cold,” and he left.

VI

Another time Mba went into the forest and came to a Malimbini (dryad) village. He thought they were trees and wanted to cut a branch with the knife.

But the Malimbini said, “What, you want to kill our brother?” They whipped him with their branches.

Mba fled quickly. When he got to the village, he stopped, pretended there was nothing, and called: “Mambotete hoy.” Mambotete said: “What?” “I’m just meeting trees in the forest, they could make good pounders for the kitchen. Go and see. “

He showed her the malimbini. This, already angry about Mba, grabbed Mambotete and hit her badly. Mambotete shouted: “Wu, wu. Come on. “But Mba cunningly took a stick, hit an old tree stump by the hut and shouted,” I’m fighting with the Malimbini people. Listen, Mambotete, I’ll kill you. “

VII

Another time Mba went to the village of the Kangalimbosso, and the old man of the village said, “Here is the house you can sleep in.” The house was so small that it cramped Mba’s body. Mba said: “I don’t want to sleep here today. I have a house that needs to be finished. “

Mba returned to the village and made a tiny house that squeezed him all over. Mba wanted to light a fire, the house was on fire, the whole village was on fire. The Kangalimbosso came to build him a new house.

VIII

Another day Mba said to his mother: “Get into this tree, hide yourself when there is war.”

Mba went to the village of Ekopi, the leopard. Mba said to the leopard: “I want to eat your mother, she is tired of working for you.” The leopard said: “You can eat my mother if I can eat yours.”

Ekopi killed his mother and Mba ate. Mba said to the leopard: “Come to the brook tomorrow, if you see blood, I have killed my mother.”

Mba said to his mother, “Hide well,” and took a full bowl of ngula paint; he pours it into the source of the brook. He killed an antelope he was hiding in the bush.

In the morning the leopard came to the brook, saw the red water and said, “Mba has killed his mother.” He ate the meat and returned to the village. Then he said to his wife, “I think Mba outwitted me.”

IX

Another time Mba went to the Bangobo village and saw the Bangobo laying their entrails on the ground before climbing up the trees. Mba said to the Bangobo: “Take my bowels.”

He then climbed the trees. But the bangobos hid Mba’s entrails in the forest and instead put herbs that tickled.

Mba returned to his village. Mambotete says to him: “Eat these bananas.” Everything Mba ate came out immediately, and Mambotete shouted: “Mba, what bad thing did you eat?”

Mba had to go back to the Bangobos, they gave him his entrails back, they made him medicine, and he gave them money to buy.

X

Another day Mba found many mushrooms on a cut tree stump. Mambotete said, “This is a good dish.” She wanted to cook it. Mba says, “Go away, you don’t know this thing.” He took the whole tree on his shoulder and carried it away. But the tree stuck to his skin, and when he went to sleep he had to sleep with the tree.

Mambotete took a knife and cut the tree.

Since it was cut off, Mba said: “What is it, why are you cutting me with the knife?”

Mba asked everyone: “Where is Twekelogamunu?” They all said, “What man? what thing? ”Mba laughed knowing that was the name of his needle. -

XI

But Cephalophe put an end to Mba’s malice.

Mba says to the Mboloko: “Find the herb Bankasso in the forest. I want to give you ants. “

As Mboloko comes back with the herb, Mba takes an ant, divides it, lays the head there, the belly there, the wings elsewhere.

He says to Mboloko, “Here are the ants.” Mboloko grew bad and angry, but said nothing.

Another day when they were cutting plantings, Mboloko said to Mba, “I’m going to the river.” But he went into the village and said to Mambotete: “Give me all the ants, Mba said I could eat them.”

When Mba came back, he asked for the ants. When he found out about Mboloko’s ruse, he was furious. He said to the animals of the forest: “Mboloko has done me bad things, if you see him, hold him.”

Mboloko went to the elephant because the elephant did not fear Mba. He called all the animals of the forest to put an end to the quarrel. All the animals in the forest feared Mba. Mboloko mounted the elephant’s head. The elephant said: “You, Apwai, shall settle the dispute.” Apwai said: “Your palaber is bad; because you were the first to cheat on your brother. “

All the animals said to Apwai: “You are a great chief because you do not fear Mba and are skilled at settling disputes.” All the animals gave him a thing. The elephant gave him his trunk, the buffalo his neck, the rat her tail, and the leopard the hair on his back.

Boloki

Libanza

A man and a woman were. The woman became pregnant. Since she was close to giving birth, she no longer wanted to eat. She asked for saffron fruits and asked her husband to steal them. The man went, brought the Safus, and the woman ate. One day the owner surprised the thief and killed him.

This woman gave birth to Libanza. He was born with many riches; Warriors, slaves, lances, knives … Still very young, he went to war and fought against the owner of the saffu tree, his father’s murderer. The man mocked Libanzas: “You, a child, are making war on me.” Libanza struck him, killed many people and felled the saffu tree.

Libanza was born with a sister named Nsongo. Since he had cut the saffo tree, everyone feared him. They said, “How, is such a young child so strong?” They all fled him. So Libanza and his sister were left alone. One day they went into the forest where they found a palm tree. Nsongo asked the brother to cut off the top of the tree.

Libanza found a snake and made a hoop out of it to climb on. But the more it rises, the higher the palm tree grows and culminates until Libanza comes to a village. He sits down in a banana plantation. A woman comes, sees Libanza and wants to flee. Libanza calms down and asks her to fetch her husband, who leads him into the house.

Suddenly Ekungula-Kungula (the Lord of Thunder) lets the thunder break loose: Kwurrru! Libanza imitated him. Kwarrraraa. Everyone fled. Ekungula-Kungula heard and was annoyed: “I alone am Master here. Who dares to do so. ”So he sent two men to look. Libanza killed one and sent the other back. Then he drove the forge’s bellows and began forging. Ekungula-Kungula sent ten men. Libanza sees them coming. He kills five and sends the other five back. Ekungula-Kungula lets the thunder roar again. Libanza repeated Kwarrara. Ekungula-Kungula drove in anger, left. It was a giant that devoured whole people. Libanza saw him arrive and calmly proceeded to heat a large piece of iron. Ekungula-Kungula approached him, opened his wide mouth to devour him. Libanza swiftly tore the iron block from the fire, threw it into the throat of the ekungula kungula, who rolled on the earth and died.

Libanza took control of the whole kingdom of Ekungula-Kungulas. He had a son and named him Nkati (thunder). So he raised Ekungula-Kungula and said to him, “You are my slave. If you sound the thunder, Kwarrara, my son will repeat Kwarrara. Do not harm him if you do not want worse to happen to you. “

His sister Nsongo was always downstairs. She had surrounded her village with a high palisade of palm trees and was saddened to stop eating. Libanza tried to find her again and go back downstairs. One day he saw a sparrowhawk and said to him: “Sit on the ridge of the house; there you will find a small pack; take it and give it to my sister Nsongo. But before you put it down, tell my sister to spread out mats. I, I’m going into the forest. ”Instead of going, he gathered men and possessions, made a small pack of them, carried it to the ridge of the roof, and inside it was hidden.

The sparrowhawk saw the pack and carried it away. On the way he rested on a tree and wanted to see what was in it. Libanza began to growl. As the sparrowhawk tired and wanted to leave the pack, Libanza clung to his claws. The sparrowhawk flew for a long time. At last he came to Nsongo’s village. He called, “Nsongo, your brother is sending you this pack. But he ordered me to put it on mats. “

“Go away, liar, my brother is long dead.”

“No, Nsongo, I’m not lying, it’s the brother’s message.” Nsongo was amazed, had the yard swept and mats spread over mats. The sparrowhawk was about to put the pack down when Libanza stepped out of it and jumped onto the mats. -

Libanza went up the river in a boat. One day he docked at a village. There he met a man and a woman: Ntondo and Ebesua. Libanza loved her and said to the husband: “When I return, wait for me; i will teach you to live happily But be careful not to miss my passage. ”Ntondo promised to watch.

As the time for Libanza’s return came, Ntondo quarreled with his wife and beat her. Then Ntondo lay down under a palm tree and fell asleep; meanwhile the woman sat on the river bank in mourning to weep. While Ntondo was sleeping, Libanza came in the boat and called Ntondo, his friend; he didn’t hear. Ebesua, still angry, took care not to call her husband, and let the boat pass by. Libanza was angry when he saw that Ntondo was not waiting for him and drove on. Since he was already far, Ebesua woke her husband and said: “There is Libanza driving, your friend is driving past, he calls for you and you do not answer.” Ntondo hurried up, jumped into the pirogue and called for Libanza. He replied: “You weren’t awake, you weren’t expecting me. It is too late to go back to work and toil; you let happiness slip by. “

Upoto

Libanza

Long time ago, Libanza wasn’t born. There were two women, two sisters, who lived on a large tree. The sisters had wonderful voices and it was a pleasure to hear them sing.

A wonderful cord hung down from the tree to the earth, these are the rays of the sun; if you wanted to get the sisters to sing, you pulled the string.

One day an animal by the name of Libenge was pulling the string, and the sisters soon began to sing. Libenge found the songs so beautiful that he asked the two sisters to become his wives. They refused it. Another animal, Mondanga, came, heard the women sing, fell in love and asked them to marry him. They also refused to do this to him. There came a third animal, Ndoumba, and still Nkoi, the leopard; the same thing happened to them.

Finally Coco the rooster came with the wonderful feathers. He began to sing: “Kubelukuku,” pulled the string, and immediately the women began to sing; this time even more magical than usual.

The rooster with the wonderful feathers, who had never heard such a thing, fell in love with the women and asked them to come down. The two women found a husband to their liking in the rooster, went down with their servants and followed him.

Everything went well. They lived on good terms; for women loved their husbands very much. One day it started to rain. -

When the rain had stopped, as it happens, thousands and thousands of ants came out of the earth, and the rooster began to eat them bravely. A servant saw this and could not understand that her mistress’ husband ate such things; she went to tell the woman.

She could understand even less that the man Eating ants, thinking the servant was jealous of her beautiful husband, scolded her. She was dissatisfied, having been scolded undeservedly, and watched the rooster. Then she saw that he was still eating ants. She ran to the wife and told her there was something she wanted to show her. Since the woman had seen it, she fled with her wives and went back up the tree, very sadly and without singing.

One day, long after, Lotenge, Libanza’s father, came to this tree and heard the women sing. He liked them, and he liked the women, and he took them with him to his village.

They lived very happily, and the time came when Nstombobelle was to give birth. One day, while Nstombobelle was working in the field, she found two sapho fruits that a bird had dropped. Since she had prepared the fruits, she liked them so much that she wanted nothing more than sapho fruits. Unfortunately, there were very few sapho trees in the area, and since Nstombobelle only fed on these, it happened that they came to an end. Then Lotenge said to his wife: “Wait, I know a big tree near the Molimba village; I want to find you Saphos. “

He went and came to the tree where there was a guard called Fotte-Fotte. Lotenge asked permission to take the fruit; Fotte-Fotte did not refuse him. Lotenge climbed into the tree, which was miles wide, and took the fruit. Fotte-Fotte asked that he throw him a sapho; but the fruit was enormous and wounded the guard as it fell.

He called Molimba to catch Lotenge. But he was able to escape happily, even though he was wounded. Lotenge then brought the fruits to his wife, Nstombobelle; she was grateful to him and thanked him very much.

While Nstombobelle only ate these fruits, there were soon none left, and she asked Lotenge to look for others.

Lotenge, who adored his wife, went to the tree, where he again met Fotte-Fotte, who once again gave him permission to take the fruit. But immediately he called Molimba to surprise Lotenge.

This time Molimba was more successful, and Lotenge was killed.

Since the grief in the village of Lotenges became known, wanted no one took any more food, and the whole village mourned. -

After a while, all of Lotenge’s women returned to their villages, with the exception of Nstombobelle, who Lotenge got pregnant with.

The day of the confinement was near, and a short time after Lotenge’s death Nstombobelle gave birth to Kobba.

Kobba was not born like other people, but was born dressed as a warrior with a knife and shield.

After giving birth to him, Nstombobelle gave life to thousands and thousands of snakes, mosquitoes and other animals; all like warriors armed with lances and shields. That was Kobba’s army.

After him Libanza was supposed to be born, but he said to his brother Ngommingoy: “No, I want you to be the elder, be born before me.”

Ngommingoy was born sitting on a large throne, carried by several slaves. It was glamorous; everyone who knew him said he was the most handsome man who had ever lived. One of his peculiarities was never to touch the earth, but always to be carried by slaves.

This is how Libanza was born: his mother asked him to give birth. But he didn’t want to. That would be too shameful. Then his mother suggested that he be born through the ears, but he refused because of the wax; through the nose, no, because of the slime; through the eyes, no, there are tears; through the hands, no, because the hands are black; through the back, no, if you lie on your back asleep you will kill me. “But how are you going to be born?” Asked his mother. He replied, “Through the nails.” He told his mother to take a string and roll it around her nails, she did, and Libanza was born through the nail of her little finger. He shone as befits a higher being. Before him his throne was born.

When Libanza was born he did not speak, and his mother anxiously ran to the wizard. The wizard lit the bast dress that the mother was wearing. Seeing this, Libanza shouted, “Mother, watch out, your dress is on fire.” He held out his hand and water put out the fire.

One day the children asked Nstombobelle where their father was and she was forced to say that the father had died because he had cut wood. Soon, however, she had to tell them what had happened at Molimba.

The brothers decided that the tree that had caused the father’s death could no longer stand, and they agreed to cut it down. Likenza, the blacksmith, began forging axes, and soon everyone was ready.

Molimba was quickly informed of the intentions of Libanza and the brothers; he believed they weren’t strong enough and told his people to keep calm.

This allowed Libanza and his men to prepare everything they needed in peace. They agreed that because Kobba was the oldest, he should cut the tree down. But what a surprise, Kobba worked and struggled with all his might, but he could not even cut the smallest piece of wood from the tree. The spectators laughed, Kobba got angry at this, returned to his house and dropped a rain that lasted three days. Then his mother asked him to stop the rain. He did. Libanza had a son named Tserenge and Ngommingoy had a son named Bolingo. Tserenge began cutting around the tree and the work went on a little. Then Libanza said it wasn’t work for a boy. Libanza put her hand on the cut and the tree was whole again.

Bolingo, seeing that Tserenge was getting on so well, said to himself, “I can do what Tserenge can do,” and so he had already cut off large chunks. Then Libanza came and made the tree whole again.

Ngommingoy had worked a huge ax and began to cut the tree down, and the tree was already beginning to fall, when Libanza put her hand on the tree and did all the work to shame.

The people of Ngommingoy became so angry about this that they attacked the men of Libanza: of course they returned the attack; many perished.

Libanza called Ngommingoy and said, “My brother, why can’t we be friends?” Ngommingoy showed him the bodies of his people and said that because of this, friendship between them had become impossible. “You’re right,” said Libanza, “but if that’s just it, look here.” called the dead by name, and they rose at the sound of his voice.

Ntsongo came to Libanza and said, “Brother, if you want to cut this tree, you must tie leopard skin around your waist, and then the tree will fall all by itself.” The leopard who had heard this conversation said: “What, you thinks he can kill me then? ‘and he came in the night and stole one of Libanza’s dogs.

Libanza sent his people to catch the leopard in nets. Then Ntsongo came and said to him: “Brother, you are a person, the leopard is a person, fights with each other.”

Libanza put aside lances and knives and waited for the leopard without weapons.

As the leopard jumped on Libanza, the latter took him by the throat. Then Libanza killed the leopard, took possession of the fur: the tree fell without an ax blow.

Molambi, who at first did not want to believe that Libanza could cut the tree, finally saw it and called all his people to go to war with Libanza.

Libanza, who had few warriors, whistled in his hands, and at once men were born of the earth from everywhere, as numerous as the leaves of the trees.

Tserenge, the son of Libanza, set out to meet Molimba. You fought for a long time.

Tserenge was wounded in the neck, but Libanza put her hand on the wound and Tserenge was healed. Then Ngommingoy, who never left, let his throne come and went to war. He fought brilliantly, and each of his lances killed ten men. Molimba then sent out the strongest of his men, named Ndomdomoli, who knocked five men to the ground with each lance. He killed all the bearers of Ngommingoys who fell to the earth.

Molimba then hurled a lance at Ngommingoy, and the latter died under his tree and was blown up.

In the meantime Ndomdomoli had no more great success, as he was soon killed by a lance stab. Since the death of Ngommingoy was known to his people, they wept, so that the tears streamed rivers and then rivers. The tears gave birth to the Congo.

The war was terrible, so that on Molimba’s side only he and his wife remained and on the side of Libanza Ntsongo, Tserenge, Bolongo, Kobba and Ntsombobelle.

Libanza asked Molimba to surrender; he refused and wanted to fight. He hurled a lance at Libanza, but the latter grabbed the lance and threw it to the ground, a second lance and a knife went the same way. Then Libanza asked if Molimba would surrender, but Molimba refused.

Then Libanza hurled a lance at him, which returned to him with Molimba’s cap, then with the belt, with the collar, with the clothes, and soon he was standing naked. Libanza asked him again if he would surrender, but Molimba still refused, and then Libanza tossed the lance into his heart.

Kobba tried in vain to cut off the head of molimba; in order to take revenge, he dropped terrible rain.

Libanza cut off his head in one fell swoop and had all the dead be born again except Molimba, who was too great an enemy and had killed his brother Ngommingoy, who was more beautiful than himself and of whom he was jealous.

The people then shared among themselves all the fruit they found on the tree, and it is said that it was enough that everyone could eat their fill for several days.

A short time after Molimba died, Libanza decided to see other places. He set out with his people, guided by his mother, his sister and by Bongenje, the council.

Since he came to the village of Toumboukous, the one-legged man, with his people, the latter refused him the way.

Libanza said that he alone could solve the trouble and disdained the help of his men. So Libanza fought with the one-legged man. Although it only had one leg, it was terribly strong and Libanza could not throw it.

Libanza, a little ashamed, went to Bongenje and asked him what to do.

Bongenje was weak, but smart, and told Libanza to buy bananas and let them ripen. “Then,” he added, “you will take the bowls and put them in the place where you want to fight.” Libanza did as Bongenje had advised him and let the one-legged man say he wanted to fight him again.

Toumboukou came to him again, and before long he was thrown to the ground.

Libanza asked Ntsongo if she wanted Toumboukou to be her husband, but she refused it with disgust.

Libanza went his way and came to the village of a woman named Tokolo. The same thing happened here as with the one-legged man. Tokolo forbade Libanza to pass through. “How,” said Libanza, “I, who killed Molimba, who threw the one-legged man to the ground, should I let a woman stop me?” He hit himself with Tokolo.

Tokolo was a strong woman, he failed to throw her to the ground. So he needed the advice of his magician Bongenje once more.

The latter listened to him and said: “There is one of your people, Tokolo’s son-in-law, and if you fight Tokolo, take him by the leg so that the woman’s gaze falls on him.” (The son-in-law must never See mother-in-law and mother-in-law not son-in-law.) The other day Libanza quarreled with Tokolo, he did as he was told. Tokolo’s gaze fell on the son-in-law; she was ashamed of it, became confused, and Libanza threw her lightly to the ground.

Libanza took possession of the village, left some of his people behind, as with the one-legged man, and moved on.

Libanza came to the village of Ilongo Nkolo, his mother’s sister, where he was received. One day he saw Ilongo Nkolo with three pots of palm wine, which he asked for. Ilongo Nkolo refused it, Libanza found it so shameful that his mother’s sister could refuse him such a thing that he attacked his aunt. But Ilongo Nkolo was a woman of great strength, took Libanza by the neck and threw him a few meters away.

Libanza was ashamed and angry at the same time, ran back to Bongenje and asked for advice.

Bongenje told him it was best not to fight Ilongo Nkolo as she had a lot of fetishes. But Libanza did not want to hear with such an ear.

“If you want to fight in spite of everything,” Bongenje told him, “know that Ilongo Nkolo is invulnerable as long as she wears the pots of oil on her breast. I want to give you some good advice. If you fight with your aunt you have to make her dab three times on the tree that is there, then if you touch the pots that are on her chest, a drop of oil will fall on her chest and you will be able to throw her to the ground. “

Libanza took the advice and threw Ilongo Nkolo to the ground, so that she had to give him the three pots.

As the day of Libanza’s departure was approaching, his mother Nstombobelle called him and said: “Son, I have accompanied you this far; but you get too bad and you fight everywhere, even with your aunt. I won’t accompany you any further, I’ll stay with my sister. “

So Libanza traveled without his mother. Since Libanza had come to the Ngombe (forest people) village, he told his people to stay behind. He turned into a young man, very ugly and covered with wounds all over his body. He sat down in a tree and waited. Soon people passed by and saw him. They asked him who he was and where he was from. He replied that he was a slave and that he had escaped from his master.

The Ngombe believed him and took him to their village; let him do all the work there and gave him almost nothing to eat. After three days, Libanza had had enough and killed everyone in the village. He called his people and showed them the bodies.

He woke up all the ngombes again and gave them to his sister Ntsongo as slaves.

Gradually the name Libanza sounded everywhere and spread great horror. It so happened that one day he ran into people in the forest who were preparing palm oil. The people fled and shouted: “This is Libanza.” “No,” said Libanza, “I am a boy who fled from his master” and asked for a fire. People believed him and came to him in a pirogue. When they had all come to him, he called his people, and they stole the ships.

Another time, Libanza hid his clothes in an apron and turned himself into a slave again, covered with wounds and of disgusting appearance.

He went into a village and said he was a refugee slave and settled in the hut. Then the red ants came into his house during the night. All people fled except Libanza.

“What,” said the people, “you don’t see the red ants, don’t you smell them?”

“No,” he said, “I see nothing, I smell nothing.” Indeed, it seemed as if he saw nothing and smelled nothing, since he stayed as long as the ants.

The next day he accompanied people in the village who went to make palm wine. He said to them, “So how do you make palm wine? Wait, I’ll show you how to make palm wine. “At first they mocked him, saying,” What, little man like you, want to teach us to make palm wine? “But when they saw how he worked, they astonished; for he alone had made more palm wine than all of them combined.

Then one of them shouted: “This is not a person, this is not a slave, this is Libanza” and fled.

At night Libanza threw off his disguise and reappeared as the man he was, beautiful and glamorous.

Since the women who were with him in the hut saw him like this, they were amazed and asked where he was from. He told them a story and soon women loved him.

The next day the villagers gave him a house, he set up shop with his two wives and lived in it.

One day, when everyone had left and only Libanza and the two women remained in the village, he told them they would like to fetch water. Since they were in the pirogue, in the middle of the water, he rubbed his nose and was with them in the pirogue.

The women saw and understood that it was Libanza and shouted. Soon the villagers came with lances and shields. Lances were thrown at him. He caught her and put her in the pirogue.

He saw the fathers of his wives, named Iman and Imalamutu, and called out to let him go. But they didn’t want to. He loved women and wanted to take them to his village. He was answered with a shower of lances.

For the last time, Libanza urged Iman and Imalamutu to end; but these demanded his death.

Libanza was very angry, took a lance that had been thrown at him and killed Iman, took a second lance and killed Imalamutu. At the point where the two men fell a large waterfall broke out and is still flowing today.

Libanza moved on. One day a giant stood up to him and shouted: “You don’t pass here.” That was a certain Jau-Jau. He was terrible and had such a long beard that it touched the earth.

Libanza, who had never seen such an ugly person before, ran to Bogengje and asked for advice. “Nothing easier than this,” answered Bogengje, “it is enough that you put fire in his beard and he is defeated.”

Libanza, taking the advice, set fire to the giant’s beard and took hold of him. Once again Libanza was victorious.

One day Ntsongo called his brother and said, “I saw a beautiful knife in the hands of a boy; I wish that you would give it to me. “

Libanza wanted to please his sister and looked for the boy. He asked for the knife. But the boy refused. Libanza got angry and asked his magician Bongengje for advice: he told him to kill a sheep and invite everyone to dinner. He thought the boy was coming too, and thanks to his voraciousness one could take his knife away from him. But this time Bongengje was wrong; Irengerengaikai could not be caught, Libanza could kill his sheep nicely; the other stayed away, saw the others eat and mocked Libanza, who had made useless expenses. He got angry and threw stones at him. The boy fled.

Libanza was very sorry that he could not give the knife to his sister. Some time afterwards she asked him for a beautiful bird named Ntoto; he tried to please her. But the bird got away; he again sought the help of his magician; he remembered his last failure and wanted to do the thing himself. He told the bird that he would like to sit on a tree. But if he tried to approach, the tree warned the bird, which sang mockingly; he ordered him to sit on a rock to drink. But each time rock and water warned him in time. Bongengje despaired of this and ordered him to go to his female. This time the bird was not warned and was caught. Libanza was very happy and ran to his sister to bring her the bird. But how astonished he was when, after all these efforts that had been made to get her the bird, he heard that she no longer wanted it.

One day Ntsongo asked Libanza for another bird, named Itsosi. Since he could not catch it, he took the three boys and brought them to his sister. But the bird, which was huge, decided to take revenge, and one day it stole the three children of Ntsongo.

Another bird, Ivotosigunda, had very long and beautiful nails. Ntsongo asked her brother to get her claws.

The good-natured Libanza tried to get her claws and was wounded. Nevertheless he managed to catch the bird, but since he wanted to cut off its claws, the latter asked him to let them go. In return he would serve him as a slave. Libanza agreed, and the bird stayed with him.

The rainy season had come, the whole forest was flooded. Libanza ordered his men to drive stakes in, one against the other, leaving only a narrow passage.

As the water began to sink, he closed the drain and soon the forest was filled with fish. Libanza wanted to give it to his sister, but she refused. “Give them to our men,” she said, “and throw the rest into the water.” Libanza took the advice; if he hadn’t, we would never have had fish. -

Ntsongo had seen a beautiful woman and said to Libanza, “Take this beautiful woman; she should serve me as a slave or be your wife, if you want. ”When Libanza tried to approach the woman, she fled to her father. He asked her about the cause of such fear. She said she saw Libanza; but the latter refused to believe it and ordered her to go back into the bush to harvest palm oil. “You are sending me to death; but if you want it, I’ll go, ‘and she left. When Libanza saw her, he approached and said, “Do not be afraid, I love you and you must be my wife.” He took her with him and ordered his guard to take care of her.

To make the long journey, Libanza had taken a little bird called Sensery, which carried it wherever it wanted.

One day, so as not to tire them, Libanza put all his people in a small sheet of paper, stuck it up his nose, and went to his sister.

Ntsongo saw palm nuts and asked her brother to find some for her. Libanza had a good heart and loved his sister very much. But at times he wondered why she always wanted something of him. “Sister, you don’t love me. I’m sure you want to see me dead. “

“Yes,” replied Ntsongo, “yes, I want your death, you killed your brother because you envied him; you think I love you; no no no. You killed your oldest brother, who was almost your father, and you think I don’t dare tell you that I hate you? Yes, I hate you and I will be happy to see you die. “

“You are wrong to wish me dead, because no one can protect you but me. But you want my death, well, I’ll see. ”He began to climb the palm to pick the nuts his sister had asked for. Before he climbed up, Libanza had tied a large snake around her neck and hung a few bells that let his every movement be heard.

Libanza always rose, but the higher it rose, the bigger the tree grew, it rose so high that its branches soon disappeared in the clouds, and the people at the foot of the palm could no longer see the nuts. Then suddenly the palm became so small that Ntsongo could pick whatever nuts she wanted. -

Libanza had disappeared because he no longer wanted to live with his sister, who wished him dead. Ntsongo and her people waited in vain for him, and when they saw that he would not return, they founded a village on the site that still exists today. -

Libanza stayed in the clouds and was not a little astonished to find his aunt, Ntsongo’s sister and brother there again. His aunt, even more astonished, asked him what brought him here. Libanza recounted what had happened and said that Ntsongo wanted him dead. His aunt then briefed him on the things of the air and advised him to distrust the mighty chief Lombo, king of the air.

The night had fallen and Lombo, before going to sleep, ordered everyone to remain silent under the penalty of death. Libanza broke the command and spoke in a loud voice. Lombo became angry and sent two slaves to kill him. But Libanza jerked and one fell dead while the other, frightened, fled to tell his master what he had seen. -

Lombo didn’t believe it and sent two women to seize Libanzas. He grabbed her and made her his slaves. Seeing that the women were not returning, Lombo sent two virgins there, who also held Libanza back. Lombo wanted to send two more young men, but the people grumbled and said, “You want to let us all die; don’t you see that Libanza is there? “

Lombo made the hoopla and gathered all his men together; Libanza let his warriors emerge from the little leaf that he had stuck in his nose. The fighters fought with each other until all men were completely destroyed. -

Libanza wanted to win at all costs and asked his magician Bongengje what could be done. “Take this piece of iron,” he replied, “let it glow in the fire, and when Lombo shows up to fight you, dig it into his throat.”

Libanza went straight to work; but Lombo, who feared fire, disappeared underground. Then Bongengje and Libanza took the form of invisible spirits, and since Lombo returned, Libanza managed to drill the red iron into Lombo’s throat.

A thunder was heard in Lombo’s body, and he fell on his back; Libanza threw herself on him to cut his throat, but the king of the air asked for mercy and became the victor’s slave.

Libanza awakened everyone and made men his slaves.

Lombo owned a very loyal leopard (Nkoi) who was desperate to see his master degraded to a slave; he decided to spoil Libanza. He suggested that he go pick palm nuts. Libanza sensed the bad intention, pretended to assume and stayed at home. He struck the earth with a stick; the whole house was soon filled with nuts, and when the leopard returned he was amazed to see Libanza return with such an abundant harvest.

The next day the leopard suggested cutting wood. Again Libanza pretended to accept; but he did not move, slapped his hands, and at once he had a large supply of wood. The leopard could not believe its eyes and looked for another means of killing Libanza. “Brother,” he said, “let’s cook palm nuts.”

Libanza sensed that the leopard would kill him as soon as he turned his back on him, so he put a chain with bells around his waist and sang as he worked.

The leopard couldn’t resist the tiredness and fell asleep. Libanza could easily have killed him; but he preferred to prepare palm nuts. When everyone was ready, the leopard woke up and thought of some other means of ruining Libanza. He suggested that they prepare salt. Libanza now decided to end with him; accepted again, and when the leopard was gone he locked the house, leaving only an opening in the roof. The leopard returned and asked to enter. “If you want to come,” replied Libanza, “come through the roof.” As the leopard stuck his head through the opening in the roof, Libanza threw hot salt into his eyes, which he had just prepared. The leopard howled in pain and died. Libanza, doubting whether his enemy was dead, told him, “If you are truly dead, let your teeth fall,” and the teeth fell. “If you are truly dead, let your nails fall,” and the nails fell. Libanza was assured of the death of the leopard and left.

He met a big eagle. He took the little leaves that were in his nose and gave his spirit to the people who were in it. He said to him, “Bring this to my sister.” The eagle flew away, but since it believed it was carrying meat, it stopped on the road and tried to eat the contents of the leaves. Libanza was hidden inside. He frightened the eagle, who was about to drop the leaves. But they remained attached to his claws. Then Libanza ordered the eagle to give the leaves to a vulture. He also wanted to eat the contents and was ordered to give it to a falcon, which in turn had to give it to a parrot for the same reason. He carried them away, but when he saw beautiful palm nuts, he let them fall to the ground.

Libanza came out of the hiding place, gave his men back their life and ordered them to create a village at this point erect. Without knowing it, Libanza had built the village near his mother. One day he was walking in the woods and was recognized by a slave who hastily told his mother that he had seen her son. She believed the slave was lying and had him killed.

Some time afterwards, Libanza’s mother regretted the act and said that the slave might have spoken the truth. To calm her heart, she sent another man into the woods. He saw Libanza, who promised to visit her mother. Immediately she had mats laid everywhere, including on the path her son had to walk, and had a great feast prepared in his honor. During her stay with her mother, Libanza noticed that in order to have a fire one had to turn to Mokwikwe, the only one who had it. He decided to get hold of it. He let it rain for several days and took the form of a small, soaked boy. He asked Mokwikwe to be allowed to warm himself by his fire; that was allowed to him. Left alone he took a large piece of fire, swallowed it,

Mokwikwe saw the act of Libanza and gathered his men to punish him. He was defeated.

Libanza stayed with his mother for a while. Then he returned to his village. Instead of living quietly, he subjugated all neighboring villages. Libanza ruled.

Bena-Kanioka

The tree of God

The animals had gone hunting; When they found a tree that was bearing fruit and did not know its name, they sent the antelope and said, “Go, ask God for the name.” The antelope had gone, asked. God said the name; he said: “The tree is mine, the tree is speckled. This is my dear tree, Speckled. ”As the antelope ran the path, the name fell away. -

They sent the turtle and said, “You go ask.” The turtle went, she too, and asked; God told her the name of the tree: “My tree is speckled, my dear tree is speckled.” He gave her a bell, said: “If you forget it, the bell will say it.” The turtle left. When she got there, she forgot the name. The bell told her: “nkelente, nkelente.” The turtle understood, arrived and said the name. They were happy, climbed the tree and ate the fruit. They refused to give it to the turtle. When they had eaten, they killed them. The little ants took the turtle’s body and sang:

“Knead the sand, knead the earth,
Until he appears, whom God created.”

They gave the body back to her, and the turtle returned to life. The animals killed them again; the little ants once again formed the turtle that came back to life. The resurrected turtle uprooted the tree, all animals perished.

The woman and the bird

A woman had given birth; her child was a son. He went to war. An arrow was shot in his heart; he died. His friends put him on the bier.

A bird went to the child’s mother and said to her singing:

“Eh Makalonga from Mbayi,
your son.
The arrow was shot in his heart.
He was placed on the bier. “

The woman threw a lump of earth at him and cursed him:

“Cursed, ancestor of Bulonga’s son,
ancestor you are a sorcerer.
If I were a man, I would kill you. “

They came to the water with the stretcher.

The bird came again and always wept in the same way, and the woman cursed him again. When she saw that they were coming with their son, what a pity.

The woman sank down and thought: “The bird was right to cry, I chased it away.”

The ogres

The hunter went hunting with his dogs. The rain surprised him. He went into a hut for protection. He met the ogre with the two heads. He sat down to see the one with the three heads; he came and asked the two-headed: “Ah, ogre two-headed, he has a head, where does he come from?” Dreikopf said, “Let us tell him the Master is coming.” So every ogre that came spoke, and the Master came.

Night fell, the hunter fell asleep, the ogres were heating an iron spike on the stove and wanted to burn the hunter from behind. The dogs jumped up and growled. The ogres got tired. The night passed, and they tried in vain to kill him. They carried him to a tree and said, “Pick us plums.” As they were leaving the hut, they tied the dogs in the hut. The hunter rose, they stayed down by the tree and wanted to fell it. The hunter screamed and shouted, “My children, I am consumed by an animal.” The dogs heard him, tore the door open, ran quickly, and tore the ogres in the stomach. The hunter descended.

Molowi

One man had children, four daughters. They grabbed their father in his courtyard and said, “Give us your most beautiful daughter.” They took Kahafwabanza. As they passed, she wept and sang:

“He was wounded in
the courtyard of the Kanioka,
you came from afar.”

The girl always went crying. When they came to the village with her, they freed their father from the ropes. As they parted, their father said to them: “My daughter here does not crush, she only weaves clothes.” One day her husband went into the field, when he came back hungry, he said: “You did not want to prepare me food.” The woman took cassava, put it in the mortar, crushed it and said: “Dear pestle, I agree, let’s go underground, I don’t have to grind for me, here I grind in slavery.” The pestle and she began to go into the ground. She crushes and speaks so and sinks into the earth with the pestle. That was over, and the pusher disappeared with her.

Her husband went to the father-in-law and asked: “Did your daughter come here?” Her father picks up a drum and calls out: “Mudindila, Mudindila.”

She replied:

“Father hear mudindila.
I was given mudindila for marriage.
I was disgusted
and hid myself in the ground! “

The father beat the drum, so she always answered that way. You come to the village square; maybe they are looking where they come out on earth. Little children were called and said, “Throw kernels.” A child threw a kernel and the rammer came out. You threw a core and the mortar came out. Another child threw another core and she came out. When she finished coming out, she died.

Young girls went swimming. As they finished bathing, they began to brush their teeth; the others’ teeth would not whiten, those of a girl turned white. The others threw them into the lake. She came where the hippopotamus and crocodile are; who fought; the crocodile was stronger and took it. The girl gave birth to Molowi; the crocodile sent her and said, “Go and see mother and father,” and gave her a basket of cowries to crush Molowi for food; for Molowi didn’t eat cassava, or corn, only mussels.

As she came to the bank, she heard a man cutting rods. The girl called him.

“Eh, the one who cuts the rod, the one who cuts the rod,
Tell my father
and my dear mother,
When we came to the water,
The companions with me,
we brushed our teeth.
Mine turned white.
Theirs stayed black.
They threw me to the bottom
To hippopotamus and crocodile.
The crocodile said: She is mine.
The hippopotamus said: She is mine.
The stronger one was the crocodile.
I gave birth to a child.
Molowi from the crocodile.
It doesn’t eat flour or corn.
Just dust of the cowries. “

The man hears and listens; he cuts again. The woman tells him again. The rod cutter returns to the village and says the mother as the daughter said. The mother took a white chicken and an egg; they met her, beat her with the chicken, broke the egg in the face and went into the village. One day the woman leaves the child in her mother’s hut and goes fishing. Since the mother stayed with the child, she took the cowries and put them in the mortar and said: “I want to crush the baby’s chewy food.” She poured all the cowries into the mortar; the child cries from hunger; and she took food of corn and gave it to the child to eat; and the child died. She took the bell from the child and hung it on the chicken; the chicken, that’s it.

A bird went to look for the child’s mother in the bush and said to her:

“Your mother is a sorceress.
She took corn,
gave it to the child to eat.
The child is dead, oh
under the bed there
is a terrible thing, covered
with palm leaves,
speckled with white paint oh. “

The woman heard that the bird was always moaning; she said to her companions: “I’m going to the village,” she went to the stream and left. When she came, she asked her mother: “Where is the child that I can breastfeed it?” Her mother said: “Didn’t you hear the little bell that was ringing? It plays with the others. ”The woman looks under the bed and finds the child dead. She took it, went to the path, went to her husband, wandered and complained.

“Just this from me, none of lightning and rainbows.
The crocodile’s child, not one of lightning and rainbows.
The wrinkled, none of lightning and rainbow,
there it is dead. “

She met the two-headed man, he asked her: “Is that crying or singing?”

“That is singing, my heart.”

“Are these tears or sweat?”

“That’s sweat, my heart.”

She came to the crocodile. This made little baskets, put them on the ground, called the little children and said, “Collect the little baskets.” They collected. Only one stayed. The dead child sneezed “Tritsehe” and said: “This is mine,” and got up.

The animals kill the mothers

All the animals said to one another, “Let’s kill our mothers.” They beat their mothers to death. Kamundi took his and went to hide it in a cave in a tree. Every day he went there to eat manioc bread, and when he ate until he was full, he brought the others fruit.

One day he brought it to the Genette cat and went with her to his mother’s house to eat manioc bread. When she returned from there, the Genette said to the others: “Kamundi told us to kill our mothers; but his is still there, he hid it in the cave of the tree, where he brings it all food. “And the others said:” Ah, that’s so. “The elephant pretended to be sick. He took medicine, put it up his buttocks, trying to deceive Kamundi; as soon as he stayed far, his mother would be killed.

They said to him: “Go draw water there by the waterfalls.” Kamundi went, they stayed, went to the hole, arrived, called out, as Kamundi called:

“Mothers, mothers,
let’s eat them, ah.
I’ll take my mom, I’ll stuff her in a hole.
In the hole of which tree?
In the hole of the Tsinam-Bamamba.
Answer mother. Wu. “

The woman answered; the animals uprooted the tree, killed it, and returned home. Kamundi passed by and saw the animals kill his mother. He walked with the water, put the jug down and began to cry. They asked him: “Eh, Kamundi, what are you crying?” He said to them: “Ah, older brother, that is the flesh in the middle of the body, that’s where I came from.” They gave him manioc bread and meat. Because he’s a horse bone crushed, they said to him, “You ate a bone from your mother.” He said:

“You said what?”

“Oh, we say eat the manioc bread.”

Kamundi felled a tree, hollowed a drum, gathered the animals and went with them to the meadow. He took the little animals, very little ones, and gave them fire. “Go, set fire to all herbs.” He took the lizards and let them climb a tree: “When you see the fire approaching, tell me, I’ll step into the badger holes, the rest of you will go into the tree hollows. «

He took the drum on his shoulder and there he went and counted:

“Oh, oh, the antelope, glowworm, glowworm.
Oh, oh, the boar, glowworm, glowworm.
We cry for mothers, glowworm, glowworm.
Where did they go, glowworm, glowworm. “

He enumerated the animals, he enumerated the animals.

So always. They saw the fire coming and asked him: “Is the fire coming?” He said: “Dance, the fire is still far.” They dance, they dance and see the fire that is coming very close; those up in the tree said to him: “The fire is here.” He put the drum on the ground and stepped into the roof holes. All animals were burned and died.

Bakuba legends

The orb of the chiefs of Bangala

A chief from a village called Bangala Ganga went to Zappo Lumbumba one day to celebrate a festival.

On the way he met two very little men who, instead of greeting him as one owes a chief, were passing cheekily by.

Ganga stopped and said: “Do you claim you have not seen me, where are you going?”

“We are not accountable to you for what we have seen, tell us first where you are going.” The chief’s companions were very angry at this answer, and attacked the strangers and killed them.

The two little men were wizards; when they were killed, the chief fell dead. His people were very frightened. “Why did our chief die,” they said, “we killed the sorcerers, why didn’t the punishment fall on us? Let us take revenge on the people of the Zappo Lumbumba, where the magicians come from; they sent them to kill the chief. ‘They set off, took possession of a goat of the Zappo Lumbumba; when they returned with their booty, the chief’s body was gone, and in the place where they had left the body they found a large mountain. They hurried back to the village to tell the story to the Bangala people, who gathered to see this miracle. A short time later, another Bangala chief named Samba Loamba traveled the same route.

Origin of the consecration ceremony (Bambala)

Once upon a time there lived a man who had a son, and as the boy grew and became manable, he often fetched palm wine in the forest. He drank the wine alone without ever thinking about his father and mother. The father said to him: “Why, my son, do you never give me the palm wine that you bring?” But the boy said: “I never bring palm wine, and when I bring it I do as I please.”

So he lied to his father and talked to him improperly. He decided to punish him. He followed him to the forest and saw him taking palm wine. Once the man noticed, as he was touching a thin palm branch, that it was making a sad noise. As his son made an opening in the palm tree, he cut a piece of such a branch and attached it to a string. After sunset he hid behind the bushes on the path and waited for the son to come home. Finally came the wine on his shoulders with two large calabashes. As he was very close, the father began to move the tool that he had invented. The boy was terribly frightened and dropped the calabashes; all the wine was spilled and the boy ran back to the village as quickly as possible. The father repeated this several evenings and always with the same ending. After a few days he said to the son: “What do you eat and drink not, are you sick?” The son replied: “No, I am not sick; but every evening when I go for palm wine for my mother, a terrible ghost watches me and puts me in horror and death. “

“How,” said the father, “are you so brave, you who speak so boldly to your father, lie to him, are you afraid of a ghost? Go with your mother and your palm wine and insult the spirit like you insulted your father. ”The son repented and asked his father for forgiveness.

The next day the ghost no longer haunted.

This is the origin of the Nkanda consecration ceremony.

Origin of the friction drum

Kashashi, wife of King Samba Mikepe, was pretty and skilled; but like most Bangongo, she was vicious. One day her husband surprised her in adultery with a man of low origin. He was very angry, put the combit’s feathers in the corners of his mouth, threw himself on the adulterer and killed him with the knife. When the people asked what had become of the man, Samba Mikepe replied, Koy Na Bula, the leopard of the village (that is, the grater drum), devoured him. Since then, human sacrifices have been made to the sound of this drum.

The origin of the masks

Some time after Samba Mikepe married Kashashi, she gave birth to a child. One day she went out of the village to fetch water. The child ran after. She said to him: “Go to the village and stay with your father while I get water.”

The child did not want to obey; despite the punishments, it insisted on following her. Since Kashashi had to watch over the child, she shed most of the water on the way and was forced to return to the river; once again the child insisted on accompanying her. Threats and punishments, even from the father, did not help. The child screamed and howled incessantly until he was allowed to accompany the mother. Kashashi was a clever woman; all night she wondered how to keep the child from disturbing the work. Finally she found a remedy. In the bowl of her calabash she draws a face full of color and ugly. As the child ran after her, she held the calabash in front of her face and suddenly turned around. The child was frightened. “It’s not my mother, that’s a terrible ghost,” it shouted and ran back into the village.

Origin of the mask Mashamboy (Bambala)

Once upon a time in the waters there lived a spirit called Mashamboy who afflicted the people with a disease called Geji. Those afflicted with the disease lost sight, fell down as if they were drunk and died. Since Bo Kena was the chief, a man named Bokoboko went into the forest and suddenly saw this ghost. Terrified, he ran into the village and told the chief what he had seen. Bo Kena ordered him to describe the ghost. Bokoboko said, “It’s so terrible that I can’t describe it in words. But give me the time and resources, I will educate you. ”Bo Kena agreed. Bokoboko built a hut far from the village and started work. He asked for bast cloth, bird feathers and the fur of a larger bat. Bo Kena gave him the first two things, ordered the people of the village, to catch a bat and sent him the animal. Bokoboko made a mask that looked like Mashamboy; he took two trees, won two colors, one yellow and the other black; with these colors and the white earth he painted the mask he had made. From the leftover material he made a robe with which he covered the body. This robe was supple and fitted exactly to the body. It was made up of little triangles of cloth dyed white and black and sewn together. After finishing this, he showed it to the king. “Ah,” said the king, “this is exactly what I need.” A few days later the king disappeared. His wives and subjects mourned his death and asked, “Where is the Nijmi?” As the sun fell asleep, a strange thing appeared; in the village one had never seen anything like it before. That was the king dressed in the mask Mashamboy; nobody recognized him. He danced about and frightened women and children, and finally he disappeared. He took off his mask and robe in the bush and carefully hid them. Then he went to his village dressed as usual, where he was greeted with joy. Women and children spoke to him of the terrible ghost they had seen yesterday. “I know what it was, it was Mashamboy who gave us the Geji. He came to see whether there weren’t quarrelsome women and bad children in the village. If he found such, he would have sent the terrible disease. ”So the women and children were frightened and promised to be calm and obedient. Then he went to his village dressed as usual, where he was greeted with joy. Women and children spoke to him of the terrible ghost they had seen yesterday. “I know what it was, it was Mashamboy who gave us the Geji. He came to see whether there weren’t quarrelsome women and bad children in the village. If he found such, he would have sent the terrible disease. ”So the women and children were frightened and promised to be calm and obedient. Then he went to his village dressed as usual, where he was greeted with joy. Women and children spoke to him of the terrible ghost they had seen yesterday. “I know what it was, it was Mashamboy who gave us the Geji. He came to see whether there weren’t quarrelsome women and bad children in the village. If he found such, he would have sent the terrible disease. ”So the women and children were frightened and promised to be calm and obedient.

The origin of iron

One day Woto found a large stone that Bumba, the god, had excreted. “What is this?” He asked. The people replied: “That is God’s departed.” Woto ordered that they be carried to the village and venerated. The following night Woto watched Bumba in a dream; he said to him: “You have acted wisely, honoring everything that comes from me; even my excreted. As a reward, I will teach you how to use it. ”So Bumba instructed Woto to pull iron out of stone.

How to light the fire

A man named Kerikeri lived under the rule of Muchu Mushanga. One night he dreamed that Bumba had come to see him and instructed him to go a certain way, to break branches of a certain tree and to take care of them. He did so, and as the branches were quite dry, Bumba appeared again in a dream, wishing him luck in his obedience and instructing him to make a fire by rubbing. Kerikeri kept the secret, and when by chance all the fires in the village had gone out, he sold fire to the neighbors at a high price. All the clever and cunning tried to solve the mystery, but the latter kept it carefully.

Muchu Mushanga had a beautiful daughter named Katenga; he said: “If you can discover the secret of this man, you will be honored and sit like a man among the ancients.” Katenga enticed Kerikeri, and he lost himself in love for her. Seeing this, Katenga ordered that all the fires in the village be extinguished and sent a slave to report to Kerikeri to wait for her in his hut that evening. Since everyone was asleep, she slipped over to his hut and knocked on the door. The night was very dark. Kerikeri let them in.

She sat down and was silent. The lover asked: “Why are you sitting in silence, Katenga? Don’t you love me? “She replied,” How can I think of love when I tremble in your house. Go seek fire so that I can see you and my heart heat up. “

Kerikeri ran to the neighbors to get fire, but they had put out their fires and he came back, he hadn’t found any. In vain he asked Katenga to let go of her desire, she insisted that he light a fire. At last he gave in, found the staffs, and made a fire while she watched attentively. Then she laughed and said: “Did you think that I, the daughter of a king, loved you for yourself? Only your secret required me to see, and since the fire has now subsided, you can have a slave put it out. “So she got up, left the hut, announced the discovery to the whole court and said to her father:” Where a mighty one King stumbles, wins a crafty woman. “

The light

Since Woto was leaving Moelos village there was no sun; there was none. Moelo was confused by the darkness; he complained that if he got married he could not see whether the woman was beautiful or ugly; when he plucks a fruit, he cannot see whether it is ripe or not; when a man approaches him, he cannot say whether he is friend or foe. So he called three of his people and said to them: “Why did I allow Woto to leave the village? He is skilful and would certainly have found a cure for the darkness. Go find him; Ask him to forget the injustice my son did him and give us a means of seeing in light. In order for your mission to succeed, avoid arguments and do not dwell on fishing. Pay attention, do not go wrong, do not fail and do not fish in the rivers. «So the three men, the Kalonda, traveled Binga and Buimba were called to look for Woto. They went, they went until they came to a large bank, and Binga said, “Let’s stop and fish.” “No,” replied the others, “don’t you remember Moelo’s words?” Binga didn’t want to hear them, scolded she and began to fish despite her counter-argument. So Kalonda and Buimba saw that it was useless to continue the journey and returned to Moelo. When they arrived, Moelo asked, “Did you bring the light?” “No,” they replied, “Binga disobeyed your command, he quarreled with us and stopped fishing; so it was useless to go on and we scolded her and began to fish despite her counter-argument. So Kalonda and Buimba saw that it was useless to continue the journey and returned to Moelo. When they arrived, Moelo asked, “Did you bring the light?” “No,” they replied, “Binga disobeyed your command, he quarreled with us and stopped fishing; so it was useless to go on and we scolded her and began to fish despite her counter-argument. So Kalonda and Buimba saw that it was useless to continue the journey and returned to Moelo. When they arrived, Moelo asked, “Did you bring the light?” “No,” they replied, “Binga disobeyed your command, he quarreled with us and stopped fishing; so it was useless to go on, and so did we returned. ”So Moelo hit Binga and said:“ You no longer go with the others. ”He turned to Kalonda and Buimba:“ Travel again in search of Woto and take my dog ​​instead of bingas. ”So they got up again the way, this time with Moelo’s dog.

As they got to the shore, they built a boat and began to sail until they came to where the shore was surrounded by high rocks. “What should we do?” Said they, “these high rocks prevent us from landing.” It occurred to Kalonda to have the dog searched; where man’s wisdom ends, animal wisdom begins. Indeed the dog found a narrow path between the rocks, and the men followed. They came to the place where Woto was. “What do you want,” said Woto, “you people Moelos have chased me from my house, can you not leave me peacefully in my refuge, wherever I have come to hide my shame?”

“Your brother,” they replied, “is very unhappy; If he takes a new wife, he complains that he cannot see whether she is pretty or not; when he picks fruit, he cannot see whether it is ripe or not; when a man approaches him, he cannot tell whether it is friend or foe. He asks you to remember that you come from the same breast and to help him in his misery. “Woto says:” Go to sleep. “The next day he calls them and gives them three birds: a cuckoo, a rooster and a japodya. “Bring these birds to my brother, and when you get to his village, let them fly and go to sleep. When you hear the cuckoo say Ku Ku, don’t move; if you hear the rooster calling Katariko, do not move; but if you hear the Japodya screaming Zuaa, Zuaa, then open your huts and look. “

They took the birds, went home to Moelo, and they did as Woto commanded. The next day the cuckoo screamed and no one left; then you heard the rooster screaming Katariko, and no one backed away. The sky took on a reddish color and things became visible. As the Japodya sang Zuaa Zuaa, they opened the doors of their huts and saw the beautiful rising of the sun shine.

The palm wine

At the time of creation there was a large lake very near the area where the Bushonge lived, and that lake contained palm wine, not water; every time one was thirsty he went to fetch wine. One day Nankhamba, a woman, pissed in the lake. But she was seen by Boyo Bumba, a man, who said, “Aren’t you ashamed to pollute the lake from which everyone drinks? I’ll tell the villagers what you’ve done. ”He did, and everyone said they weren’t drinking the wine of the lake anymore. The next day Boyo Bumba returned to the village and said, “See how we are punished for the woman’s offense, the lake has dried up.” So it was; the lake was gone and in its place was a ravine in which four unknown species of young trees were seen. They named the trees Shamba, Mibondo, Ikori and Djana. But they paid no attention to them and mourned the loss of their lake. The years passed. The trees grew wide and, where the lake had been, grew into the forest. One day Bunyi, a motwa, spoke to himself: “Where has the lake gone; is he not absorbed by the trees? I’ll make a hole in it, and I’ll see who its sap is like. ”He went, climbed a tree, and made a hole at the top; but no juice flowed. He returned home determined to give up searching; In a dream a man appeared to him and said: “A good idea is not without perseverance. Go and try again. ”The next day, Bunyi went to the tree and saw a thin thread of sap flowing from the hole he had drilled; he tasted and found sweets; so he hung up a vessel to collect the drops and returned to the village, but he said nothing of his find. Every day the amount of juice increased, became stronger, and every day he had to add a larger vessel to collect the flowing. One day, after having drunk the contents of his largest vessel, he came into the village drunk; he molested many and was brought before the Nyimi. The Nyimi questioned him about the cause of his strange behavior, but Bunyi refused to provide information, if not in secret. This was granted, and as he was telling his story, the king sent a messenger to check whether he had spoken true. As the narrative has been proven he molested many and was brought before the Nyimi. The Nyimi questioned him about the cause of his strange behavior, but Bunyi refused to answer, if not in secret. This was granted, and as he was telling his story, the king sent a messenger to check whether he had spoken true. As the narrative has been proven he molested many and was brought before the Nyimi. The Nyimi questioned him about the cause of his strange behavior, but Bunyi refused to provide information, if not in secret. This was granted, and as he was telling his story, the king sent a messenger to check whether he had spoken true. As the narrative has been proven the Nyimi announced the secret to the people and everyone went to collect palm kernels and plant them all over the country.

The suicide

Badja, a man, went into the woods with his son. The son suddenly died in the forest, and the father returned to the village alone. When he came the people asked him: “Badja, where is your son?” He replied: “He’s lying dead in the forest.” to show in the village; return immediately to the forest and don’t let yourself be seen here. ‘So Badja went back into the forest, wandered around and didn’t know how to let herself go. At last he shouted: “I don’t want to live like this anymore; How can I die? ”He took a long vine, tied one end to a branch, climbed up, and rolled the other end around his neck. When he did this, he flung himself into space.

Succubus

There were two brothers, Ganda and Lusumba; they had a sister. The three of them lived in the forest, far from everyone, in a simple hut, as was the custom at the time. One night a ghost came and joined the sister; She got pregnant. -

As Brother Ganda noticed it, he went to the brother and said: “Lusumba, what a shame, you have violated our sister.” The latter rejected the indictment and accused Ganda. So discord continued; each was firmly convinced of the guilt of the other. All three died in disgrace.

Baluba

Creation of the world

An old chief in Kukiga relates:

Kabezya-Mpungu, the highest being, created the sky, the earth and two rational beings, man and woman. These two living beings who knew Kabezya-Mpungu did not have mutima (heart, not a life-sustaining principle), and they were not yet able to beget.

Kabezya-Mpungu had four children: sun, moon, darkness and rain.

A while after creation, Kabezya-Mpungu called the four children and said, “I don’t want people to see me any longer. I return to myself and send Mutima. But before saying goodbye, I want to know what you, Regen, are up to. “

“Ah,” replies Regen, “I think this is how I will begin to pour incessantly and put everything under water.”

“No,” replies Kabezya-Mpungu, “don’t pretend. See these two “, he pointed to the people,” could they live in water? Alternate with the sun. When you have watered the earth richly, leave the work to the sun to warm the earth. “

“How will you act?” God turned to the sun.

“I think to go up and burn everything down.”

“No,” said Kabezya-Mpungu, “it’s not good that way. How do you want the people I made to prepare food? If you warm the earth for a reasonable amount of time, give space to the rain so that it refreshes the soil and moistens the fruits of the earth. “

“And you, darkness, what do you want?”

“I always reckon to rule,” was his answer, “and to leave everything in complete darkness.”

“Have mercy,” cried God, “how do you want these beings, the lions, tigers and snakes, that live on earth to perceive nothing? Listen, give the moon time to light up the earth, and when you see it in its last quarter, then you rule again on earth. But I hesitate too long, I’ll go. “

Then Kabezya-Mpungu disappeared.

The heart then appeared in a small, hand-sized vessel.

The heart screamed and turned to the sun, moon, darkness and rain:

“Kabezya-Mpungu, our father, where is he!”

“Father is gone and we don’t know the way he went.”

“I longed immensely,” replied the heart, “to speak to him. Since I can’t find him, I step into this man. So I wander from sex to sex. ”He did, and the man recognized his wife, who bore him boys and girls, all mutima-gifted.

Hiking history

I.

Wwamba, prince of the Babemba, relates:

In ancient times, the whites and the Lubu people lived together in Uluba (Uruwa). They had a father in common who made them work hard. The sons grew tired of it. Kitinkulu, the eldest, and the others, who were all village chiefs, rose to seek sweeter life. The white Baluba drove across the sea and went to Europe, where they found many good things. But when we got to the sea we were afraid, and Kitinkulu’s son died. We found an old woman in the rocks by the sea. We asked them to bury the great chief’s son. We then returned the route of our rivers, came back to Uluba, Kitinkulu distributed the land to his brothers. They killed a lot of people; at the end they said, “If we kill the whole world, who will we stay with?” So they stopped killing and mutilating.

II

It has been a very long time since Kahatwa Zazali’s son and his two wives came from far beyond the Lomami to settle down on Lake Kisale. All three came from the Bwina Mbayo family. His wife Ndai was from the Benaluba (Baluba) tribe.

She gave the day to a son and named him Kongolo; then two daughters, Bulanda and Keta. All were red in color. The earth was still soft.

Bulanda married a great chief who came from the east. His name was Kakenda. She had an endlessly wise son, Kalala-Ilunga; he killed his uncle Kongolo and followed him with dignity. He fathered sons: Ilunga-Nsungo, Ilunga-Kabale and Kibanza. After his death they jointly held the land between Lualaba and Lomami. Your descendants still master it today.

Origin of the violence of the chiefs of Urua

Formerly, that is far in the ages, Kahatwa, son of Zazali, came from a far country, beyond the Lomami, to the west. He settled on the shores of Lake Kisale, on the beach of Kamelondo. He and his two wives were members of the Bwina-Mbayo family. One of the women remained sterile; so her name is forgotten. The other was called Ndai and was from the Benaluba or Baluba tribe. Since her birth she was consecrated to Kongolo, the Spirit. Kongolo is a double being, made up of two snakes, male and female. Both live on different banks; from time to time they wed over our heads. Their agreement shimmers brightly over the people. This is the rainbow (in Kiluba: Kongolomwamba).

Ndai received from her husband and gave birth to a boy and consecrated him to the patron god of their race. Then she gave birth to two daughters, one of whom she named Bulanda, which means “poverty”, the other Keta, which is “little meat”. Their little niece, Bubela, lived with them, that is, a lie. The whole family was very red in color. At that time was the earth soft. The man’s sole and the antelope’s hoof cut the rocks, leaving their image there. An ancestor of this race, it was Kyomba, was taught by the great spirit who created everything, the fire and the germinating power of the grain.

One day Bulanda went to the lake to draw water. She was amazed to meet a stranger there; he drank. In his hand he held a bow, arrows and a lance; Dogs went by his side. That was a hunter who came from Tanganika; his name was Mbili. Bulanda came and said hello. Then she asked who he was, where he came from and where he was going. The stranger did not answer, continued to drink as if nothing had happened. Amazed, Bulanda ran to tell her brother Kongolo-Mwamba. “Come quickly, hurry to the lake,” she said, “there is a stranger like I have never seen him; he doesn’t speak. “

The brother came to the lake and began to question the stranger, but in vain. Deeply confused, the brother went into the bush to question the magician who proclaimed the oracles of the spirit Banza; He won such a saying: “The stranger is Kakenda, the strong hunter and king of the east from the land of Kibawa. The hunt for game pulled him far. Build him a holy hut, gird it with a palisade of sugar cane; put wood burning in the hearth, then ask him to come in. ”Mwamba hurried to obey the command; he quickly invited the stranger.

This time Kakenda complied with the wishes of the guests, stepped into the hut and soon he spoke confidentially. Ndai prepared the splendid meal with the daughters, which he deigned to consume. Mwamba asked him to spend a few days with them; he agreed.

One day, when King Kakenda Bulanda looked, she was going to the lake alone; he approached and said to her:

“Bulanda, I love you, do you want to be my wife?” The girl agreed; they married. She soon saw that she was going to be a mother. She said this to her husband. Kakenda, happy, spoke to the wife and the Congolese family: “My wife has received, nothing can hold me back, I am returning to my kingdom.” He left.

The woman gave birth to a boy; she called him Kalala Ilunga. As soon as the child was born, it became very strong. It cried: “I am the child who, born in the morning, is honored in the evening for the sake of his deeds.”

A few hours after the birth, Kalala Ilunga played with the children of the Kongolo-Mwamba people and invented the peta game.

He saw that he was strong to act, he shouted: “It has been long since I was born, I am brave and strong.” He wandered into the forest to do new things.

He erred in the heart of the woods; then he saw an army of ants plunder a termite mound; every beast dragged in its clutches a slain enemy. Then he said to himself: “O these tiny beetles are brave to attack, to kill and to catch other beetles; and I, Kalala, cannot do the same. No, I go to hunt down and catch men. “

So he returned to the village, killed many of the Kongolo’s people, caught others, dragged them into the forest, and forced them to serve him. Kongolo found out about this and was angry: “He’s killing and capturing my people,” he shouted, “well, I’ll kill him.” He waited, remained silent and hid the fatal plans in his heart. -

Many days passed and the matter was forgotten. Kongolo, however, was thinking of revenge. One day he digs a deep pit in the middle of the village, covers it with mats, and lays flowers and soil over it; so skillful that nothing could be noticed. Then he invites the nephew to have a beer and dance. Kalala assumes: at the hip hour everyone empties the numerous jugs of corn beer in noisy joy. Then you start the dance. Kongolo leads the row, with quick steps, graduated: he twists and turns in delicate curves, he leads the row of dancers. Never before has a muluba danced so flawlessly. The joyful company goes, comes, dances zigzags, circles and spirals that gracefully open and close. Little or little do they approach the pit of fate. The nephew follows the uncle belly to back. Sudden leaps, As directed by the statutes of dance, Kongolo stands on the other side. Kalala will fall into the trap. But he, careful, suspicious with cheerful eyes, measures every step he takes. He quietly hits the ground with his lance, unnoticed. Here, there the bottom gives way to his lance. He recognizes, now knows the trap. Angry, he turns back and speaks to Kongolo:

“Uncle, Kongolo, this is the pit that you made for my death directed. Well. I can’t do anything here. But now I’m going to tell Father Kakenda; then see who is the stronger. “

He went across the field. Descended the right bank of the Kamelonda to the Kiluba village, where the Luaba unites (Ankoro).

He requested a pirogue and crossed over. Kongolo hesitated at first, then decided in pursuit to kill Kalala before asking the father for help. He too came to Kiluba, but in vain asked for a pirogue to cross over. Kalala had warned the chief of the village:

“If you see a very red man coming, don’t let him run over; for he is pursuing me to kill me, me, the son of the king of Kibawa, the great hunter from the east. “

Kongolo wanted to translate at all costs. He ordered his warriors to tie bundles of dry grass in a raft to attempt the crossing. Several tried the frail vehicle; but scarcely were they removed from the bank when they capsized and spoiled. Others started the same way, all suffered the same fate. His counsel said to him thus:

“Why do we persist in crossing. Your nephew has already traveled a long way, we will no longer reach him. Let’s go home. “

Kongolo tasted the saying; Before he left, he tried one last effort, called the bat of Tam-Tam and said:

“There is a strong, high muvula here, climb to its summit, beat the tam-tam there with all your might to tell my nephew to return to be reconciled with me.”

The bat of the Tam-Tam rests a mighty pole against the muvula and lifts itself to the summit. He beats the drum with anger; then he stops and listens. The nephew’s bat doesn’t answer. He beats the flanks of the drum with anger; he stops and listens. Nothing. Kalala is certainly very far. Emasculated with anger, Kongolo orders the pole to be knocked over. The unfortunate thug is no longer able to descend and dies in the tree.

Uncle wants to find a way through the water. He has stones collected, rocks broken loose, and thrown into the water. His men struggle with strength. Many perish. Discouraged, broken down, Kongolo decides to return home. -

Severe fear floods his soul; he speaks to himself:

“The nephew’s revenge will be terrible, it will not hesitate. Kalala-Ilunga will certainly come to kill me. Let us flee to take refuge in the mountain caves. “

So lived Kongolo, a refugee, on the Mita Mountains, fleeing from one cave to the other.

In the meantime Kalala reached father Kakenda and announced to him the resolution to kill his uncle. Kakenda refused to participate in the crime. Kalala returned, determined to take revenge on all. He came to Congolo’s village; the houses were empty. He ran to the mountain, rummaged through the valleys and every cave. Then finally he found the fugitive. He beheaded him with the blow of the knife. He wrapped his head in raffia fabric, placed it in a basket with a conical lid, built a small temple out of straw, and placed the relic there.

Since that day the power of the princes, the bufumu in the hut of the dead souls, has rested.

The nephew followed the uncle in dignity and united in himself Bufumu and holy blood (Bulohwe). Since that day the person of the prince has been sanctified by blood.

This is how Kalala established sacred power in the land of the Baluba.

Kalala-Ilunga fathered several sons, Ilunga-Usungo, Ilunga-Kabale, Kibanza etc. When their father died, they shared the kingdom between Lualaba and Lomami. Their descendants still inhabit it today, and this whole area is under the power of the Benaluba kings of the Kongolo Mwamba family.

Hiking history

III

Mwembesi, of the Kasanga family, chief of a village in the Kirungu Hills, relates:

The Kasanga family settled in Masauraland times ago. At that time the country was, I think, without people. The immigrants multiplied, populated and fulfilled soon the whole area. Some of them moved away. Some were drawn to the heights of Marungu, others wandered along the Tanganika. Among these were two young Batabwa, brother and sister. They stopped with their entourage on the banks of the Lunga swamp, not far from the Tongwe cap. There they found some people, but few.

These people were related to them; one of them was her youngest brother. The sister had wounds; the older brother said to her: “You, my sister, stay here so that I can go to Masaura to look for what we have left behind.” He left. When he returns, he finds the sister married and her husband was his own younger brother. The elder said: “Is the country so narrow that the brother has to marry the sister?” Meanwhile the war began. At last they laid down their arms; the Kasanga family was now divided into several branches. The people of the Lunga Swamp were called Luluwya, the lost; those who moved to the Marungu Hills called themselves Bakwakilunga; then there is Bakwakisanza, Bakwamanda and Bapemba. The main branch, the older brother’s people, called themselves Bakalanga; this kept the tribe name Bakasanga. They moved to the northern part of the country on the Tanganika; the land that is called Utumbwe and stretches from Murumbi to Rutuka over the Marunga heights to Urua and the Buolvolo. That is why the Bakasanga who dwell in Utumbwe are called Batumbwe; while the Bakasanga of the Marungu Mountains are called Bena Marungo. Their language is Kitabwe, which changes little from one country to another. In the land of Utumbwe, Lusinga and his younger brother, Tumbwe were born; they became the chiefs of the two great families. that changes little from one country to another. Lusinga and his younger brother, Tumbwe, were born in the land of Utumbwe; they became the chiefs of the two great families. that changes little from one country to another. Lusinga and his younger brother, Tumbwe, were born in the land of Utumbwe; they became the chiefs of the two great families.

From the origin of the brotherhoods Buyangwe, Kabwala, Balumba

One day Kazula, a resident of the Luowaufers, was hunting Suya in the mountains. He wounded a wild boar that was scratching cassava. Despite the wound, the animal was able to escape and flee into a cave. The hunter chased it and pressed after him into the dark, hoping to kill it. He was astonished when the ground sank beneath his feet and he stood alone in thick darkness with no hope of getting out. For a while he crawled groping to escape the terrible underworld. Seeing the futility of his efforts, he despaired. Suddenly a strange game appeared to his eyes. In the foreground, very close to him, was his deceased brother; he looked at him with wide eyes. Behind his brother an escort of dream figures; indestructible beings in special transparent robes; they performed choirs and dances of death. After a brief reflection, the dead recognized Kazula and saw how pearls of cold sweat stood on his limbs and his knees collapsed in shock. He spoke in the voice of the grave that he tried to sweeten:

“Brother Kazula, welcome to us. I am very surprised to see you living body with us. Where are you from? … I see you are afraid, the sight of us frightens you. Don’t shiver. You see the land of the dead, the ancestors of our race. We are gathered to perform the dances of Buyangwe, Kabwala and Balumba. This is our way of enjoying ourselves in the cold underworld. Do not be afraid, Kazula, nobody will harm you. “

He was still speaking when the gathering of ghosts, confused for a moment by the sight of the stranger and the chief’s speech, resumed their dances and choirs with devotion.

Zazula was reassured by the brother’s speech, as well as by the cheerfulness of the dead. Gradually he felt his knees grow stronger, his heart beat less wildly, his throat cleared. At last he was full of courage and looked happily at the strange game that was new to him. He turned to his brother:

“My former brother; I really love your choirs and dances. It is a pity that no one on earth knows them. I would certainly like to lead them. “

“What you want is possible. If you want, I suggest that the ancients admit you to our consecration, to our dances. So you can teach choirs and dances on earth. “

Said and done. The old ghosts were happy to give their offspring the knowledge of their wondrous joys They happily agreed to their young chief’s proposal. This began in such sentences:

“Kazula, my brother, we will consecrate you. You just have to pay us a thing. “

“Probably possible; I wear a roll of Mitunda (blue glass rings) on my belt. Take them all. “

“Not this. What could we do with pearls here? What we need: give us a good meal. Get two large baskets of cassava and six chickens. That is enough.”

“I’ll go soon. But how to get out, since there are impenetrable walls in front of me. “

“Don’t worry, Brother Kazula. Didn’t you wound a boar, didn’t he lead you here? This boar is not an ordinary animal as you think. He is mutumbe (honorable). He’s the ghost of an old Muluba. He understands all of your words. Tell him where to go and what to do. ”At a sign from the chief, the boar appears and stands aside for Kazula. This speaks:

“There, across the swamp, one of my fields is in full bloom. Take as much cassava as you can carry. Then go to the village and take six of my chickens. Fear nothing, because my wives are alone in the house. “

The boar is going. A few hours later he returns laden with cassava and chickens. He reports to the chief that Kazula’s wives insulted him harshly, but none dared to drive him away.

Everyone was happy at the sight of the food. Everyone rushed to satisfy the hunger that consumes them. Immediately they sank into a deeper underworld, where countless fetishes, talismans and strange robes were piled up. Kazula followed them. The chief says to his brother:

»All ingredients of Buyangwe, Kabwala and Bulumbu are combined here. Our brotherhoods rest here. I want to initiate you into their mysteries. Which of the three do you prefer? “

“Which one should I choose. I like each of the Bwanga equally. «(Bwanga means medicine, regardless of whether it is magical or natural.)

“Well, we’ll reveal them all to you.”

Immediately they initiate him in Buyangwe, then in Kabwala, then in Bulumbu.

After the ordination has been completed, the chief says:

“Now we have no more secrets to reveal to you, Kazula. Your presence here is useless. Return to earth. When you leave this cold underworld, have a day of complete rest. Then rub your body with white earth, around your neck you put chains made of strung reeds. Put a helmet on your head, like the one you saw with us, then hurry through the paths, sing our chants and swing the rattles. Mutumbe will show you the way. Follow him.”

Kazula, very happy, thanks the happy ghosts, and, guided by the boar, he effortlessly returns to earth.

True to the agreement, he rests for a whole day. Then he dresses in the new costume, singing and dancing, rattling in his hand, he goes to the village of Chief Mbuli. The chief heard the strange sound and ran to see what was coming on the path. Soon he was standing in front of the delighted Kazula. It blinded him, this strange dance, the wondrous finish, the angry clatter. -

“Unknown, whoever you are,” he said, “may your spirits keep you. But tell me what do these chants, this dance, this robe, this clatter denote? “

“What I am doing, Chief Mbuli, you cannot understand. Know that I am returning from the land of the dead, dancing the Buyangwe that I am taught there. “

“And should I give you all my wives and slaves, I want you to teach me.”

“Well, be it. You don’t pay dearly. Give me some chickens and rows of pearls, and I’ll reveal the bwanga to you at once. “

Chief Mbuli would not be asked. He runs to the village to get what was requested, even a bowl of soup, and returns to Kazula. Both start eating. A while after this meal, Kazula opens up all the secrets of Buyangwe to Mbuli. The chief, satisfied and happy, decides to return to his village.

“Mbuli, my brother,” says Kazula, “that is nothing compared to what I saw. There is still a lot left for you to recognize, but I cannot reveal it to you. If you want, we can hike together to Mount Suya, to the gate of the land of the dead; I introduce you to my brother who commands all bwanga there. Certainly he will teach you the rest if you pay him some. “

Mbuli, incited, is ready for anything. He fetches all the chickens and cassava he can carry and follows Kazula to the Cave of the Dead. The two sink into the depths. When they get to the end of the apartment, they see the boar coming. They follow him and soon they arrive at the happy spirits who are always united in choir and dance.

Kazula speaks:

“My fathers, my ancestors; I am leading to you the chief Mbuli, who longs to recognize all Bwanga. He brings the payment. “

Happy about such wages, the chief of the brothers gladly agrees; he reveals to him the customs of Kabwala and Bulumbu, teaches him the art of throwing the bad lot, discovering the cause of diseases and making talismans to destroy all sorcery in the world. Then he says goodbye with the words:

“You are fully initiated now; reveal our secrets to anyone who, like you, is consecrated to one of the three great bwanga. Farewell. “

Mbuli, at the height of joy, returns to his villages. He easily won numerous followers and after a short time became the famous chief of the Buyangwe, Kabwala and Bulumbu.

Mbuli has been dead for many years. His power and titles passed to his legal successors. Today one of these is paid homage by all the members of the brotherhood.

This is the great secret of the chiefs of the brotherhoods.

Origin of the Mikisi Mihake

One day Ngoy sought out Nkulu, the spirit; said to him: “Great spirit, don’t you see how miserable people are? Illness, wars and famine torment the helpless. Give me a cure for such ailments. ”Nkulu agreed to his request. He took a thumb-length statuette from the bottom of Lake Kila, his place of residence, intended to serve as a model (canon). “Ngoy,” he said, “here I give you the unmistakable Remedies for all ailments. Go to the people and tell them to make fetishes like this one. Then bring it to me. ”Ngoy did. He called Bwana Kilumba, the magician, and taught him to make similar pictures. The wizard made them in various imitations and gave them to Ngoy, who brought them to Nkulu.

He communicated the knowledge and the magical formulas to put the ingredients in the fetishes, he determined the power of the spirits and ordered the dead, whose bones and ingredients are mixed, to be companions of the spirits, even to see the messengers of their power .

Legend

At the very beginning there was a man and a woman on earth. One day the woman goes into the forest to collect wood. In a thick bush she hears noise in the branches. Amazed, she turns. A voice emerges from the thicket and says: “Come here, I have something to tell you, to reveal a secret.” The woman, curious to find out what this is, approaches and sees a strange creature on a bush; like a dragon. She goes even closer and says: “Who are you and what do you want me?” The voice replies: “I am Kizimu and I bring you great benefit. Here are two fruits that enclose something precious. Be careful not to open it. Your husband must have received his first; for a fruit is destined for each of you. If you have given your husband the fruit intended for him, take yours and open it.

The woman takes the fruit and returns home to tell the man what she meets; but she does not mention that Kizimu has given him the same fruit. She hides in the corner, opens the fruit. A magical dust comes out; she pours it on her chest. She is immediately ashamed, her mind is confused; she sees that she is a woman. Meanwhile the man went to the forest; in the branches he hears the same noise, the same voice. He approaches, Kizimu tells him:

“Did you receive the fruit that I gave your wife for you?”

“No, I received nothing.”

“So she acted badly. I gave her a fruit for you and told her to open it and pour it on your chest. What’s up, someone else here. ”The man takes it, and before returning to his hut, he opens the fruit and pours it on his chest. At the same time he recognizes that he is a man and feels desire grow in his heart. Undaunted he returns to the hut; there he searches for the first time with Frau Zank.

“Why don’t you reimburse me for what Kizimu gave you? Why did you open the medicine in front of me? I should have been the first to open it. “

So they wrestle with each other anger and anger.

From compassionate death

It happened that an unfortunate man, abandoned by everyone, sat alone on the mat. He sighs and complains that he has nowhere to find relief or support. His hut is falling into disrepair; Wind wets and rain lashes him. He cannot find wood to warm the old bones; no one to promise him support or hope. Then he calls death. This comes quickly. A relative whom he called, or a deceased person with a compassionate heart approaches him; Kabezya-Mpungu allowed him to be removed from the world.

The Tanganika

Far up on a mountain stood a bare rock where the birds came to rest. Which birds? We do not know it; they were big birds. So they were thirsty and said let’s try to take water, and they struck the rock with their beaks with such force that the beaks broke. They died. Others came, did the same, and died.

Then came a little bird that whole with its beak struck gently and it crumbled off dust after dust. And long after that there came a drop of water and he drank it. He kept beating and the water suddenly came like a torrent. The little bird flew away and sang: The people who were not in the mountains drowned all with their villages.

Bahololo

Legend of Muamba and Kunga Nsungu

Once upon a time, people didn’t make war. They had arrows to kill the animals. That was all. You didn’t die of diseases or other things.

A woman called Muamba and Kalala, her son, who was the oldest of fifteen boys, came down there to see the country. Kalala carried several lances.

On the way they met a train of ants that had been in the war and came back with wood lice. Kalala looked at them carefully and said, “How do I get these animals and kill people?”

Laughing, his mother said to him: “If you want to kill people, kill me first, your mother.”

He replied:

“Sure, I’ll kill you.”

He was about to dig a pit on the side of the path.

Then said the mother:

“Ho, I said that with a laugh, and you will dig a pit for your mother?”

He didn’t answer anything; completed the pit, knelt his mother in it and buried the very living one. His heart had grown very bad.

He went away and saw a tree so high that it reached into the sky; five men sat there, three he killed with the lance. The other two fled; he pursued and attacked her. The two men said, “Don’t make war. Let us dance. Do you know how to dance? “

Kalala replied: “I know all the dances.”

People danced and drank beer; for there were many people in the neighboring villages who belonged to Lunga Nsunga, the great chief.

Since Kalala was asleep, they made a large pit that they hid with a mat. When he was awake they danced and said:

“If you are tired, rest on the mat.”

But he danced around the mat and lay down on his side.

Then one of the three men climbed the tree and went away to God. Since he had not returned after five months, the second followed him and met him as he was going down.

And the first said:

“I met Nkuba, a great black goat with a tail like a fire; she taught me how to wage war. ”When the two had gone down, they threw Kalala into the pit and asked him:

“Kalala, are you alive?”

“I live.”

“So you will die like your mother,” and they threw earth on it. But since the fourteen brothers did not see the mother or the eldest son coming back, they set off with their slaves and immediately found a grave in which they saw the mother, and recognized her by her shawl. And they complained. When they came to Ilunga Nsungu, they killed the women who tilled the fields. They had many lances. Ilunga Nsungu had a large pot of musa (leprosy), a large pot of leaves and a large pot of bees. He hurled this over her.

Many slaves died, but the fourteen brothers were used to war and continued to kill everyone. -

So Ilunga Nsungu requested peace and invited the fourteen brothers to have a beer. They came and put down their lances. The second day Ilunga Nsungu asked how this happens among strangers: cut my hair. The eldest of the brothers took oil, rubbed the chief’s head with it and tried to cut his hair. But he didn’t succeed. His brother tried the same thing to no avail, and anyone who tried could not shear him. But the youngest of the brothers, the very little one, said: “I’ll cut them.”

He took water and rubbed Ilunga Nsungu’s head with it, and the hair fell quickly.

Then said his brothers: “How, you are very little and are smarter than we are.” They killed him and cut him into pieces.

But Ilunga Nsungu collected the pieces at night, fitted them together, rubbed them, rubbed them with his magic (bunganga), and the child rose again. He hid it in his hut with it the brothers did not see it. — Meanwhile, the Kalalas brothers were bad because of the beer and said to Ilunga Nsungu: “We want to fight again” and they killed people. When this saw the child whom Ilunga Nsungu had saved, it said, “I will give you a secret”; and he took a large calabash, filled it with water, and said to him, “Throw them this.”

Ilunga Nsungu poured out the calabash from the top of the mountain; all the people of Muamba were drowned.

The child had stayed with Ilunga Nsungu, and one day Ilunga Nsungu said to him: “Take out my bird snares on the bank.”

He went, saw a bird that was caught in a noose, prepared to kill it; then the bird said to him: “Don’t kill me, I will heal you if it is necessary.” And he untied him.

He untied many more, since his heart was good, and he returned and said, “I have no birds.”

That is why Ilunga Nsungu was astonished; Another day he said to the child: “Take out my bird snares on the river bank.” He went; but Ilunga Nsungu followed him and hid in the bush and saw him talk to the birds and untie them.

So he threw himself on him, killed him and cut him into pieces.

But the birds he had freed came in great numbers, added bones, blood, entrails, and raised him up. They carried him back home through the air, made a great noise with their wings and sang Po, Po, Po, and laid him down in front of the door of his mother’s sister. -

Meanwhile she heard the noise, pulled the door open, and saw the child who told her everything that had happened. So the people of Muamba took their lances and went towards Ilunga Nsungu. The war was terrible.

Ilunga Nsungu took a calabash, filled it with water, blew over it, but no water came.

So he made peace and paid tribute to Muamba from across the Lualaba.

We are all Muamba’s people.

Why we die

In the beginning one day God, the great Spirit, called the first man and the first woman to him; likewise the snake. In order to try it out, with his hand closed, he showed the woman a fruit pit and another to the snake. “These are the kernels of mortality and eternal life. Choose, ”he says. The woman takes the fruit of mortality, the serpent the fruit of immortality. “I pity you,” said God to the woman, “that you chose death while the serpent gained eternal life.” That is why people die, but the serpent lives forever.

Western Uruwa

Kabezy-Mpungu sent a man and two women to earth. These first inhabitants of the earth lived happily until one woman began to age. The great spirit had foreseen this and given her the gift of rejuvenation; and strength that you may succeed in keeping the gift, for yourself and for all people. Seeing herself shriveled up, she takes the grain wing of her companion, who just wanted to swing corn, destined for mead, and locks herself inside the hut. She carefully closes the door. Then she tears off all the old skin, which she can easily free herself from, and places the pieces on the wing. Immediately skin appeared fresh like that of a small child. This event was drawing to a close; there was nothing left to cover but the head and neck. Then the companion approached the hut to take the swing arm. The old woman did not have time to prevent her; she had already pushed open the door. But alas, at the same moment the woman, almost rejuvenated, falls dead to earth. That’s why we all have to die.

Baholoholo
Eastern Uruwa

Once the earth was uninhabited; Kabezya-Mpunga created it. So he sent Kyomba, the first man, and two women. Since he sent them, he gave him tools to make fire. He put the seeds of the plants in his hair. Kyomba went out one day and saw small plants, barely sprouted. He realized that they were from the seed he carried in his hair. The plants ripened and produced corn, eleusine and cassava, the food of the people. He tasted it and found it sweet. (So ​​far he lived on forest berries.) He began to sow. To do this you have to dig up the ground. For a while he tries a sharpened wood. It is troublesome. A little later he is looking for a sharp stone, which he puts on a handle. Finally he discovers a sharp iron that is even harder. This time the work goes on quickly. It is good. He won’t change anymore.

Meanwhile his favorite wife gave birth to a son. The child grew up in front of their parents and helped with work.

Other children, boys and girls, were born, born of one or the other wife.

One day the mother of the eldest son faints and falls into a deep sleep. Your companion understands nothing, much less the children. Only the father understands. He secretly carries his arms into the forest and hides.

Then he begins to build a hut, a spacious house; in the middle of a well-hidden room; Sheds all around, no less than ten. He builds ten doors. Since everything is ready, he puts his companion down in the middle room, tightly locks the ten doors and returns home as if nothing had happened.

Kyomba, however, watched over her locked wife. Every day he went to bring her some food and some secret medicine. The eldest son accompanied the father; but under terrible threats he was forbidden from going to his mother to speak; Kyomba was afraid that the second woman would think the rival would not return and would become presumptuous. The days follow, the days stayed the same.

Once Kyomba said, “I’m traveling,” and he goes. Before that he speaks to the son. “If your mother goes to the secret apartment, tell her I forbid it. You have to obey me in this matter if something worse is not to happen. “

In the meantime two days passed and Kyomba did not return. His wife gave the boy a three-hole pot and told him. “My husband goes, I will do the same.” She goes into the forest. Suddenly she sees a narrow, leveled path; she follows him and arrives at the hut, built by Kyomba.

Unfortunately the son is far from forbidding her entry. She opens a door, then a second, a third. The further she goes, the more her curiosity grows. At last she crosses the ninth gate and is preparing to open the tenth. Suddenly a voice can be heard:

“Don’t come in, don’t come in.”

“And why not if I want to enter?”

“Have mercy, do not open the door; if you enter, I will die in a moment, and you, you too will die. “

“I don’t believe anything, you are cunning and lying.”

She throws the door wide open. Then she sees a white girl, very fresh; she was just born, she looks at her and falls down dead. The curious companion sinks dead to one side.

Kyomba is now back from the trip. He does not see the wife and asks the son where she is. -

“I don’t know,” he replies; ‘She sent me with a pot to draw water; the vessel was perforated with three holes. I stayed on the bank for a long time, drawing water in vain. Finally, tired and impatient, I returned home, I couldn’t find our mother. It’s been a long time since I’ve been waiting here. “

Kyomba roams the forest and calls her wife everywhere. Only the echo answers. He fears disaster and hurries to the secret apartment. All doors are open, in the midst of two dead. At such a sight he is overcome with terrible sadness. He returns home and says:

“My children, great disaster has befallen us. Your first Mother fell into a deep sleep. I carried her to the heart of the forest, where she had to stay for a while, only to wake up later. Right now she should change, become beautiful and young again. However, no one was allowed to look at it until it was fully completed. Only I, your father, could do it. Your second mother, conquered by curiosity, crossed all obstacles, looked at her, and death seized both of them. Now they are dead, my children, they will not speak any more, they will not come among us. We ourselves are now condemned to die like them. If your first mother had completed the transformation, if she had won us immortality, we would all be part of the happiness of eternally rejuvenating ourselves; but now we all have to die like them. “

The one who rose from the grave tells:

I walked long, long; Months and months and I came to an area where there were banana trees. There I met a woman; I asked that she show me the apartment of Kalunga-Niembo, the chief of the dead. She showed me a high stone wall that ran along a path. I followed him month and month; i met a man; asked him to show me the Kalunga-Niembo apartment.

This man told me: “You are on the right path, follow the wall.” I said to him: “You are not lying?” He replied: “I am dead too.”

I followed the stone wall. It was as light as on earth.

On the other side of the wall I saw a tall stone house, the likes of which does not stand on the ground, and a woman said to me: “This is Kalunga-Niembo’s apartment.” I walked to death and saw that the house was like a high tower made of stones, one on top of the other. And there were other houses for his wives.

The women of Kalunga-Niembo prepared fires and used shiny black pieces like iron, and the stones burned like dry wood.

A woman asked me what I wanted; I said, “I want to see Kalunga-Niembo and say hello.” The woman went up to tell him.

Kalunga-Niembo went down. I saw him come down and he was still far above his high house. It had three heads, one here, one there, one in the middle. He wore the sun on his forehead and the moon on his neck and was fully clothed with the stars. I was blinded and shivered.

I told the woman I am not strong to greet him; she felt sorry for me and stabbed my throat with a long needle and I fell dead again. But I still saw, and the woman threw water on my face so that I was not blinded. Kalunga-Niembo had come, leaned over me, rubbed me with the oil of his amulet, and stood upright. He asked me: “Where is your father and where is your mother?”

“They died.”

“And your uncle?”

“He died. I left no one on earth but my little children. “

Then he sent for my dead mother and said: “Do you want to keep your son here, or do you want him to return to his village?”

My mother asked her brother, returned and said: “He left small children, he is returning.”

Kalunga-Niembo then gave me a banana the size of an elephant’s tooth and said, “Go back to earth and tell the people that the villages here are full of bananas.”

My mother led me to the exit of the village; I wandered months and months and came back to earth. This is the story of Kalunga-Niembo, the Lord of the Dead.

Kamwepolo

One day a father sent his son to hunt and said, “If you kill a buffalo and you cannot carry it home, call Kamwepolo.”

The son took bow and arrows and went. He went long, long; he went up and down three mountains.

In the third valley he saw buffalo, approached them, hurled an arrow, and the buffalo fell; he hurled another arrow, and another buffalo fell.

He was at a loss.

“What should I do? I don’t have a knife, I don’t have an ax, I don’t have a saucepan. “

He remembered his father’s words and called out: “Kamwepolo, Kamwepolo.”

Suddenly Kamwepolo appeared before him, he was a tiny man, but well built; who said:

“What did you call me?”

Replied the hunter:

“I don’t have a knife, I don’t have an ax, I don’t have a saucepan. What should I do with the two buffalo I killed? “

Kamwepolo said, “Come to me,” and grabbed each of the buffalo by the tail and pulled them to their hut.

Then he said to the hunter: “Always eat the corn broth and the fish,” and the hunter ate the corn broth and the fish.

In the meantime he cut up the meat, got a lot of wood and began to smoke it. And when it was smoked, the hunter said: “I’m going home.” Took all the meat, loaded it on the shoulders and the head, and left Kamwepolo nothing but bones and entrails.

He said:

“You leave me nothing but bones and entrails?”

“Why should I leave you meat, you, a little nonsense?”

Said Kamwepolo: “It is good, you will regret it.”

The hunter went, he was thirsty, he wanted to drink the water of a brook; but the water was scarcely at his lips when it dried up. He went hungry and met women with cassava and asked them for a piece; but the piece, barely on his lips, fell apart. He was thirsty again and wanted to drink water from a brook; but the water, barely on his lips, dried up.

At last he came into the village and was greeted from all sides: “Hello hunter, hello hunter”; as he was with his father, he said to him:

“What are you so skinny, didn’t you eat?”

He replied: “I ate.”

Bugali was immediately prepared, but no sooner had he brought it to his mouth than it fell. Said the father:

“You returned with all your meat, did you leave nothing to Kamwepolo?” The son answered very softly:

“I left him bones and stomach.”

Meanwhile he could no longer eat and became thin as a bone. The father saw this, went with him to find Kamwepolo, and since they encountered buffalo, he said to the son: “Shoot.”

The son wanted to throw an arrow, but the arrow fell close to him. So the father took the bow and killed two buffalo.

And he called: “Kamwepolo, Kamwepolo.”

And suddenly Kamwepolo appeared before them and said:

“What did you call me?”

Replied the father:

“I don’t have a knife, I don’t have an ax, I don’t have a saucepan. What should I do with the two buffalo I killed? “

Said Kamwepolo: “Come to me.” And he grabbed each of the two buffalo by the tail and dragged them to him.

Then he said to them: “Eat only corn broth and fish”; but the son was unable to eat from it, and the father said, “Kamwepolo, my son can no longer eat. Take all the meat of the two buffalo and heal my son. “

Kamwepolo thought a little and said, “Eat,” and he ate corn broth and fish.

Kamwepolo is the master of the bush.

The hyena

That was in the evening in a Baholoholo village. They danced. A woman would have liked to dance, she too. But she had a child in her arms, a young baby, and her husband was not there. -

Then she looked among the people and said: “Whom can I entrust my child to?”

That was in the evening and she saw someone stretching arms; she handed the child and ran quickly to the dance.

Now this was Kimbwi, the hyena who approached in the form of a man, and she had taken the child. At first she rocked it very softly and slowly, there people were present; then she backed away and slipped into the grass. She walked until she could no longer hear the noise of the drums, then she broke the child’s head on a large stone.

When the dance was over, the mother came back and said:

“Whom did I entrust my child to?”

Nobody answered; so she ran all over the village and screamed, “Where is my child?” She screamed in vain. So she went on the great road and shouted: “Where is my child?” But that was useless.

The next morning people looked everywhere and they found the child’s head on the big rock, and the head was broken. Then the woman rolled over on the ground, wept and screamed:

“That is the hyena who — like a man — held my child in her arms and killed it.”

A creation saga from Tanganika

I.

In the beginning God was all alone. Meanwhile the earth was; but no life moved the terrible darkness that surrounded them. The animals, such as the anteater, the dogs and the big water rats, came into being through God’s will. At the end the people appeared. How were they made? Some said that God built an underground city and populated it with people created by His own hands. Mtumbi, the anteater, already lived on earth, he had dogs that helped him hunt the nsenzi, which are like rats but ten times larger than a large rat. One day the dogs, chasing Nsenzi, brought Mtumbi to the entrance of a cave. He dug his way in, and it took a long, long time to get to the very end, and then suddenly he was in front of a small town.

The news reached God that the anteater and his dogs were there. He ordered them to enter and questioned them. They replied that nothing existed on earth but that Darkness, the trees and some animals. Then Leza said to Mtumbi: “I will give you a man and a girl who will multiply and be kings of the earth.” So it happened. Leza gave the man a large basket, closed with a lid. Lost in the darkness that covered the earth, the man made a hole in a piece of wood, took a reed, and twisted it between his thumb so hard that a fire was kindled. Mtumbi was afraid of the flame, fled and hid himself forever. The dogs stayed. But man had opened the mputo, and with an upswing the sun and moon rose into the sky, where God arranged their course.

II

It is not known where on earth the first humans lived. But it is known that they became very numerous and that a man by the name of Mlunga Leza received the wonderful plan of building a tower so high that its top would reach the sky and pierce it. In this way the man can seek out God who is hiding in heaven. Every man got ready to work. Some cut the trees and cut the reeds. The others made ropes. In a few months the tower was so high that the workers had great difficulty climbing it, so high that one day it collapsed under its weight. Those who were not slain in the process started all over again. But when the tower had reached a height that amazed people very much, it collapsed again. So it happened a third time and the intention was abandoned. -

Kyomba left. He had made a basket out of his long hair and filled it with all kinds of herbs. Soon a terrible famine raged all over the world. People lived on roots, leaves and wild fruits.

III

Kyomba was accompanied by two men, Kasanga and Kaybondo, and four women. Everyone had decided to end the world to go. If they died, their children would fulfill the plan.

According to them advanced, people multiplied. They quarreled, but Kyomba, feeling sorry for everyone, parted his hair, which contained the grains, and distributed them. That is why we say our grain comes from Kyomba’s hair.

IV

Kyomba’s great-nephews, intoxicated with arrogance, advised against him. They invited him to drink pembe in a house in which they had dug a deep pit, which they covered with beautiful mats. But Kyomba ruined the attack. This is how people still sing on Tanganika today: “Kyomba, watch out, your mother’s children have prepared a grave for you.”

V

Kyomba felt that his strength was weakening and united the Mikowa, took leave of them and said: “God forbid, you will be kings forever, and you my brothers, the blessing of Ngulus and Lezas is not upon you. You will never be kings, and when it comes to sacrificing to the Ngulu, you will not be there. But I therefore give you a great privilege, no one will ever lead you into slavery. “

VI

The descendants of Kyomba did not reach the end of the world. Some crossed the lake. Most, after seeking the end of the world, returned on their steps. There were marriages which were disgraceful under the old law. Once the land where sin began was abandoned. The river changed its name. So his name was Mwezi Lunga, meaning the culprit.

VII

An old song on Tanganika says: “The people of Kilunga went to the mountains on foot, the people of Kamanya traveled in boats on the water.”

VIII

The Kilunga tribe developed in a special way. They chose a chief whom they named Likolo. His job was to preserve the tradition regarding the origin of the people and to communicate it to the Bena Kilunga. He was also a great judge. He made wise laws about the taxes owed to him; for he did not have the time to concern himself with external things. He arranged the honors owed him; that was how one had to greet him. Men of thirty had to kneel; With their body bent, they clap their hands fourteen times and pronounce the specific greetings. Women and girls will clap their hands. Men less than twenty years of age will clap their hands so that the right hand is above the left and that it only touches half of the other hand. So they denote their lowliness. You do not speak a word and make two crosses.

IX

The Bena Malungu say that Kibawa, the mysterious being who can live underground, has no influence on the living. But every year he comes to look for the dead, which he carries away with a terrible din.

Warundi (Urunda)

Good and bad times

Once there was no war, people did not die in large numbers. There was no shortage of food. There was a lot of food. All the cows threw, did not die. Anything flourished. Now, under King Kisabo, all things perish. There is hunger, sickness in great numbers; people die, there is a lack of food, famine destroys them, people perish in misery. There is no unity, all people fight each other, kill each other. So there is nothing here but fighters. Nsare had no warriors. Kisabo owns warriors. Things are in shout, thrust and turmoil; things were different under Nsare. But under Kisabo, people fight. Brother eats brother, wrestles with brother. Nobody loves the other, kill each other. Unity came to an end; things are finished.

transformation

People went looking for firewood. They had collected wood and were returning home, when they met relatives who had been hit (ghosts) and who had wandered far away where one cannot go. Those who returned from the search for firewood went to the bank into the reeds. There they walked and ate mud. Then they were turned into cranes. Once they were people. Then wings came to them. They swung away.

Against the dead

A man lost his child; he buried it. In the evening he said to the woman that she should see if something was coming out of the pit. The woman went to see the child; and she saw that the child had come out of the hole. She took a pestle for pounding, hit the head, and made it come back. Said: ‘Let him die, keep calm; and the other people, everyone remains silent. ‘Once people died, rose from the grave. Now they do not rise, they stay with their ancestors in the country.

The juggler of the plain

I.

A man and a woman had a son first, then a daughter. Since the daughter had been bought for marriage, the parents said to the son: “Now we have a herd available for you; this is the time for you to take a wife. We want to find you a graceful wife whose parents are good people. ”But he refused. “No,” he said, “don’t go to the trouble. I don’t love the girls in this country. If I have to get married, I will look for those I desire myself. “” Do as you please, “his parents told him. “If you are unlucky later, it is not our fault.”

He set out, left his country, went very far into an unknown country. He came into a village, saw young girls pounding corn, others cooked him. He secretly made his choice and said to himself: “This is what befits me.” Then he went to the men of the village:

“Good afternoon, my fathers,” he said.

“Good afternoon, young man, what do you wish?”

“I have come to see your daughters; because I want to take a wife. “

“Well, well, we want to show you. You will choose. «-

All are brought before him, and he marked those he wanted. She agreed, she too.

“Your parents will come to see us, that is the custom, and bring us the treasure themselves?” Said the young girl’s parents. “Not at all,” he replied, “I have the personal thing with me. Take it here. “Then they added:” Will they later look for your wife to take her with them? “” No, no, I’m afraid they harshly admonished the girl and insulted you. Let me take it at once. “

The couple’s parents agreed, but they took them to the hut to teach them advice and customs. “Be good to your in-laws, take care of your husband.” They offered her youngest daughter to help her with the housework. She refused. She was offered two, ten, twenty for her to choose. All the girls were listed and offered. “No,” she said, “I should be given the buffalo of the country, our buffalo, the juggler of the plain. He should serve me. “” How, “they said,” you know that our life depends on him. Here he is well fed, well taken care of. What are you going to do with him in another country? He will starve; he will die and we will all die with him. “” No, “she said,” I will take good care of him. “

Before leaving her parents, she took with a pot full of magical roots, then a horn for cupping, a small knife for incisions, and a calabash full of fat.

She went with her husband, the buffalo followed her, but he was only visible to her. The man didn’t see him. Little did he suspect that the juggler on the plain was the force that accompanied his wife.

II

After they had returned to their husband’s village, they received the whole family with a joyful reputation. Hoyo, Hoyo, Hoyo. “Look there,” said the old people, “you’ve found a wife. You didn’t want any of the ones we suggested to you, but what does it matter, it’s a good thing. You just got it in your head. If you are in trouble, don’t complain about it. “

The man accompanied his wife into the fields and showed her which were his and his mother’s. She took good care of everything and returned with him to the village. But on the way she said, “I dropped my pearls into the field, I will go and look for them.” That was to see the buffalo.

To him she said: “You see the edge of the field, stay there. There is also a forest in which you can hide. “He replied:” That’s good. “

When she went to draw water, she always walked through the cultivated fields and put the jug where the buffalo was. The latter ran to draw water and brought the full jug back to his mistress. When she wanted wood, he went into the bush, cut down trees with his horns, and brought back as much as was needed.

In the village people were amazed. “What strength does she have,” they said, “she is always straight back from the well, with one jerk she collects a full bundle of wood.” But no one thought of the fact that she was helped by a buffalo who stayed away from the house . But she brought him nothing to eat; for she had only one bowl for herself and her husband, but down there at home, there she had a special bowl for the juggler of the expanse, and they fed him there with care. She brought him her jug ​​and sent him to the water with it. He left, but he felt the terrifying pain of hunger. -

She showed him a corner of the bush to work there. During the night the buffalo took the hoe and made an immense field. “How clever is she,” said everyone, “what has she done quickly?”

But in the evening he said to his mistress: “I’m hungry and you are not giving me anything to eat!” I will no longer be able to work. “

“Oh,” she said, “do what? I only have one bowl in the house. The people were right about us when they said you had to give in to stealing. Yeah, just steal. Come into the field, you’ll probably have a pod here and a pod there. Then go on. But don’t destroy everything in the same place. Perhaps the owners would like to see it too clearly, and their backs would break in astonishment. “

The buffalo came in the night. He snapped a pod there, and sniffed a pod there. He jumped from one corner to the other. Then he went into hiding. In the morning when the women came into the fields, they could not believe their eyes. “Hey, hey, heeeeee. What’s this? One has never seen anything like it. A wild animals plunder our plantations and you can follow in his footsteps. Oh, the country is very sick. ”They went to tell the story in the village.

In the evening the woman went to say to the buffalo: “They were thoroughly astonished, but not too much, their backs did not break. Steal farther away tonight. ”No sooner said than done.

The owners of the plundered fields cried out loudly. They called the men and asked them to keep armed guard.

The woman’s young man knew how to throw the lance. He stood in his field and waited. The buffalo thought that he was being tracked where he had stolen the night before, and so he came to eat his mistress’s pods where he had eaten the first day. “Look there,” said the man, “a buffalo. I have never seen anything like it in our house. It’s a strange thing. ”He threw. The spear struck the temple in the brain and pierced the entire head. The juggler on the plain jumped up and fell dead. “That was a good prank,” shouted the hunter, and he ran to announce it to the village. -

Immediately his wife began to whimper and squirm: “Oh, oh, my body hurts.” “Calm down,” they told her. She pretended to be sick, but in reality it was to hide her tears and pain. She was given a cure, but she threw it behind her without being seen.

III

Everyone went, the women with their baskets, the men with their weapons, to cut up the buffalo. The woman stayed alone in the village; but soon she went to meet the people. She held her hips, complained and screamed. “What are you going to do here,” said the husband, “if you are sick, stay in the house.”

“No, I didn’t want to stay in the village alone.”

Her mother-in-law scolded her, said she didn’t know what she was doing, that she would kill herself if she acted.

Since they had filled the baskets with meat, she said, “Let me carry my head.”

“But no, you’re sick, it’s too difficult for you.”

“No,” she said, “leave me,” she loaded herself with it and left.

When she had arrived in the village, she did not go to her hut, but went into the harness-room and laid the buffalo head down there. It stayed there incessantly. Her husband went to see her to return to her hut, but she said it was better there.

“Don’t bother me,” she replied harshly.

The mother-in-law came in his place and spoke to her in good faith. “What do you offend me,” she replied bitterly; “Don’t you want to let me sleep a little?” They brought her food; she pushed them away. The night came. Her husband lay down. But she wasn’t sleeping, she was listening.

She went to make a fire, boiled water in her little pot and poured medicine into it that she had brought with her. Then she took the head of the buffalo, cut strips with the knife in the ear, in the temple, where the spear had hit the animal. She took the cupping horn and sucked with all her strength. She managed to pull out the blood clot, then the liquid blood. Then she held the wound over the steam rising from the bowl and rubbed it with fat she had kept in her calabash. Having done this, the wound was reduced in size.

Then she hummed this way:

“O my father, juggler of the expanse.
You said to me, jugglers of the expanse,
you wander through thick darkness,
you wander in all directions, jugglers of the expanse.
You are the young plant that grows from debris, that dies before time,
Consumed by the gnawing worm.
You bend flowers and fruits in your run, jugglers of the expanse. “

As she finished her singing, her head moved. The limbs returned. The buffalo began to feel its life again and shook ears and horns. He straightened up, stretched his limbs. -

Then the husband, who was unable to sleep, left the hut. He said to himself: “Why is she crying for so long, my wife? I must see what else she is complaining about.” He steps into the cupboard and calls her. She replied in full anger: “Leave me.” But then the head of the buffalo fell to the ground, dead, pierced as before.

The husband returned to his hut, understood nothing of all this, had seen nothing.

Then she took her bowl again, boiled the medicine, made the incisions, took the cupping horn, held the wound over the steam and sang the same magic song as before.

The buffalo straightened up again, his limbs returned, he began to feel life, shook ears and horns. He stretched. But the husband came back, restless to see what his wife was doing. She was angry with him. So he stood in a dark corner of the crockery room to see what was happening. She took her fire, her bowl, the rest of her tools and went outside. Then she plucked herbs to prepare embers and began a third time to awaken the buffalo.

The dawn was already rising when the mother-in-law came, and the head fell again to the ground. The day seemed, the wound tore.

She said to them: “Let me go to the lake to wash myself.” They answered: “How do you want to get there, sick as you are.” Nevertheless she went, came back and said:

“I met someone from our village on the way. He told me that my mother is very sick. I told him to come to the village with me. He refused it, then said: ‘I will be invited to dinner and I will be late.’ He returned across the fields and told me to leave as soon as possible, for fear that my mother would die before I arrived . Now goodbye, I’m going. “

But it was all a lie. She had only gone to the lake to set up this story and find a reason to go to her family to announce the death of her buffalo.

IV

With her basket on her head she went and sang the song of the juggler of the expanse along the paths. Wherever she passed, people gathered around her in crowds and accompanied her to the village. Then she let her family know that the buffalo was no more.

Everywhere they went to gather all the inhabitants of the country. They made serious reproaches to the young woman and said: “You see, we had spoken well. You turned down all the gifts we offered you and only wanted the buffalo. You killed us all. ‘They were there when the husband, who had followed his wife, stepped into the village. He leaned his spear against a tree stump and sat down. Everyone greeted him and said, “Welcome, murderer, welcome. You killed us all. ‘He understood none of this and asked her how he could be called a murderer. “I guess I killed a buffalo, that’s all.”

“Yes, but this buffalo was your wife’s help, he went to draw the water for her, he felled her wood, he worked in the field.”

The husband was amazed and said, “Why didn’t you let me know? I wouldn’t have killed him. “

“It is,” they added, “our lives depended on him.”

Now everyone began to cut off their necks, the young woman first. She screamed:

“Oh, my father, juggler of the expanse.”

Then her parents, her brothers, her sisters came one by one and did the same. One sang:

“You walk through the darkness.”

The other recorded:

“You drag yourself to all sides in the night.”

Another:

“You are the young plant that dies before its time.”

Another:

“You crush flowers and fruits in your run.”

They all cut their necks and did the same with the little children still skinned on their backs.

“Because,” they said, “why let them live when they would be mad.”

This is the end.

Ba Ronga

Motikatika

Since Motikatika was still in the womb, his mother stopped taking any food. She no longer ate, she no longer drank, she no longer dressed.

Her husband asked her: “My wife, what have you stopped eating?” She replied, “Because my heart desires wild honey.” “Where will I find it,” said the man.

So he went to look and brought it. She refused to take it and said, “The honey you found, there are bees in its comb. I want pure honey. ”He returned to find other honey and offered it to her. His wife said to him: “This time what you found is completely full of ants, I don’t want it.” He went out again and found a wasp’s nest in the earth, which he brought to his wife. She wanted that even less. “There is earth in it,” she said. At last he could find the honey she wanted; there were no bees, no ants, no earth in it to spoil it. Indeed, he came to a lake which contained sugared water; he drew from it, came back and gave it to her. She took it, was happy, and ate; then she dressed and drank some of the water.

Her husband spoke to her. “Since you plagued me, I don’t want to eat any more or drink any more water.” The woman said to him, “What are you complaining about?” He replied, “I want water.” She took her jug ​​and went to the scoop. Her husband refused and said: “I do not want you to draw from a lake with reeds and toads in it.” She went a second time and drawn into another lake. The husband said, “I don’t want any of it, the water tastes like rushes.” She went again, dipped elsewhere, and brought it. He said: “I don’t want any of this. It tastes like hairy reeds. I want water that tastes of nothing, that does not taste like, not of reeds, not of hairy reeds, nor of rushes, nor of toads; pure water, very pure. “

She took her jug ​​and left. She walked around all the lakes from which she drew, and found one in which nothing grew. She came, dipped her jug ​​in the lake, and filled it; as she picked it up, she tasted the water. But it wasn’t water, it was honey. She felt the taste in her mouth and then in her stomach; then she drank the whole lake. All the water disappeared. Then said the lord of the water, Chituluklumukumba, the ogre who lives on the bottom: “See, there I feel the rays of the sun piercing my shoulders.” He looked and saw the woman who seemed to be passed out her whole body was showered with water; he said to her:

“Ah, piece of a woman, I have to kill you so that all the water you took may come out again. Who told you to drink my water? ”She replied:

“My husband sent me.”

“Your husband did not order you to drink all of my water.”

“My father,” said the woman, “look at me. Don’t kill me and I will give you the child that is in me. “

“When will you give birth to it?”

“Come to me the day after tomorrow and I’ll give birth to it. You will recognize because I want to shave his hair on both temples. I want to hang white pearls on his neck. His name will be: Motikatika. It will speak, that’s me, and you will eat it. “

The child in his lair burst with laughter and said, “That woman said something stupid. Why should I be eaten? It’s not me who sent her to the water. ”The ogre said to the woman,“ It is good, go back home. ”The woman returned all the water, which made a lake again. She dipped it into her jug ​​and gave it to her husband. He said: “Well, really, that’s the water I wanted.”

The night passed. In the morning the woman said nothing of this. The next day she gave birth to the child. She shaved his head, hung the pearls on him, and said, “I’m going to the field, stay here, my son, stay in the house.” She hadn’t reached out to him. The child replied: “It’s a good thing.”

But the child was born with fortune telling bones without her mother knowing. He threw to question the lot, looked at her and said, “This little bones here is my father, this my mother, the third is the ogre who wants to eat me. This, that is me … “

The bones advised him to call all the small children in the village together. He shaved them all as he was shorn, and hung strings of pearls on them. The ogre came and called out in a loud voice: Motikatika.

All the children answered in unison: “I, I.”

He said: “But I call: Motikatika.”

“We are all Motikatika.”

The ogre sat down; for he was afraid to eat other people’s children. The child’s mother came back from the field. He said to her: “I haven’t seen Motikatika.”

She replied: “Didn’t I advise you to call the name when you came?”

“I called him,” said the ogre, “but many answered: I, I.”

The woman made corn and wanted to give it to him.

“No,” he said, “I want to eat the child and then go home.”

“Oh, my father,” she said, “be patient. If I cook you corn, I will call him and you should eat him here in the hut. “

She called him into the house. The corn was boiling; before stirring it she took a handful and carried it into the house. Then she called “Motikatika.”

He replied: “That’s the way it is, one comes.” He went behind the house and threw his bones. “Here my father, this my mother, and here the ogre who wants to eat me,” briefly the little bones told him to turn into a mouse. So he did, and the ogre couldn’t eat him.

The woman said to him: “Tomorrow I will send him out into the field to pick beans. There you will find it and eat it. ”Indeed he went with a basket to put the beans in it; but on the way he threw his knuckles, which told him to turn into a hooter and collect the vegetables. The ogre wanted to chase the Brummer, but did not know that this was Motikatika.

He complained to his mother that she had deceived him.

She said to him: “Good, come back in the evening, in the night. You will find him here under this white blanket. You will carry him away and devour him. “

That evening the child questioned the lot, which told him:

“Take your father’s blanket and cover him with yours, which is white.” He obeyed. The ogre arrived, grabbed Motikatika’s father, took him with him and ate him. The wife wept a lot for her husband. But Motikatika said: “It was only right that it should be so and that your husband should be eaten; because I did not send you to the water, but he, the father. “

Sikulume

It so happened that Mazinga married the women. All of them had children, but the first of the women had none. So she was made ridiculous by the other women. Even her husband scoffed at her and did not even say that she was nothing.

She went away and met a pigeon. As she was crying, the dove asked:

“What are you crying, mother?”

“I cry that I am persecuted, people mock me for not having children, they say I am not a woman.”

The dove said to her:

“Do you long to have a child?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“So return home.”

The bird gave her beans, corn, and peas. He gave her another tuft of thorn and said:

“When you get home you will cook all of this; when it’s done, pour it into your round basket. Then pierce the grains with a needle and eat one by one. When you have finished, put the bowl upside down against the wall of your hut and you will see what will happen. “

When the woman returned, she did as ordered. She now saw that she was pregnant. She was also told that if she were pregnant she would have to speak every day: “You child in to me, don’t speak. ”So even when it was born she must continue to speak. So she said every day: “You child who are in me, do not speak.” And when it was born, she continued to say to him: “Child who you are walking, do not speak.”

Since it had grown up, it went to work with its father; he also had a slave whom they had given him, for they had said to themselves: “Whether he is also mute, we will give him a slave.”

One day the slave followed the people who went to work. As they were chopping, he saw birds fly by. Mazinga the father spoke to his sons. “As a boy, I would have hunted the birds.” They returned home and went to work the next day. Birds passed by again. Mazinga says, “I, oh, once I would have hunted these birds.” They returned home; and when they had arrived, they said to their mothers, “Prepare food for us on the way.” When this was ready, Sikulume touched his mother and showed her the food and the bread and asked her to brew him a beer and a loaf of bread to bake. His mother brewed and baked bread for him. Then his father said to him: “Eh, do you think you have become a great boy, able to travel!”

Mahumana, the boy who was appointed to be their chief, ordered his brothers to set out. They set off, and Sikulume and his slave followed. His brothers came and beat his calabash full of beer, it split; he left, but the beer flowed.

When they got there, they stepped into the tunnel and killed the birds. In the evening they went off and plucked them. But heaven began to scold with power.

Then Sikulume said to his slave: “Let us see what they will do.” The latter was pleased when he heard his master begin to speak. Sikulume says to him: ‘Be silent, don’t you want my death; because they will tell you: What are you dancing for joy? “

A heavy shower fell. The servants of Muhamana stood under a tree. When the others came to Sikulume, for it was not raining where he was standing, they questioned the servant and said to him: “Eh friend, what are you dancing then?” Then he stuck a thorn in his foot, and there she struck him ask, answered he: “Eh, why am I dancing? Friends, precisely because a thorn penetrated my foot, this one. You would do well to take it out of me. “

So Sikulume went to ask his brother, “Where will these people sleep? The birds were probably feathered, but I don’t see fire. “Then one of the slaves shouted:” I am the man of Sikulume, the sparrow-killer. “And a second said likewise:” I am the man of Sikulume, the sparrow-killer. “All of them spoke alike. They left the chief with whom they had come and whom they trusted.

But Sikulume said: “I do not need servants, I have one who suffices for me.” But he could not prevent her from joining him.

Then he began to build a hut. He took a reed and the reed was a palisade. He took a tape, and that tape became a roof. He took a ball of clay, threw it up, and whitewashed the whole wall; then he took a rush and threw it, and the rush became countless mats. He took a coal, threw it into the hut, look, there was a fire. They went inside, warmed up, and proceeded to de-feather the birds.

Sikulume said to them, “Cut the heads of the birds and leave them here.” So they did. When they were asleep, Sikulume took the birds’ heads and put them around the hut.

During the night an ogre brought food and sang:

“Man with one leg, keep going.
The human flesh will soon be gone.
We want to look for it, keep going. “

When he came to the hut, he ate the birds’ heads and said, “Crac, I’ll eat a head. Crac, I’m eating a bird. “When he had finished devouring her, he said,” Uf, I can go home, uf I can go home. When I’ve eaten Mahumana, when I’ve still eaten Sikulume, the sparrow-killer, I’ll get fat, I’ll get fat to the toe. “

When the ogre had gone, Sikulume questioned the servants and said: “Who gave you the food you eat?” They answered: “You.”

“No, where would I have found her; I did not give it, the ogre nourished you. “They refused to believe it, and he said to them:” Well, you should see it for yourself. “

The evening that Sikulume saw the ogre coming, he had tied a string to their toe, he pulled the string. They woke up to hear the ogre sing the same words as they did last night:

“When I’ve eaten Mahumana, if I’ve still eaten Sikulume, the sparrow-killer, I’ll get fat, I’ll get fat up to the toe.”

Then they began to be afraid and said: “Let’s go home.” He said to them: “What are you afraid of? Have no fear. Just stay and finish the work you came here to do. ‘In the dawn they went hunting the birds again; then they came back. When they had made the tufts of feathers, Sikulume said during the night: “Prepare to flee, we will return home.” So they set out early in the morning.

Sikulume had left his plume on the door of the hut. On purpose he had forgotten him when he left. So Sikulume spoke to his servants: ‘I left my plume; With which of you shall I return to look for him? “Everyone shouted:” We are afraid to go. “One of them said:” I have an ox, I will give it to you at home. “Another:” I have a sister, I will give her to you. “Another:” Just take my wife. “Another:” I have goats, I want to give them to you at home. “Then he said to them:” Since you refused, to go with me, listen. When you go on the path, take the path on the left, do not take the one on the right. If you take the path to the right, you will see that you will find a large village. ‘So they set out, and after they had walked a little, they took the one on the right, came and saw the big village. So they were afraid and said: What Sikulume told us is true. Let’s go back. ”They walked back to where they’d left Sikulume.

Sikulume asked his servant: “Do you want to come with me or are you afraid?” His servant answered him: “Will I have the forehead to leave you in the bush, since I was always your servant in the house? I’ve been your slave since you were born. I certainly want to go with you. “

When they arrived, Sikulume found many ogres in the hut, for they had been called by him who gave food to the young men had given. Among them was an old ogre sitting by the partition of the hut. The ogres were about to put the plume on one another and said:

“Tonchi, Tonchi, give it to me.”

There were little ones who spoke with a child’s voice:

“Tonchi, Tonchi, give it to me.”

And others, old ones, who spoke in a broken voice:

“Tonchi, Tonchi, give it to me.”

The old woman also said:

“Tonchi, Tonchi, give it to me.”

Some said: “Don’t give it to her.” The others: “Give it to her.” Finally they gave her the tuft.

Sikulume was hiding behind the wall. He snatched it from the old woman’s hands, without her noticing it, since she was very old, and fled. So they asked the old woman: “Where’s the plume?” She replied: “You made up.” They asked her again: “You made up,” she said.

“She pretends to have been taken from her,” they said; “Let’s run after our piece of meat.”

Then Sikulume came to his comrades and said to them: “Why are you leaving the path that I recommended you to take? What did you find? ”“ We didn’t see anything, ”they said.

The ogres chased him and sang:

“Our meat has gone, we keep going. Go, let’s get it, let’s go all the time. “

In fact, they caught Sikulume. He said to them, “All right, line up.” They line up. Then he began to sing this song: “O in this country, in this country it is not the custom to eat people.”

The ogres sang:

“Oh, in this country, in this country it is not customary to eat people.”

But some shouted, “Shall we leave our little piece of meat?” Others answered, “Let us let him go, since we have learned this song; that is enough and we will sing it at dinner elsewhere. “

Since the ogres had gone, the young people went too and came to the big village. The local people came to greet you. But they did not answer. An old woman said: “Welcome, gentlemen.” They answered: “Ji, Ji. ”The others screamed. “Stop, they only answer when an old woman greets them.” They wished them good morning again. But they were silent. The villagers said to the old woman: “Start again, grandmother.” She started again and said, “Hail, gentlemen.” They made Ji, Ji.

When the sun had set, they were shown a large hut to sleep in. They refused to enter; they were now led to that of the old people. They agreed.

In the evening the people got together to bring them food. Sikulume took a little of everything and offered it to his dog, who accompanied him. They poured the food on the floor. The old woman brought them barley, boiled the broth and gave them that. Sikulume took it, gave it to the dog. He ate. They ate there too. -

When night had come, the villagers said to their daughters: “Have fun with the suitors who have come.” They went and slept with them in the hut. But Sikulume took a girl’s blanket and covered himself with it. Since the villagers wanted to kill the youths at night, they sought Sikulume to kill him; then they murdered their own daughter but were not aware of it.

The next day the chief of the village had called his people to work his field. Since everyone was at work, Sikulume said to the old woman, “Do you want sugar?” The old woman replied, “Yes.” So they baked flour, mixed it with tobacco, hemp and other drugs, and gave it to her. As she was eating, she said, “Here’s a piece,” and gave it to the husband, her son. One more thing, she gave it to the wife, the daughter-in-law; and one more thing, she gave that to her grandson. She added: “There they eat, chat and leave me nothing.” They now said: “Eat alone, Grandmother.” Since they had eaten, they were drunk. Then Sikulume said to his slaves: “Let’s take all the cattle and let’s go.” So they gathered the flocks of the land and went.

The chief’s slave said: “One would like to say that one sees dust from oxen up there down there.” The people replied: “That is not the dust of oxen, that is the dust of workers.”

Again he said: “One might say that this is ox dust down there. He was answered: “But no, the oxen are in the village with the people we work for.”

Meanwhile, as he continued to assert the same thing, the chief said to the slave: “Go see that it is over; you disturb us at work. “

Indeed he went to look, and on the way he met the old woman. He asked her, “Where are you going?” She couldn’t answer, took a little dirt and threw it in the air. Her knees were completely sore. When he arrived and looked around the village, he did not see the ox. He went to tell his people, they returned.

Then their chief said: ‘People of Monombela; our little piece of meat has gone. With the little basket, with the little knife. ”They began the chase. Then Monombela, their chief, caused a storm to break out to hold them back. Sikulume said to his servants: “Take shelter under the oxen.” They began to flee. When Monombela’s people came on the scene, they saw that Sikulume and his people had escaped. They said, “Ah, here they were.” They began to pace again. Sikulume opened a river and crossed it with servants and oxen. As the persecutors arrived, they shouted at the refugees: “How did you get through?”

“Through here, on this rope.” He tossed them a rope, which they grabbed. Seeing them in the middle of the current, he dropped the rope and they were torn away from the stream.

He did the same a second time. Then they said: “Now we are almost all dead. Let’s return.” But Monombela shouted to Sikulume: “If you do not want to become an elephant, not a buffalo or any other animal, turn yourself into a zebra.”

Sikulume really became a zebra, and galloped away: hua, hua, hua.

When the people of Monombela returned home, they found the girl dead and ate her.

As Sikulume was transformed into a zebra, the servant grabbed his tail, and the zebra ran and arrived in the village square. The servant said to his mother: “Boil water that it boils.” He poured this on the animal, which became human again. Sikulume took the ox and went from his mother to his uncle’s herds.

When the brothers came, they said to the father: “Really, Sikulume has saved us.” The slaves said to him: “We told you that we would pay on our return.”

But he said to them: “Don’t give me anything, it is quite natural that I should save you, you, my father’s children.” So Sikulume took his oxen and stayed with his uncle.

His father wanted to follow him, but Sikulume said, “You said, you said you had not quite a son, but rather a fool. I don’t want to live with you. “Meanwhile they apologized, and the father said:” I didn’t know you were a child like the others “; then Sikulume agreed to stay with him.

Upon their return, Sikulume was given royal power over the area. His slave received a piece of land. His father no longer led the Palabers, they were led by Sikulume, who informed his father when he had arranged them. His brothers went and were appointed chiefs of small countries. The same thing happened to Matoman, of whom it had been said: “He is a chief.” He was placed before a small country.

Nuahungukuri

A man named Nuahungukuri took a wife; but he hadn’t built his hut next to other people. He led her to himself, apart. He was an ogre.

One day he betrayed himself, he killed her. He ate some of her meat and put his leg aside. Then he wandered around and said: “I want to go to my wife’s parents.”

As he was still on the way, a bird began to sing:

“To, to, Hi. Oh my mother
Nuahungukuri enchanted the sky.
You saw it, bird.
He killed his wife, cut her flesh in pieces, oh heaven.
He says this is elen meat.
You saw it, heaven. You saw it.”

When Nuahungukuri heard him, he pursued him; grabbed and killed him. But he was resurrected. The man continued on his way. The Vogel went with him, always singing, until he came to the woman’s village.

When he arrived they said, “Come. Today we want to taste meat. ”He was allowed into the hut and they sat down. The bird swung itself on the straw ridge and began to sing again:

“Tototi, Tototi. Oh my mother
Nuahungukuri enchanted the sky.
He killed his wife; cut her meat into pieces … “

The in-laws said one to the other: “Listen, listen, what can you hear from outside.” Nuahungukuri had no shame, he went out, hunted the bird and killed it again. But he rose a second time and began to sing again.

His in-laws began to think; they said to themselves: “Our daughter is no longer here. She was killed by Nuahungukuri. ”They locked him in the hut, but he escaped, fled, and ran far.

Dukuli, the hyena man

A man by the name of Dukuli went to the village of Nuamatchakammbe to see and marry young girls. Parents agreed and gave him a wife. The girlfriends went to the wedding vows. They came out of the huts with their mothers and began to cook the food. Since they were bringing them here, Dukuli went away into the forest. There he began to sing and called his friends, the animals, to eat. He spoke:

Eüe, eüe, what should I sing. I Dukuli Duku.
So I catch you, I grab you,
I, I change, change your colors. Hiyaya.
Watch out.

The gazelles liked the song; they came. Dukuli grabbed and devoured them. Having done that, Dukuli and his friends (hyenas like him) left the forest and returned to the in-laws’ village.

But the youngest daughter of the Lord of the Wedding was in hiding; since the others had gone into the forest to sing and turn into hyenas.

The young people took vacation with their in-laws. The girls went with them and crossed the river with them. Then they said goodbye.

But the boys replied: “Let’s all go into the house together, tomorrow we’ll escort you back.” So they went on with them until they got to their village. But they didn’t find any huts there. There was wild land and nothing but holes in the ground.

Then they met the old hyena woman, there was still something of goodness about her, that wanted to tell them the truth. “My daughter-in-law,” she began, but she did not know how to tell them the thing. -

Then the boys withdrew and said: “We’re going to dinner.”

Then she said to them: “My daughters, go, return home. My sons are cannibals. ”Then the girls ran away, hurried and met the tree frog by the river. They asked him about the water: “Where are you from, children?” “We come from the Dukuli people.”

“How could you save yourself since Dukuli is an ogre?”

They replied: “We throw ourselves at your feet, let’s go across the water. We cannot do it alone, we are only children. «-

The tree frog took a raft and put her across. Then the youngest said to her sisters: “Hey, there, Dukuli. I want to sing the song that turns him into a hyena.

Eüe, Eüe. What should I sing, I Dukuli Duku If
I catch you, I’ll grab you.
I, I change colors
Hiyaya. Watch out.

So he turned into a hyena. “He asks the tree frog:” Did you see my people? “She replies:” I saw them. “

“Give it back to me,” he says.

“Oh, they are down there, right down.” Dukuli was very angry. He wanted to kill the tree frog; but it slipped back into the water.