THIS IS WHAT A WOMAN DID.

She was then living in the bush, never showing herself to anyone. She had living with her just one daughter, who used to pass the day in the fork of a tree making baskets.

One day there appeared a man just when the mother had gone to kill game. He found the girl making baskets as usual. “Here now!” he said. “There are people here in the bush! And that girl, what a beauty! Yet they leave her alone. If the king were to marry her, would not all the other queens leave the place?”

Going back to the town, he went straight to the king’s house and said, “Sire, I have discovered a woman of such beauty that, if you call her to this palace, all the queens you have will make haste to go away.”

The following morning people were called together and set to grind their axes. Then they started for the bush. As they came in view of the place, they found the mother had once more gone to hunt.

Before going, she had cooked porridge for her daughter and hung meat for her. Then only had she started on her expedition.

The people said, “Let us cut down the tree on which the girl is.”

So they put axes to it. The girl at once started this song:

“Mother, come back!

Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.

Mother come back!

Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.

Cut! Here is the tree falling in which I eat.

Here it is falling.”

The mother dropped there as if from the sky:

Many as you are, I shall stitch you

with the big needle.

Stitch! Stitch!”

They at once fell to the ground…. The woman left just one to go back and report.

“Go,” she said, “and tell the news.” He went….

When he came to the town the people asked, “What has happened?”

“There,” he said, “where we have been! Things are rather bad! “

Likewise, when he stood before the king, the king asked, “What has happened?”

“Sire,” he said, “we are all undone. I alone have come back.”

“Bakoo! You are all dead! If that is so, tomorrow go to the kraal over there and bring more people. Tomorrow morning let them go and bring me the woman.”

They slept their fill.

The next morning early, the men ground their axes and went to the place.

They, too, found the mother gone, while the porridge was ready there, and the meat was hanging on the tree….

“Bring the axes.” Forthwith they went at the shade tree. But the song had already started:

“Mother, come back!

Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.

Mother, come back!

Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.

Cut! Here is the tree falling in which I eat.

Here it is falling.”

The mother dropped down among them, singing in her turn:

“many as you are, I shall stitch you

with the big needle.

Stitch! Stitch!”

They were dead. The woman and her daughter picked up the axes….

“Olo!” said the king when he was told. “Today let all those that are pregnant give birth to their children.”

So one woman after another straightway brought forth her child. Soon there was a whole row of them.

Then the whole band departed, making a confused noise.

When the girl saw that, she said, “There is no joke about it now. There comes a red army with the umbilical cords still hanging on.”

They found her at her own place in the fork of the tree.

“Let us give them some porridge on their heads, but the children did not eat it.

The last-born then climbed up the shade tree, picked up the baskets which the girl was stitching, and said, “Now bring me an axe.”

The girl shouted once more:

“Mother, come back!

Mother, here is man cutting our shade tree.

Mother, come back!

Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.

Cut! Here is the tree falling in which I eat.

Here it is falling.”

The Mother dropped down among the crowd:

“Many as you are, I shall stitch you with the big needle.

Stitch! Stitch!”

But thee was the troop already dragging the girl. They had tied her with their umbilical cords, yes, with their umbilical cords. The mother went on with her incantation:

“many as you are, I shall stitch you

with the big needle.

Stitch! Stitch!”

In vain! The troop was already in the fields and the ngururu went up as far as God’s abode, and soon the children were in the town.

As they reached it, the mother said, “since you have carried away my child, I must tell you something. She is not to pound in the mortar, nor to go to fetch water at night. If you send her to do one of these things, mind you! I shall know where to find you.”

Then the mother went back to her abode in the bush.

The following day the king said, “Let us go hunting.” And to his mother he said, “my wife must not pound mortar. All that she can do is to stitch baskets.”

While the husband was away there in the open flat, the other wives as well as the mother-in-law said, “Why should not she also pound in the mortar?”

When the girl was told to pound in the mortar, she said, “No.”

A basket of corn was brought to her.

The mother-in-law herself took away the meal from the mortar, and then the other women in their turn brought corn and put it all there.

So the girl pounded, singing at the same time:

“Pound! At home I do not pound,

Here I pound to celebrate my wedding.

Yepu! Yepu!

If I pound, I go to God’s.”

She began to sink into the ground but she went on singing:

“Pound! At home I do not pound,

Here I pound to celebrate my wedding.

Yepu! Yepu!

If I pound, I go to God’s”

Soon she was down as far as her neck. Now the mortar went on by itself pounding the grain on the ground, pounding on the ground. Finally the girl disappeared altogether.

When nothing more was seen of her, the mortar still pounded as before on the ground. The women then said, “Now what shall we do?”

They went and called a crane, and said, “Go and break the news to her mother. But, first, let us know, what will you say?”

The crane said, “Wawani! Wawani!”

They said, “that has no meaning, go back. Let us send for the crow.”

The crow was called, “Now what will you say?”

The crow said, “Kwa! Kwa! Kwa!”

“The crow does not know how to call. Go, quail. How will you do?”

The quail said, “Kwalulu! Kwalulu!”

“The quail does not know how to do it either. Let us call the doves.”

They said, “Let us hear, doves, what will you call to her mother?”

They they heard:

“Kuku! Ku!

She-who-nurses-the-sun is gone,

You who dig,

She-who-nurses-the-sun.”

They said, “Go, you know how to do it , you.”

The mother went when she heard the doves. There she was going toward the town. She carried medicines on a potsherd, also tails of animals with which she beat the air.

While she was on the road, she met a zebra:

“Zebra, what are you doing?

–Ullimidden.

The wife of my father is dead.

–Ullimidden.

O Mother! You shall die.

–Ullimidden.”

The zebra died. The woman went on, went on, went on, and then found people digging:

“You who dig, what are you doing?

–Ullimidden.

The wife of my father is dead.

O mother! You shall die.

–Ullimidden.”

When she reached the town there:

“Let me gather, let me gather

The herd of my mother.

Nakomse, get up.

Let me gather the herd.

“Let me gather, let me gather

The herd of my father.

Nakomse, get up.

Let me gather the herd.”

She then heard the mortar still sounding right above the child.

So she sprayed one medicine, then another.

There was the child already pounding from under the ground. Little by little the head came out. Then the neck, and the song was heard again:

“Pound! At home I do not pound,

Here I pound to celebrate my wedding.

Yepu! Yepu!

If I pound, I go to God’s”

The child was now in full view. Finally she stepped outside. The end.

[ BENA MUKUNI ]

THERE WAS ONCE an old woman who had no husband, and she lived for many days in trouble. One day she said to herself, “Why do I always feel so troubled? It is because I have neither children nor husband. I shall go to the medicine-man and get some children.

She went to the medicine-man and told him she was unhappy owing to the fact that although she had now grown old, she had neither husband nor children. The medicine-man asked her which she wanted, husband or children, and she told him she wanted children.

She was instructed to take some cooking pots – three, or as many as she could carry – and to search for a fruit-bearing sycamore tree, to fill the pots with the fruit, to put them in her hut, and to go for a walk.

The old woman followed these instructions carefully. She gathered the fruit, filled the pots, placed them in her hut, and went for a walk until the evening.

On arriving near the kraal, she heard the sound of voices and asked herself, “Why does one hear the voices of children in the kraal?” She went nearer, and found her hut filled with children, all her work finished, the boys herding the cattle, the hut swept, by the girls, the warriors singing and dancing on the common, and the little children waiting to greet her. She thus became a rich old woman, and lived happily with her children for many days.

One day, however, she scolded the children, and reproached them for being children of the tree. They remained silent and did not speak to her; then, while she went to visit her friends in the other kraals, the children returned to the sycamore tree, and became fruit again. On her return to her own kraal, the old woman wept bitterly when she found it empty, and paid another visit to the medicine-man, whom she taxed with having spirited away her children.

The medicine-man told her that he did not know what she should do now, and when she proposed to go and look at the sycamore tree, he recommended her to try.

She took her cooking pots to the sycamore tree and climbed up into it. But when she reached the fruit they all put forth eyes and stared at her. This so startled her that she was unable to descend, and her friends had to come and help her down.

She did not go to the sycamore tree again to search for the children.

[ MASAI ]

ONCE UPON A TIME there were a brother and sister who lived together. The mother had died leaving many goats, and the brother looked after the goats in the daytime, but in the evening he went away from home, for he was very handsome, and had many friends. The name of the girl was Nasere, the name of the brother Tunka Menin.

Now one day when the brother returned Nasere said to him, “Two men were here yesterday, and if you go away and leave me they will carry me off.” But he replied, “You talk nonsense.” She insisted, “I am speaking the truth. Now when they take me I will bear with me a gourd full of sap which is like fat, and I will let it drop along the path so that you can follow my trail.” That night when Tunka Menin brought the goats home, Nasere made a great feast and gruel, but again he went away. When Tunka Menin came back the next morning he found the homestead empty, for his sister had been carried away as she had said. However, he saw the track where drop by drop she had let fall the sap which was like fat. And Tunk Menin followed over hill and down dale, and ever and again he heard her voice crying from. the opposite hillside, “Follow after where you see the trail.”

The following day the sap began to take root and to spring up into little plants, but he did not see his sister. At last, he returned to his home to herd the flock. He took them out to feed, but he had no one to prepare food for him when he returned home at night, and if he himself prepared the food there was no one to care for the flocks. So he slew a goat and ate it and, when it was finished, he slew yet another, and so on till all the goats were finished. Then he killed and ate the oxen one by one. They lasted him months and years for the flock was large but, at last they were all gone, and then he bethought him of his sister.

Now the plants which marked the way she had gone were, by this time, grown to trees, and so he journeyed on for one month and half a month and at the end of that time he came to a stream and by the stream were two children getting water. Then he said to the younger, “Give me some water in your gourd,” but the child refused. The elder child spoke to the younger and said, “Give the stranger to drink, for our mother said if ever you see a stranger coming by way of the trees he is my brother!” So he and the children went up to the homestead, and he waited outside, and Nasere came out, and he knew her at once. However, she did not know him, for he was not dressed as before with ochre and fat. He came into her hut and she gave him food, not in a good vessel, but in a potsherd. Then he slept in the hut, but on the floor, not in the bed.

Now the next day he went out with the children to drive away the birds from the crops and as he threw a stone he would say, “Fly away, little bird, as Nasere flew away and never came back any more.” Soon another bird would come and he would throw another stone and say the same words again. This happened the next day and the next for a whole month.

The children heard this, and so did others, and they said, “Why does he utter the name Nasere?” So they went and told their mother. At last she came and waited among the grass and listened to his words, and said, “Surely this is my brother Tunka Menin, and she went back to the house and sent for a young man and told him to go and fetch Tunka Menin to come to her, for she said, “He is my brother.” And the young man went and told Tunka Menin the words of his sister, and she has given me no cup for my food but a potsherd,” and he would not go in. Then the young man returned to Nasere and told her the words of her brother, and she said, “Take ten goats and go again and bid him to come to me.” So the young man took ten goats and said, “Your sister has sent these ten goats.” But again Tunka Menin refused, and the young man returned. So Nasere said, “Take ten oxen and give them to my brother.” However, Tunka Menin owuld not come. Nasere then sent him ten cows, and another ten cows, but still Tunka Menin refused to come in. Nasere thereupon told her husband how she had found her brother and how he would not be reconciled to her, and her husband said, “Send him still more animals,” so Nasere sent ten other cows and again ten more, till Tunka Menin had received forty cows besides the goats and the oxen which Nasere had sent at the first. And the heart of Tunka Menin relented, and he came into the house of his sister. And she killed a goat, and took the fat and dressed his hair and his shoulders, for she said, “I did not know you, for you were not adorned as before.

After Tunka Menin had been reconciled to his sister, he asked that eight wives should be given him. So the husband of Nasere sent to all his relations round about, and they brought in goats, and Tunka Menin bought eight girls, some for thirty goats, some for forty. Other relations all came and built eight huts for the wives near to the dwelling of Nasere, so Tunka Menin and his wives dwelt near the homestead of his sister.

[ AKIKUYU ]