A CERTAIN MAN Once upon a time set his bird line and sent his daughter, saying, “Go and look at my line while I go to dig.” So his daughter went to see the line. She found a guinea-fowl caught in it, and the guinea-fowl sang:

“Little girl, little girl, kirijakija,

What have you come to do?”

Then said the girl, “I have come to look at the snare.” And the guinea-fowl asked her, “Whose snare is it?” And the girl said, “I have come to look at my father’s snare.” Thereupon the guinea-fowl said to her, “Go and tell your father that I will bring a white bead and a white sheep if he will let me go.”

So the girl went back and told her father, and her father abused his daughter, saying, “You are a bad child,” and sent hi son instead.

So his went to look at his father’s line and he too found the guinea-fowl in the line. And the guinea-fowl asked him, asked him in song:

“Little boy, little boy, kirijakija,

What have you come to do?”

There upon said the little boy, “I have come to look at my father’s line.” And the guinea-fowl said, “Go and tell your father that I will bring a white chicken and a white sheep and a white bead if he will let me go.”

So the boy went back and told his father in these words.

Next the man sent his wife. His wife found the guinea-fowl, and the guinea-fowl addressed her in the dame terms as he had used to the children.

Then anger overcame the man, and he went himself and found the guinea-fowl in the line. The guinea-fowl addressed his same song as before. But the man seized the guinea-fowl firmly, and the guinea-fowl said to him, “Though you seize me, seize me: here in the evening I shall seize mine.”

The man then brought him home and plucked him. As he did this, the guinea-fowl said to him, “Though you pluck me, pluck me: here in the evening I shall pluck mine.”

The man cooked the bird, and the guinea-fowl said to him, “Though you cook me, cook me: here in the evening I shall cook mine.”

But her was cooked and ready to be eaten. Then the man summoned people, and the people came for food, came the they might eat the guinea-fowl which had been cooked. They all rejoiced with a careless joy and served up the guinea-fowl. Suddenly the guinea-fowl flew up with a quick flutter and these men were left with their joy.

Now if the man had been wise enough to take the white bead and the sheep and the white chicken, he could have eaten this guinea-fowl. This was the guinea-fowl of God.

[ LANGO ]