A South African myth
One day, a young girl went to the forest with her friends to gather herbs. She found an egg which belonged to a hyena. Quietly she put it in her basket and hastened home. “Why are you leaving so soon?” asked a friend. “I‘ve collected enough herbs for today. Besides I’m not feeling too well,” she replied and her companions did not suspect a thing.
But the hyena who returned to the bush was furious when he saw that his egg was missing. “Have you taken my egg?” he asked the girls who were still gathering herbs. “No, we haven’t seen any egg. Perhaps the girl who left early took it,” said one.
The girl’s mother discovered the egg in the basket and threw it in the fire. So when the hyena came looking for his egg, the woman told him that she had destroyed it. “How dare you throw my egg into the fire?’’ he snarled. The frightened woman was so flustered that she made him a completely thoughtless promise. “I will give you my next child instead.’’
Why she made such a foolish suggestion, one will never know. Perhaps she thought she would never have another child. In any case, every day on her way to the stream to fetch water, she would be waylaid by the hyena who asked her when her next child was due.
After a while, the hyena’s patience ran out. “I can’t see you ever giving me your next child. I’m going to eat you instead!” That day the woman returned home greatly troubled. It was then she noticed a swelling in her shin. As she watched it began to grow bigger and bigger until it burst and out came a little boy in a blaze of blinding light!
He was no infant but a fully grown boy armed with a bow, arrows and a quiver. Around his neck was a gourd of charms and at his heel were a pack of dogs! As the puzzled woman looked on, he announced, “I’m Kachirambe, the child of the shin bone!”
The next day, the woman went to fetch water and the hyena came to her. “Yes, I have a child now,’’ she told him, “But you will never be able to eat him. He is too clever for you!”
“So you think!’’ laughed the hyena wickedly. The woman even offered to help him. Now don’t ask why. Was she sure the boy would outwit the hyena, or is it that she didn’t care? We shall never know. “I’ll tie you up in a bundle of grass and ask Kachirambe to fetch you,” she told the hyena. So she tied him in a bundle of grass used for thatching huts and left him on the path.
A little later, Kachirambe came to pick up the bundle. Standing a little way afar, he shouted, “You, bundle of grass! Stand up so that I can lift you up!’’ Immediately, the hyena stood up. “What kind of a bundle is this that can stand up on its own?” said the boy and left.
The angry hyena went to the woman again. “That son of yours is a clever one!” “Don’t worry,” said the woman, “Go and wait near the clearing behind my hut. I’ll soon send him there.” Calling Kachirambe, she told him to go to the clearing behind the house and set some traps. “There are some rats there which come and destroy my baskets. Lay some traps for them.’’
The boy did as he was told. Afterwards, the hyena came and waited near the traps. Now the woman sent the boy again.
“The traps have fallen, go and check if the rats have been caught.” As he approached the trap, he said loudly, “You trap, fall again so that I know a rat has been caught.” The hyena, hiding near the trap, dropped a big stone to make a noise as if the trap was falling. “Ah ha! This is a trick. No trap will fall twice,” said Kachirambe and walked away.
The mother did not know what to do next and the hyena was getting really mad. “Tomorrow you will go the forest and cut some wood,” she told the boy that night.
A dream told the boy that great danger lay before him the next day. So he went to the forest the next day all prepared with his bow and arrows, a knife and his gourd with its charms.
He climbed up a dead tree and began to cut its branches. The hyena came up below and snarled menacingly. “You can’t escape any more boy! I’m here to eat you!”
Kachirambe was sharpening a branch he cut with his knife. The boy looked down at the hyena and smiled. “Open your mouth wide, hyena! I will jump right in!”
Now the hyena was not exactly a sharp fellow as you would have noticed by now. He did as he was told and waited open mouthed. Kachirambe threw the spear he had made with tree branch straight into the mouth of the hyena and it fell down dead. That was the end of all their troubles.
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