Africana; or, the heart of heathen Africa, Volume 2 (of 2) : $b Mission lifeMacdonald, Duff
Religion
Africana; or, the heart of heathen Africa, Volume 2 (of 2) : $b Mission life
Macdonald, Duff
Africa, East -- Social life and customs; Missions -- Africa, East
There was a man who had a wife and he took his fish trap and went to the
water to catch fish, and he caught a large one. The fish said to the man,
“Go inside me, and you will find a knife and a bundle of millet, fetch
them and come here with them”. So the man went inside the fish and found
a knife and a bundle of millet, and he fetched them and came out with
them. The fish said, “Cut off my upper lip,” and the man cut it off.
Then the fish said, “Take that meat, give it to your wife that she may
eat it alone, while you eat the millet”.
So he went to the village. He found his wife and gave her the meat
saying, “My wife eat this meat alone. When you have eaten throw the bones
of it out there.” The man went to put the millet in the lake, when it
became soft he went and ate it alone, for five days, and his wife ate the
fish five days!
After this the woman bare two children with their two dogs, and two
spears, and two guns, and their names were the one Rombao, and the other
Antonyo.[37] Then they went to the bush and found many birds and many
buck, and they began to fire their guns, and the buck ran to one place
and the children followed them. On their following there they met the
owner, and he asked them saying, “What do you want?” They said, “We
want meat”. The owner said, “What do you give me, and I shall give you
my meat?” They replied, “We will not give you anything, but come let us
fight, and whoever dies, the meat belongs to him that killed him”. They
began to fight and the owner of the meat died, and they took the land and
built houses and settled there.
One day Rombao talked with his brother, and said, “You stay here, I
go yonder to kill meat”. Then he met with a whale. He wanted to drink,
and the whale said, “Why should you drink my water?” Rombao said, “I am
thirsty”. The whale said, “Pay me a price for my water”. He refused, and
said, “Come, let us fight”. Then they began to fight, and the whale died,
and Rombao cut off his tongue and put salt on it.
Now at that land there was a celebrated chief, the owner of the country,
and he gave up his own daughter to buy water from the whale. The whale
was dead, and three days passed without the wind coming as a token (that
the girl had been eaten). So the chief sent his captain and his soldiers,
and said, “Go and see whether the whale has come to eat my child”. The
captain went with his soldiers to see the whale, and came to where it was
and found it dead.
Then the captain said to the soldiers, “Come let us fire guns for two
days, and go to the village and tell that it was I that killed the whale.
Then the chief will give me his daughter to wed, and I will pay you with
much goods.” They said, “Yes, what he says is good”. So they fired guns
for two days, and went back to the village with the girl and found the
chief, and said, “The captain has killed the whale”. The chief said to
him, “Very well, I will give you my daughter to wed”.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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