THE CATTLE-HERDERS IN AFRICA

There is still disagreement among archaeologists and other specialists on when, how and why humans domesticated their animals. By the available evidence, the people living in what is now the Sahara desert domesticated a local breed of cattle some 7,000–10,000 years ago. Sheep and goats, now widespread across the continent, were introduced from the Middle East some time later, and camels even later, after the period of the Roman empire. The presumption is that humans accustomed to follow the herds of wild cattle in their seasonal migrations eventually domesticated them; the question is why, for hunters in general have a varied, healthy and adequate diet.

It is association with cattle, rather than other forms of livestock, that really defines the pastoral lifestyle in Africa, and one can distinguish two separate modes of cattle management. Across the Sahel, the savannah that forms the southern edge of the Sahara, there were many specialized groups who lived by herding, following their cattle on a seasonal course of migration through the grasses that appeared with the rains. From the Atlantic east to Lake Chad, this group is primarily composed of fractions of the Fulbe; in eastern Africa (Somalia, Sudan, Kenya) there is much greater ethnic and linguistic variation: near the Nile, the Dinka and Nuer pasture their cattle on floodplains; the Oromo peoples circulate through Somalia, and in Kenya the Maasai are among the best known of the pastoral groups.

From the great lakes down into South Africa, in those areas where the absence of the tsetse fly permits cattle-herding, a different pattern developed. There, cattle coexisted with agriculture, and constituted a form of wealth and social prestige. It was claimed, locally and later by Europeans, that cattle-herding peoples invaded and conquered local groups, and ownership of cattle remains a mark of aristocratic distinction. The claim was reinforced by physical differences between the populations: the cattle-herders, typically, were tall and thin, and the locals much shorter (for example, the Watutsi and the Hutu of Rwanda). Discussion of this question has been complicated by the ‘Hamitic’ hypothesis, the belief on the part of the first European administrators that the conquering groups were ‘Hamitic’ (that is, lighter-skinned northerners) who defeated the darker-skinned autochthons; the Hamitic thesis has long since been abandoned.

Throughout this southern cattle-herding belt, cattle serve as a currency: brideprice, in particular, is calculated in terms of cattle, and cattle constitute the preferred form of tribute, sacrificial offerings and chieftainly wealth. This combination of practices is so consistent and widespread in this zone that anthropologists have coined the term ‘cattle complex’ for easy reference.

KHOI-KHOI CATTLE STORIES

The Khoi-Khoilive in Namibia, Botswana and western South Africa. They are closely related to the San hunting groups (the language family is known as Khoi-San), but separated from them at some point, probably in the last five hundred years, when they acquired cattle and stopped being hunters. The first of these two stories was collected in the mid-nineteenth century; the second is much later. Heitsi-Eibib is the culture-hero of the Khoi-Khoi.

THE TWO MEN

Two men were living together in the bush. One was blind. The other practised hunting, wandering around the land in pursuit of the game. One day, he found a hole in the ground from which animals were emerging. He told his blind friend of this hole and led the man there; the blind man was able to touch the animals, and he turned to the hunter and told him that these animals were not ordinary game animals, such as antelopes and zebra and gemsbok, but cattle with their calves.

The blind man then found himself able to see, and he made a fence from poles and thorny branches. He herded the cattle into this enclosure, and in this way became their master. He took to anointing himself with fat and oils, as the Khoi-Khoi did until recent times, to make their skin glossy and sleek.

The hunter came and admired the cattle. He asked how the man had been able to capture them, and the man told him to use an ointment of fat and oil. But he told the hunter he must heat it up before applying it to his body. The hunter warmed the ointment, but when he began to spread it over his skin he found it too hot, and so he was unable to complete the process. He abandoned the idea of capturing cattle for himself. Since that time, the Khoi-Khoi have lived with their cattle while the others lived by hunting in the bush.

HEITSI-EIBIB AND THE KING OF SNAKES

In his travels, Heitsi-Eibib came into the land of the snakes. Their king possessed cattle, the only cattle that were known at that time. Heitsi-Eibib and the king of the snakes became friends, and after a time Heitsi-Eibib asked the king of the snakes for some cattle. The king agreed to give Heitsi-Eibib some cattle, if he would perform some services. Heitsi-Eibib agreed to this. He helped gather poles and branches to make a kraal for the cattle. He helped build the kraal, planting the poles and weaving the branches between them. He brought water for the cattle. He collected firewood.

In the evening, when the fire was lit, the king and Heitsi-Eibib sat near it together. The king had said nothing about the cattle he was to give to Heitsi-Eibib, and Heitsi-Eibib had realized that the king did not want to give him any cattle, and that he would think up all sorts of services and tasks for Heitsi-Eibib to put off the time when he would have to do so. So Heitsi-Eibib spoke to the king, and challenged him. Each of them should jump over the fire. So they began to dance around the fire, and after several rounds Heitsi-Eibib leaped through the flames and landed on the other side. The snake king coiled himself and then tried to launch himself over the fire, but he landed in the middle of the flames and quickly died. This is how Heitsi-Eibib got cattle for people.

FULBE STORIES OF CATTLE

The Fulbe (singular: Pullo, also known as Fula, Fulani and Peul) have historically been cattle-herders in the savannah zones across west Africa, and between the Atlantic ocean and Lake Chad their nomadic groups are to be found everywhere cattle may survive. Many Fulbe have settled down across this belt, forming distinct sedentary communities in areas such as the Futa Tooro (Senegal–Mauritania;the Futa Jallon (highlands of Guinea), Wassulu (in Mali), Liptako (Burkina Faso) and throughout northern Nigeria and Cameroon. These settled communities are also almost all associated with Islam, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many of them embarked on religious wars of conquest and conversion. In northern Nigeria, particularly, Fulbe religious militancy led to the conquest of the Hausa city-states by Fulbe dynasties and the establishment of the Caliphate of Sokoto. In modern times, the nomadic Fulbe have lost much of their former freedom of movement. They live in much closer association with the farmers whose fields are fertilized by the cattle grazing on the stubble. The herders often work for hire, tending other owners’ cattle. The stories represent something of this geographic range: the story of Tyamaba is found from Senegal to Niger; the Muslim account was collected in northern Nigeria, and the story of the first cow in Mali.

TYAMABA, THE GREAT SERPENT

A woman gave birth to twin offspring. One was a normal boy whom she named Ilo. The other was an egg, and she kept the egg in her chamber until it hatched out a snake. Some people say the snake had ninety-six wondrous scales, one for each of the recognized colour patterns of cattle. She raised the boy normally, but she kept the snake hidden, first under a little dish, and later under an overturned pot. She fed the snake various things: milk, and sometimes small animals such as chicks. The snake grew, the boy grew, and time passed. The mother became old and died, leaving the care of the snake to his brother.

The snake was now so big that the brother built him his own small hut, set apart from the others, and every day the brother brought him a bowl of milk. Some people say it was goat’s milk, others that it was milk from cows which appeared with the snake. The snake warned his brother that he should not marry a woman with very small breasts, for if such a woman were to see him he would have to leave.

But the brother fell in love with a woman who had very small breasts, and after a time he married her. He built a high wall around the snake’s hut, so that it would be difficult to see him. Things went well for a time, but then the wife began to wonder why her husband went every day to visit a small hut, carrying with him a pot of milk. She asked an old woman, and the old woman suggested she should wait until her husband was away; then she could stand on an overturned mortar and peek over the wall, to be sure it wasn’t another woman in there. So the wife waited for a few days, and then, when her husband was away, she took her mortar and turned it on end right next to the high earth wall, and climbed up on it and peeked over. She saw the snake sunning himself outside his hut. The snake saw her. He knew that the prohibition he had laid on his brother had been broken.

The snake swelled up. He knocked down the door and burst through the walls, he was so big. He began to slither away from the homestead, down towards the swampy areas by the stream. Ilo came back and found the signs of the snake’s departure: the breach in the wall where the gate had been, the empty hut. He saw the traces of the snake’s path and followed him, running in his haste to catch up with his brother. It was night when he came to the swampy area where the snake had gone, and to his surprise Ilo found himself surrounded by cattle. The snake spoke to him. ‘These are my water cattle, Ilo,’ he said. ‘Cut yourself a stick of ñelbe wood and begin to touch the cattle. Each cow that you touch will remain with you, to give you milk and make your wealth. The rest shall come with me into the water. The prohibition has been violated, and I must leave you.’ And with that, the snake began to move through the swamp towards the deep-flowing currents of the great river beyond it, and the cattle, lowing in the darkness, gathered and followed him.

Frantically, Ilo cut himself a stick, and that stick has become the emblem of the Fulbe herdsmen to this day. He rushed into the herd, touching cattle left and right, and those he touched turned aside from their course towards the river and moved backwards. And the snake, followed by all the cows which Ilo did not touch, slipped into the waters of the great river and vanished.

Ilo was the ancestor of all the Fulbe herdsmen.

A MUSLIM VERSION FROM NORTHERN NIGERIA

Muhammad sent disciples to west Africa to bring Islam to the peoples there. One man was named Yacouba, and he married a king’s daughter. She had four children, two legitimate and two illegitimate: people knew they were not Yacouba’s children because they did not talk in Arabic or in their mother’s language, but instead used a quite different form of speech: Fulfulde, their own language. So eventually Yacouba rejected his wife and the two illegitimate children. He performed a divination, and then wrote out a Koranic talisman and placed it around his wife’s neck, and sent the three down to the river, saying that there she would find her lover and the children would find their father.

When they came to the river, a handsome man came out of the water and greeted them. He told the children he had a gift for them: he would give them cattle, which before then were unknown. But thereafter they must follow the cattle in the bush; they could not live in villages, but must wander from place to place. He said that when the cattle began to come from the river, the children should walk away without looking back, calling ‘Hai, hai, hai’, for if they looked back the cattle would stop coming out of the river.

So the children turned and walked away, calling out ‘Hai, hai, hai’, and a flood of cattle followed them. But eventually one child looked back, and the cattle stopped coming out of the water.

THE FIRST COW: WHY FULBE ARE HERDSMEN

The first cow appeared in Masina, in the floodplains of the middle Niger delta; she appeared with her calf, and a Labbo, a woodworker, was the first to see her. He watched her grazing and then saw her disappear into the water. He came back the next day with two friends, a Pullo and a Bambado. Among the Fulbe today, the Pullo is the nomad and the Bambado is a musician. They saw the cow appear, followed by her calf, and they watched the animals grazing on the fresh shoots of grass. They decided they would try to catch her, and so they set up a trap baited with clumps of grass on the path they saw the cow taking. The next day they caught her in their noose, and after a considerable struggle they were able to subdue her. They tied her in one place, and after some time the calf which had run away returned to its mother.

After they caught it, there was some question who would take care of it. The Labbo had his woodworking business to take care of – he carved calabashes and made bowls and utensils for people. The Bambado was something of an idler who preferred strolling around and passing the time of day with people to any regular activity. So the Pullo was the one who took care of the cow. He brought her food and water and he watched over her carefully. He even imitated the calf one day, sucking at a teat to see what the milk tasted like. He found it delicious.

The other two, co-owners of the cow, caught him at this treat one day and asked him what it tasted like. He squeezed some milk into a bowl and gave it to them to taste, and they too found it delicious. Thereafter it was agreed that each of them would get a bowl of milk in the morning. But the two co-owners let some days pass without coming for their milk, and although the Pullo dutifully collected it into calabashes for them, it seemed to be going to waste sitting there, and likely to spoil. Still, when they did finally come and ask for their milk, he showed them the calabashes he had saved for them, expecting his friends to be disgusted by the stale milk. But he was amazed to see them smacking their lips in pleasure at the new taste of curdled milk, and when he asked what was so good they let him taste this new product.

After some time, the Pullo realized that he was the only one taking care of the cow, and so he decided to steal away so he could enjoy the fruits of his herding by himself. He slipped off one day and found himself a campsite some distance away from his friends’ dwellings, in a place where the grass was green and fresh and there was good pasturing for his cow and her growing calf. He made musical instruments for himself, and he would sit playing to his animals as he watched them graze.

But his friends noticed his absence, and after some time they went looking for him. It took them a month or two to locate his campsite, and they found him one evening sitting with the cow and calf nearby, playing a tune on the stringed instrument he had devised and singing to the cow. They paused for a moment, struck by the beauty of the scene, and then they greeted the Pullo, and he, after a start, returned the greeting and invited them in. They asked him where he had been. He said he had been worried about the cow and wanted her to have fresh grass, especially since the calf was now growing and eating as well, and needed tender new shoots, and he thought that the new spot was doing well. He also thought that the cow might be pregnant, for he had seen her in the company of a male that came out of the waters near where they had found her. He said nothing about having wanted to take the cow away from them.

The two friends agreed that the cow looked very well. Then the Bambado asked the Pullo to let him have the stringed instrument he had been playing, for he did not think he could live without that music. ‘What can I give you for the instrument?’ asked the Bambado, and the Pullo hesitated, not thinking to ask a price for something he had made. ‘I shall give you my share of the cow,’ said the Bambado, ‘but on condition that periodically you shall give me one of its male offspring which you won’t need for milk.’ Surprised and delighted, the Pullo immediately accepted the offer.

‘And I shall give you my share,’ said the Labbo, ‘for I see that you know how to take care of these animals. But I too shall ask a condition: that I may have milk whenever I ask for it.’ And naturally the Pullo agreed to this price.

Since that time, the Pullo gives milk freely to the Labbo and periodically gives a bull-calf to the Bambado, since to withhold their price would bring disaster down on the herds that have grown up since that original bargain. And the Pullo is the one who leads the cattle to their grazing grounds and lives with them, and knows them.

THE MAASAI OF EAST AFRICA

The Maasai are probably the best known of all African pastoralists, since their pasturing grounds abut many of the most famous game parks of east Africa and they count as one of the tourist attractions. They are considered the quintessential cattle-herders, and, by repute, to be Maasai is to be a cattle-herder: to live and travel with the cattle, defending them from lions and other predators (hence the distinctive large shields and long spears), living on milk and blood drawn from the necks of the living beasts. But in fact the specialized pastoralists are a small part of a larger group of Maa-speakers, and throughout their range, in the plains between the Kenyan highlands and the coast, stretching south into Tanzania, there is considerable variation in patterns of cattle-ownership and herding practices. Maasai who have lost cattle to drought may be forced to settle down for a time until their herds are rebuilt (and in the past, warfare was another means of winning or losing cattle), and at all times the nomads depend on the farmers for grain. The stories below explain why it is the Maasai who own the cattle, rather than other peoples. Both stories were collected around 1900.

THE ORIGIN OF CATTLE

Naiteru-Kop, one of the gods of the Maasai, walked the earth at the dawn of the world and he found it already held some inhabitants. He found a Dorobo (a member of a hunting people, also known as Okiek), a snake and an elephant living together. After Naiteru-Kop had passed by, the Dorobo found a cow in the bush and took it as his property. After that, the Dorobo would take the cow out into the grasslands to watch it feed, and then return to the homestead that he shared with the elephant and the snake at night.

The snake often sneezed, for it crawled in the dust which was trampled by the man, the cow and the elephant, and when it sneezed it sprayed its venom in the air. The elephant did not feel anything, its hide was so thick; but the man became very uncomfortable and developed rashes. The Dorobo complained to the snake, and the snake answered that the sneezing was not its fault, but happened because of all the dust around their camp. That night, while the elephant and the snake were sleeping, the Dorobo took a cudgel and crushed the snake’s head. Then he cast the snake’s carcass in the bush. The elephant asked after the snake in the morning, and the Dorobo said he had no idea where the snake had gone. From his manner the elephant guessed that the human had killed the snake. But they continued to live together.

A season of rains came, turning the grass green and covering the land with small puddles in which the Dorobo’s cow could drink. But after the rains had passed the waterholes dried up until there was only one left. This was the elephant’s favourite spot; it was the elephant’s custom to graze upon the tall grass, harvesting it by the bushel with its trunk, and then to go down to the waterhole and loll in the water and the cool mud. During the rainy season, the elephant gave birth to a calf, and the two of them would do this together.

When the rains had ended, the Dorobo could find no other water for his cow than the elephant’s waterhole. He asked the elephant not to muddy the hole, so that he could water his cow, but the elephant answered that its custom had always been to enjoy the hole and it did not wish to change. So in secret the Dorobo made an arrow, and then one evening he shot the elephant and it died. When the mother elephant died, the calf went away: the older elephant had warned it about the Dorobo and how the man had killed the snake, and now the man had killed the elephant. The calf went to another country.

There, the calf met a man, a Maasai named Le-eyo, and they talked. The elephant calf told the Maasai why it had run away from the Dorobo who had killed the snake and the elephant to protect himself and his cow. Le-eyo said he wished to see this man, and so the elephant calf agreed to show him the way. They went back to the camp. There, the Maasai was very surprised by the hut the Dorobo had built: it was built on end, so that the doorway looked up at the heavens. While they were standing there, Naiteru-Kop called out to tell the Dorobo to come out the next morning. Le-eyo heard the message, and so the next morning it was the Maasai and not the Dorobo who went to learn what Naiteru-Kop wished to tell him.

Naiteru-Kop gave Le-eyo instructions, and he followed them carefully. He built himself a large enclosure, and to one side he built a little hut of bent branches and grasses. Then he searched the bush and found a thin calf. He took it back to his enclosure and slaughtered it. But he did not eat the meat. Instead, he spread out the calf’s hide and piled the meat upon it, and then he tied it up into a great bundle. He built a very large fire in the centre of his enclosure, and when it was roaring he lifted the bundle of the calf’s meat and threw it into the fire. Then he hid in the hut. As he did so, the clouds gathered thickly overhead and thunder rolled over the plains.

While the man was hidden in the hut, a leather cord dropped from the heavens and cattle of all sorts began to come down the cord into the enclosure. They descended until the enclosure was filled and they were bumping against each other to make space. One of them then put its foot through the wall of the Maasai man’s hut, and he cried out in alarm and surprise. At the sound, the cattle ceased coming down the cord from heaven. Naiteru-Kop called out, and Le-eyo went out to answer his call. ‘These are all the cattle you shall receive,’ said Naiteru-Kop, ‘because by your cry you have stopped them coming. But they shall be yours to tend, and with them you shall live.’

Since that time, the Maasai have herded their cattle. The Dorobo have become hunters, using clubs and bows and arrows to kill their prey. When people who are not Maasai own cattle, the Maasai presume that the cattle have been stolen from Maasai and try to reclaim them.

Later, Naiteru-Kop told Le-eyo what to do in the case of death: the body should be disposed of, and he should say, ‘Man, you have died and shall return. Moon, you shall die and not return.’ But the first person to die was a child, not of Le-eyo’s family, and so when Le-eyo took the body into the bush he said, ‘Child, you have died. Do not return. Moon, die and then return.’ So the child did not return, and the moon began to wax and wane. Later, one of Le-eyo’s own children died. He took it into the bush and said, ‘Child, you have died and you shall return. Moon, you shall die and not return.’ But Naiteru-Kop spoke from the sky and said that he could not change matters now; what he had said at first would be the rule for humans.

When Le-eyo was close to death, he called his children and asked them what they wanted of his belongings. One son answered that he wanted a share in all his father’s wealth. So Le-eyo gave him cattle, goats, sheep and grain. The younger son answered that he wanted only the fan which his father always carried under his arm. His father smiled at that, and promised him that because he had chosen well he would always have power. So the younger son became the ancestor of the cattle-herding Maasai, while the older son’s descendants are considered to be inferior.

WOMEN AND THE CAMPS

An old man had three children: a son and two daughters. The son was made responsible for the family’s cattle. There came a time of warfare with neighbouring peoples, and so no one dared leave the group or take the cattle far to graze or to find the salt-licks which the animals loved. After some time, the animals began to suffer from the lack of salt, and so the son decided that he would venture out to the salt-lick. The elder daughter accompanied him. The brother told the younger sister that if she saw a great smoke, it would be a sign they were safe. He and his sister then established a small camp. During the day, the sister stayed in the camp while the brother tended the cattle in the bush.

After some days, though, the brother noticed odd footprints in the enclosure he had made of thorns and branches, and he guessed that while he was in the bush, men had come to visit his sister. But the sister told him nothing of this. So the next day, the young man drove the cattle off as usual, but then circled back in secret and spied on the cattle-pen. His suspicions were justified. After he left, warriors from the enemy group came from the bush and approached his sister; clearly, they were on terms of intimacy. As they left, she told them to stay nearby and listen for her voice: when her brother was busy milking the cattle she would begin to sing, and they would then be able to seize his cattle.

The brother took the cattle back into the bush, and at the end of the day he returned to the enclosure. But he did not take his weapons to the shelter, as was his custom. Instead, he laid them on the ground near him in the enclosure. Then he fetched the gourds and began to milk the cattle. As he did so, his sister came out of the hut and began to sing. Immediately, one of the enemy leaped over the thorn-fence. But the brother was expecting this; he had seized his spear, and the enemy died immediately. Another man leaped the fence; he too was killed. The brother killed five men before the others fled.

He then collected firewood and burned the bodies of the enemy. The smoke rose high, and far away his younger sister saw it. She announced to the family that her brother had signalled that he was safe, and so the family moved out to join him at the salt-lick.

There was discussion of the behaviour of the elder sister. Her father immediately found her a husband, because he said that it was frustration that had made her betray her brother. Since that time, women have been free to come and go at the warriors’ camps, because it seems safer to allow them the liberty than to attempt control.

THE GREAT LAKES I: THE ORIGIN OF CATTLE (RWANDA)

The highlands between the great lakes of the Rift Valley have been compared to an earthly paradise. The altitude moderates the equatorial heat and draws ample rainfall, the volcanic soils are fertile, and humans have settled there and prospered. The kingdoms of the region are treated individually below (Chapters 27–30: Bunyoro, Buganda, Rwanda, Burundi), but cattle are sufficiently important for representative stories from this region about the origin of cattle to be given as well as other stories of cattle. These stories are part of larger dynastic narratives, and were collected in the early twentieth century.

Gihanga was one of the first kings of Rwanda, and he is said to have invented the making of vessels and containers from wood and gourds. He travelled, and married two women from different places; the first gave him a daughter, Nyirarucyaba, and eventually the second wife also became pregnant. Gihanga provided for his wives by hunting. When he returned from the hunt, he would give to each of his wives in turn the hide of his kill. But one day he brought home the hide of a cerval, beautifully spotted. Both wives wanted the skin and began to fight over it. The daughter, Nyirarucyaba, ran to the aid of her mother and struck the second wife, who was still pregnant, with a sharpened stake. She pierced the belly, and the woman died. But the child was saved: it was a boy and they named him Gafomo because he had been born before his time.

Nyirarucyaba feared her father’s anger and so she fled into the forest. There a hunter found her and gave her shelter, and eventually they married and Nyirarucyaba bore him a child. One day, as she was walking near their camp, she saw a cow feeding her calf; she was able to get close and to taste some of the milk that had spilled, and she found it delicious. After some thought, she caught the calf with a rope of braided vines and led it to her camp; the cow followed quietly after it. Her husband, the hunter, at first refused to drink the milk, but eventually was brought to do so when he was sick.

After some time, Nyirarucyaba learned that her father was sick, and so she decided to take him some of the marvellous substance she had discovered. She did so, and he recovered immediately. He pressed her to give him the cow, and she agreed only after he had threatened to kill her husband and child.

Gihanga discovered where the cows came from: they came out of a lake. He prepared his men to go and capture all the cows, but diviners warned him that he should send away his son Gafomo, who might spoil the enterprise. So he sent Gafomo off on an errand while everyone else prepared to go down to the lake. But Gafomo secretly turned back and followed them to the lake-side, and there he climbed a thorny tree known as a mushubi.

The cows began coming out of the lake to graze on the grass, and men caught them with braided ropes and led them quietly away. Then came the bull of the herd, and seeing it Gafomo was frightened and called out from the top of his tree. The bull turned back into the lake, leading the rest of the cows with him, and the men were not able to get all the cows they wanted. At that time they renamed Gafomo after the tree in which he had sat, and his name became Gashubi.

Gihanga then allotted portions to his children, and he named Kinyarwanda to be king after him. When Nyirarucyaba came and asked what her share was to be, Gihanga told her that she and her descendants could come to the king as he was being enthroned and demand milk, and he would have to provide her with milk.

Kinyarwanda later decreed that women should not milk cows, because the squatting position was obscene.

THE GREAT LAKES II: THE STORY OF WAMARA (BAHAYA)

The BaHaya live on the south-western shores of Lake Victoria (Victoria Nyanza), and in former times were divided into several principalities or kingdoms (Kiziba, Ihangira, Usswi). Much material from their traditions of origin is shared with neighbouring peoples (Kintu is the central figure), proof of a common origin at least for the ruling dynasty and their idioms of power. The BaHaya are also noted for their iron-working.

A jackal came at night and yapped around the compound of King Wamara, disturbing his sleep, and so Wamara and his two principal chiefs Irungu and Mugasha went out hunting for the animal. They quickly started it from the bush, and then their dogs pursued it as it led them on a course which ended in a cave. Following the trail, Wamara, Mugasha and Irungu found themselves in an underground world, a place they had never seen before. This was the land of Kintu, who rules beneath the earth. Kintu ordered the strangers to be brought before him, and then greeted them politely. He asked them where they had come from and who they were, and Wamara answered.

Then Kintu offered them food. Fearful, Wamara ordered Mugasha and Irungu to taste it first. Kintu’s servants brought banana beer and goat-meat; Mugasha was unable to stomach this food and threw up, but Irungu tasted it, found it delicious, and recommended it to his king.

Then Kintu’s servants brought in a kitare cow, one of the beautiful long-horned cows with a brilliant white coat, attended by a maiden who milked her before the visitors. Kintu offered them the milk; Wamara told Mugasha not to bother tasting it, because he trusted Irungu’s opinion. Irungu drank a bit from the bowl and then told his king, ‘Of all that we have been offered here, this is the best.’ Wamara tasted the milk and fell in love with the cow.

Kintu expressed surprise that they did not have such provisions in their world above the ground, and then invited them to stay. For nine days they remained in Kintu’s caves, and during that time Mugasha wandered through Kintu’s domains and saw his people cultivating fields and growing different crops; he collected the seeds of the different crops that he encountered.

Kintu, meanwhile, assembled a herd of cattle and goats, and when the time had come for Wamara to return to his kingdom, Kintu offered to send the livestock up with Wamara, on condition that Wamara send back the servants, including the maiden who attended the kitare cow, and that he should not forget to thank Kintu for the gifts.

They returned home, and found some of the followers still waiting outside the cave. Then they returned to the court. Mugasha set about planting the seeds he had brought with him, assisted by his wife. Wamara shared the milk from the cattle with his household, and showed his wives how to anoint themselves with butter so that their skin glistened. He would sit admiring the kitare cow, the pride of his herd, and the servants heard him say, ‘I should die if I lost her.’

But despite his love of the cattle, Wamara forgot to give thanks to Kintu for his gifts, and beneath the earth Kintu became impatient. Eventually, he asked his servants which of them would go to punish the humans for their forgetfulness. Rufu, death, presented himself. He would go and remind the humans of their debt.

But when Rufu came to Wamara’s court, Wamara’s men beat him mercilessly with sticks and he was forced to flee. Wherever he hid, they found him and beat him, until he came across the maiden from Kintu’s land who watched over the cow. She took him beneath her wrap and hid him inside her vagina, and so he escaped the pursuers.

Later, he came out and seized the opportunity to drag the kitare cow into a swamp so that it drowned. And then people remembered what they had heard Wamara say, that he would die if ever he lost the kitare cow. Wamara went with his followers to the swamp and threw himself into the morass; Irungu and the other servants followed him.

After their deaths, Wamara, Mugasha and Irungu became bachwezi spirits watching over humans. Mugasha in particular is associated with the lake and its storms, but he is also thanked for the food he provided for people.

THE CHAGGA OF EAST AFRICA: MURILE

The Chagga are a farming people who live in Tanzania in the region at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and nowadays they are known mainly for growing coffee. Their story of Murile, collected early in the last century while the region was still a German colony, can serve to illustrate an appreciation of cattle from a people that was not marked strongly by pastoralism or by the ‘cattle complex’. One might compare Murile’s transformation of a yam into a child with Khaggen’s transformation of a leather scrap into an eland.

The boy Murile was the eldest of three sons. He assisted his mother when she went out to gather colocasia roots (a sort of yam) which they were going to store and then plant in their fields. One day they dug up a particularly fine root, and Murile told his mother that it reminded him of his youngest brother. The mother laughed at the idea, but Murile found that the image of the root stayed in his mind. Some days later, he slipped into the storeroom and removed the root; he found a hiding place for it in the hollow of a tree-trunk. There he sang a spell over it and poured water upon it. The next day, when he returned, he found that the root had become a little child.

He fed the child in the hollow of the tree from his own share of the family’s food; he would scrape a handful or two into a small bag which he kept hidden at his side, and then eat one or two more mouthfuls. But he himself started to suffer from his limited rations, and his mother began to worry about him. She asked his younger brothers what he was doing, and they told her that he always put a part of his food into a small bag. She asked them to find out for her what he was doing with this food, and so they watched him more carefully and soon discovered that he was taking the food to a tree-trunk in the bush. They told their mother, and one day she went to the tree-trunk and found the child in the hollow. She had no idea where this child had come from, but she saw it as a threat to her own son Murile, since he was suffering from a lack of food on the account of this child. So she killed the child and returned to her camp.

That evening, after dinner, Murile slipped away again with the share of food which he kept for his root-child. But when he came to the hollow he heard no noise, and when he looked inside he found the child lying lifeless on the ground. At first he could not believe that it was dead; he lifted it and called to it. He sang a song over it. But the body remained limp. Then he wept for a long time. It was late that night when he returned to his parents’ camp.

The next day he broke out weeping again as they sat together in the morning, and his mother asked him what was the matter. He answered that it was the smoke from the fire burning his eyes. She told him to move to another side of the fire. But tears continued to stream down his face, and eventually she told him he should move away from the fire entirely. He took his father’s small stool and sat down at the end of their cleared space.

He began to sing. He sang to the stool on which he was sitting, telling it to carry him up higher than the tree-tops, higher than the clouds. The stool lifted off the ground and Murile rose into the air. His younger brothers saw him and shouted. His mother came and cried out, calling on him to return to the ground. He shouted back that he was going away and he would never come back. His father called to him. Neighbours and relatives, drawn by the noise, came and called to him. To all he gave the same answer: he was going away and he would never return.

The stool carried him into the air until he reached the land above the clouds. He got off the stool and walked for some way through empty lands of trees and bushes until he met some people cutting grass to serve as thatch. Murile asked them where he was, and they said they had no time to speak to idle hands. So Murile joined them in their work and cut several bundles of grass which he bound up with vines. Then the people told him he was in the land of the Moon, and that the Moon had a great palace, and they pointed him in the direction of the palace. Murile walked on, and a bit further he found young men cutting saplings to serve as a base for the thatch roofs. Murile helped them, and they pointed him on his way. Closer to the settlement he found fields, and there he helped the people who were setting and watering beds, and others who were hoeing the weeds. After the fields he came to the well, and he helped the water-carriers by carrying a pot back into the kitchen area.

The women who were preparing the food invited him to sit and join the meal when they fed the workers, and so he sat down with the other men. To his surprise, the food was not cooked. There were roots and bulbs, such as he ate at home, but although they were sliced thin they were still raw. There were thin strips of meat laid over the pounded grain, but these too were raw. Murile wondered at this, and after the meal he asked the head cook if that was the only way they knew to prepare their food. The cook answered that it was.

‘I know a different way,’ said Murile. ‘Give me some tubers and some meat, and I shall show you something new.’ The cook agreed and gave Murile the foodstuffs. Murile went behind the palace and collected some dry wood and some tinder and laid out a fire. Then he made himself a fire-starter from several pieces of wood: the base and the twirling shaft, and a small bow whose string was looped around the shaft. He sawed with the bow for a short time and soon the tinder began to glow and smoke, and after that the dry wood caught on fire. Murile roasted the tubers in the coals and then grilled the meat on sticks. He brought the meal back to the cook who tasted it and cried out in delight and amazement. The cook immediately hastened to the Moon to offer him this new delicacy, and Murile followed after.

The Moon was delighted with the new foods, and promised Murile any reward he might wish for the secret of its preparation. Murile asked for such wealth as was available, and he was given cattle and goats and sheep, as well as several wives. He settled in the Moon’s palace and lived there for some time.

After many years, he felt a longing for the earth and his family. So he thought how he might manage a return. He had told his family that he would never return, but such promises can be changed. He decided to send a bird as a messenger to announce his return. The bird flew down to Murile’s family and sang to them about his imminent return, but the people did not believe the words of a bird. Nevertheless, Murile set out. His wives and much of his wealth remained in the land of the Moon, but he took some boys to help him drive a great herd of cattle and goats before them. They walked and walked, for the path down to the earth was much longer when there was no flying stool to carry a body. After some time Murile began to feel tired. He was walking near his finest ox, a beautiful bull with great horns and a sleek coloured hide. The bull saw that he was tired, and spoke to him. The bull agreed to let Murile ride on his back if Murile swore that he would never touch the bull’s meat, and Murile readily made the promise, for he had no intention of ever using the bull for food. So Murile was riding a bull when he reached his parents’ camp.

They welcomed him joyously, for they had never expected to see him again and here he had returned bringing great wealth with him. He settled with them, giving strict instructions that the bull who had served as his steed must be kept in safety until the end of its days, and that its meat should never be used as food.

He lived with his family on earth for many years, and in this time the bull became old and slow. One day, without consulting his son, Murile’s father decided that the bull’s time had come and he slaughtered it. They cut up the meat and held a great feast. Murile realized that they were eating the meat of the bull which had helped him, and so he abstained from the meal. His mother noticed this, and became concerned that her son was not getting the nourishment he needed. She did not accept his reasons for not eating the meat of the bull. So she saved some of the fat and later prepared a dish of cooked grain in which she used the fat as seasoning.

As soon as Murile took a mouthful of the dish, the food spoke to him. ‘You have broken your promise,’ it said. ‘You said my meat would never touch your mouth.’

‘Mother,’ cried Murile, ‘you have given me the meat I forbade.’ But his mother simply told him to be quiet and to finish his meal. So he ate another mouthful, and yet another. But with each mouthful, his body sank further into the ground until he was completely swallowed up by the earth. So he disappeared, leaving his cattle and goats as wealth for his family.

Texts selected by Stephen Belcher in "African Myths of Origin", Penguin Books, UK, 2004, excerpts chapters 8 to 13. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.