African Myths and Legends Read online




  First published as Daughter of the Moonlight and Other African Tales

  by Struik Publishers (Pty) Ltd in 1994, and South African Myths and Legends

  by Struik Publishers (Pty) Ltd in 1995

  This combined edition first published in 2001 by Struik Publishers

  Second edition published in 2008

  Reprinted in 2009

  Third edition published in 2014 by Struik Lifestyle

  (an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd)

  Company Reg. No. 1966/003153/07

  Wembley Square, Solan Road, Gardens, Cape Town 8001

  PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

  www.randomstruik.co.za

  Copyright © in published edition: Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd 1994, 1995, 2001, 2008, 2014

  Copyright © in text Dianne Stewart 1994, 2001, (pp 8-51) 2008, 2014

  Copyright © in text Jay Heale 1995, 2001, (pp 52-95) 2008, 2014

  Copyright © in illustrations 2014: Gina Daniel/Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd (pp 8-51), and Angus McBride/Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd (cover, pp 52-95)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and the copyright holders.

  Publisher: Linda de Villiers

  Managing editor: Cecilia Barfield

  Design manager: Beverley Dodd

  Illustrators: Gina Daniel (pp 8-51) and Angus McBride (cover, pp 52-95)

  Designer 3rd edition: Randall Watson

  Proofreader: Anja Grobler

  ISBN: 978-1-43230-350-1 (print)

  ISBN: 978-1-43230-441-6 (epub)

  ISBN: 978-1-43230-442-3 (PDF)

  Contents

  Introduction

  The sun and moon of the San people

  The hungry jackal

  The milk bird

  Frog’s first croak

  The cattle herder’s song

  Hen and Hawk’s lost friendship

  The hunters and the honeyguide

  The test of fire

  Daughter of the moonlight

  The two sisters of the Maluti Mountains

  Jackal and the trusting lion

  The hole in the wall

  Van Hunks and the devil

  Seven magic birds

  The wagtail’s necklace

  The rain bull

  Renier and the thundertops

  The killers of Prinsloo’s Kloof

  The Flying Dutchman

  The legend of the lost Kruger millions

  The ghosts of the Castle

  The wreck of the Grosvenor

  Introduction

  African folktales were originally not written down, but were passed on from one generation to another by word of mouth. They were performed live and although the same folktales were told many, many times, they were never exactly the same.

  In this book you will find myths that are a bit like the fairy tales of old Africa. They contain magic and imagination. Sometimes they try to explain why the world is as it is, and sometimes they just entertain. Here, too, are time-worn legends that started with a true happening and then the story took on a life of its own. Now no-one can be sure what is truth and what is invented.

  In traditional societies in southern Africa there is a taboo against telling folktales during the day, for fear that the storyteller would grow horns. But if the daily tasks were completed and grandmother or aunt could be persuaded to tell a story before the sun had set, both the storyteller and the audience would put a piece of wood in their hair just above the forehead to prevent horns from growing.

  Some of the stories in this book represent, in some way, the many different people who make up our country: the Bushmen (San), Khoi (Hottentot), the Xhosa- and Zulu-speaking people, and some half-remembered moments in our shadowy history. Some of the stories are also connected with places such as Table Mountain, the Wild Coast, the Castle in Cape Town and Mpumalanga.

  It is said that men were expert tellers of animal tales, because they knew the wildlife so well. In these tales, the animals keep their own appearance and identity, but they behave and speak as humans do. The greedy Hyena, for example, is easily fooled. Although Elephant is slow, he is reliable and thinks things over carefully. Tortoise is also very slow, but he is very wise and is the only animal who is able to outwit Hare, the trickster.

  So here, in this book are myths that never happened, alongside legends that just might be true. It’s up to you to decide.

  DIANNE STEWART AND JAY HEALE

  2001

  The sun and moon of the San people

  SAN

  Long, long ago, when there were not as many people living on the southern tip of Africa as there are now, the San people spoke of a time when the sun was a man who lived amongst them. When the sun man lifted his arm, light streamed from his armpit and the world basked in its warmth, but when he lowered his arm again, the world became dark and cold.

  One day a childless San woman spoke to another woman as she sat in the sun, her children playing happily around her.

  ‘I have been watching the sun man and he seems to be growing old. He spends much of his time sleeping. Tell your children to gently lift up his arm when he is asleep, so that bright sunlight can shine from his armpit.’

  ‘Yes,’ added the mother of the children. ‘It is cold without his light and warmth.’

  Then the childless woman continued: ‘Tell your children to lift the sun man onto their shoulders and throw him into the sky, so that he can truly become the sun, and warm us all the time.’

  So, later the San children crept along the soft sand, leaving a trail of footprints behind them, like the spoor of an animal. They hid behind a clump of thorn bushes, and waited for the sun man to lie down and sleep.

  The children watched as he knelt, then lay down, stretching his body out on the sand.

  He lifted up his arm and rays of sunshine lit up the clumps of grass and spreading plants which grew around him. For a while it was bright and warm.

  ‘Keep very still,’ said the eldest child. ‘Don’t let him see us.’

  When the sun man lowered his arm, the children shivered as the cold descended on them. But after a while, they heard the sound of his heavy breathing, carried to them by the gentle breeze as it danced playfully around them.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ whispered the eldest child.

  Creeping forward as quietly as hunters stalk their prey, the children approached the sun man. They checked that he was still asleep, then lifted his arm. They were bathed in bright light.

  Then, working together, sharing the weight of the load, the children lifted the sun man up onto their shoulders, and they were greatly warmed by just touching him.

  ‘Remember what the old woman told us to tell him,’ said the youngest San child.

  When the sun man became almost too hot to hold, they hurled him up towards the sky, saying:

  ‘Man of the sun, become the sun in its fullness. Stay in the sky, so that you will light up the land and take away the darkness. As you travel the sky, give us warmth so the San rice will dry and we’ll be warm.’

  As he moved upwards with his arms outstretched, bright light shone from the glaring sky. Then he became round like the sun and was no longer a man.

  When the sun was in the sky it was bright and the San people could see one another clearly. The children found grasshoppers and flying ants. The men hunted eland, ostrich, springbok and gemsbok, and the women looked for food.

  When it was night, the sun disappeared over the horizon, taking away its light and then the moon
appeared to lighten the darkness.

  But the sun would chase the moon away again, and it was told to the San children at the time that the sun stabbed the moon with its knife, so that it slowly became smaller and smaller.

  The moon protested to the sun: ‘The children need just a sliver of light.’ So the sun agreed to allow the backbone of the moon to remain. But when the moon shrunk until it was no more than a thin sliver, it went home in great sorrow. It couldn’t give much light. But then it put on a new stomach and became whole again, like a full moon.

  And the San reminded their children that Mantis so disliked the dark that he threw his shoe up into the sky and it became the moon. So the new moon drifted through the night sky feeling like the shoe of the Mantis.

  Many moons have passed since the first time the San told this tale to their children. And as the bright moon cast its light on them, they were reminded of the time when the moon was once also a man who could talk. He took Tortoise aside and told him that he was entrusting him with a very important message to deliver to mankind.

  Tell the people that as I dying live again, so you dying will live again.’

  And so Tortoise started out early as he knew how long it would take him to reach the people.

  ‘As I dying, live again,’ Tortoise repeated quietly to himself over and over again as he crossed the sand. ‘As I living …’

  But the more he repeated the message to himself, the more confused Tortoise became, and it wasn’t long before he had to admit to himself that he had forgotten the message completely.

  There was only one thing to do. Tortoise turned around and began retracing his tracks on the return journey to the moon.

  ‘I am very disappointed in you, Tortoise,’ said the moon angrily. ‘I will have to think of another plan.’

  The moon, brushing Tortoise aside, called on Hare and said: ‘As you are a fast runner, deliver this message to the people: As I dying, live again, so you dying will live again.’

  Hare skidded off across the sand, running as fast as he could. But he soon came across the tender, young shoots of a green plant, and was distracted. He stopped, caught his breath and began to nibble on them hungrily.

  Suddenly he remembered the moon’s message: ‘As I live, dying … as I dying live … which was it?’

  Hare panicked. He had forgotten the moon’s words, but he was too scared to go back to moon to find out what it was.

  And so he ran on towards the people, playing with words in his mind, arranging and rearranging them until he was convinced that he had remembered the correct message.

  Then the Hare said to the people: ‘The moon says: “As I dying live again, so you dying will die forever.’”

  When the moon heard that Hare had delivered the message incorrectly, he was so angry that he split Hare’s lip with a stick. That is why, say the San, the Hare has a cleft upper lip.

  Mantis and the storytellers

  Some African people explain the origin of the sun and the moon through ancient tales passed down from one generation to the next. The San are known to be Africa’s great storytellers. But many San stories also tell us about animals who had, in a time almost forgotten, once been people. Perhaps the most respected of these extraordinary creatures was the praying mantis. In San mythology, the Moon is represented as the shoe of the Mantis, which he threw into the sky to give him light. Mantis had as his wife Dassie or Rock Rabbit. Some of these creatures may still be seen in the remarkable rock paintings left behind by the San people.

  San or Bushmen rice is a term for termite or ant eggs which are considered a delicacy.

  The hungry jackal

  KHOIKHOI

  A wind appeared from nowhere and set the landscape in motion. Gusts swirled above the earth, gathering up the dry red dust which caked the sparsely scattered bushes and tufts of bristly grass.

  It carried the scent of Black-backed Jackal to the sheltered place where Spotted Hyena lay sleeping under a bush. By the time Hyena had come to her senses, Jackal had slinked closer and closer, carrying his tail upwards over his back.

  ‘On the prowl again, Jackal?’ asked Hyena, with a hint of curiosity in her voice.

  ‘I’m always on the lookout for a good meal,’ laughed Jackal, scanning the horizon as he spoke.

  White clouds built up in the distance and the wind chased them across the usually empty sky. Then a low bank of cloud blew towards Jackal and Hyena, and seemed to hover above them in the lower reaches of the sky.

  ‘There’s fat,’ said the scavenger Jackal, dashing towards the cloud as it stretched out before him. He leaped onto the mountain of cloud and was carried across the sky by the wind.

  Hyena was amazed and fixed her gaze on the clouds as the wind pinned her round ears back and ruffled her tawny grey mane. All she could see was Jackal’s bushy tail peering through a gap in the grey-tinged cloud.

  Suddenly, Jackal’s satisfied face, with its long pointed ears and sharp snout, appeared over the edge of the cloud. Jackal shouted to his friend: ‘Hyena, I’ve eaten all I can. I want to get off this cloud. I’m a long way from the ground. Please catch me when I jump down.’

  Hyena said nothing.

  ‘Please, Hyena. I’ll share my wonderful feast with you,’ pleaded Jackal. ‘There is more than enough fat up here for you too.’

  ‘Jump then, Jackal. I’ll catch you,’ laughed Hyena.

  So Jackal fell down towards the dusty earth and Hyena caught him, breaking his fall. When he had caught his breath, Jackal said: ‘Right, Hyena, it’s your turn now. Wait for a low cloud to pass and then run and jump up onto it.’

  When the clouds came nearer, Hyena ran towards the horizon and jumped onto a bank of cloud. It rose up, up, up, into the windswept sky and carried Hyena along with it.

  When she had eaten as much as she could, she leant over the edge of the cloud and called down to her tawny, friend: ‘Jackal! J-a-ck-a-l! I want to come down. Please break my fall.’

  Cunning Jackal replied: ‘Look, my friend, my hands are outstretched, ready to catch you.’

  Down, down fell Hyena. But just as she was about to fall into Jackal’s arms, he screamed:

  ‘Wait, Hyena! Wait! I’ve been pricked by a thorn. Ouch! Ouch!’

  ‘Too late! I can’t wait,’ cried Hyena, plunging with lightning speed towards the ground.

  Spotted Hyena landed with a thud. She was hurt by the fall and lay crumpled on the ground. And since that day her left hind foot has been smaller and shorter than the right foot.

  In days gone by, this is the story the Khoikhoi, or Hottentots, told their young children to explain why Hyena seems lame in her back legs when she first starts to walk. But they also had many, many other tales about wily Jackal that told of both his cunning and crafty ways.

  They tell, too, of how the sly Jackal tricked the foolish Hyena out of a magnificent feast. The story, as told by the Khoikhoi, is something like this:

  The wooden wagon was packed with glistening, gleaming fish that had been caught earlier in the day. A helper signalled to the driver of the wagon and together they began to haul their heavy load across the white sands that lined the blue-green waters of the Cape.

  The afternoon sea-breeze carried the salty tang of the waves with them as they climbed the steep slope that flattened out at the top of the cliff.

  The scent of fresh fish caught the attention of Jackal as the wagon trundled slowly along the bumpy old road that led away from the coast. Led by his nose, he kept his distance at first, slinking along behind the wagon, unnoticed by the two men on the wagon seat.

  Jackal tried to think of ways of getting into the wagon from behind. But it seemed impossible to do so without being noticed. Then cunning Jackal had an idea. He ran along the side of the road, hidden by the bushes that grew along the track, until he was well ahead of the wagon.

  Then he lay down in the middle of the road and waited. He grew restless when he couldn’t hear the wheels of the wagon as they gouged their path along the roa
d.

  ‘Perhaps the wagon has stopped for the night,’ Jackal thought. ‘Or perhaps the drivers have decided to take another route.’

  But, after a while, Jackal heard the creaking wagon in the distance and he lay very still. When the wagon was almost upon him, the helper shouted to the driver: ‘Look at that jackal lying there dead in the middle of the road. You could turn him into a fine kaross for your wife.’

  ‘Good idea’ answered the driver, but as he was eager to continue on his journey, his helper casually flung the jackal onto the back of the wagon.

  As the light faded and Jackal bumped along in the back, he threw fish out onto the road, one by one – leaving a trail of shiny silver fish behind the wagon.

  When he had thrown out enough fish for a feast, Jackal leapt off the back of the wagon and hungrily gobbled up the fish. He tore at the fresh flesh, and licked his lips.

  Jackal was so busy savouring every mouthful that he hadn’t noticed Hyena slink up behind him. Hyena, too, was hungry and began to help herself to the fish that lay strewn across the road.

  Jackal watched angrily as he saw his supply of fish quickly disappear into Hyena’s stomach.

  ‘Why don’t you do as I did, Hyena?’ said Jackal peering at his friend. ‘Lie very still on the road in the path of the wagon and you’ll also be thrown onto the back as I was.’

  Hyena took the advice and waited at the side of the road for another wagon to come by. Eventually she heard the groaning and creaking of wagon-wheels and lay down in the road ahead of the wagon.

  When he was almost upon the animal, the driver said: ‘What an ugly beast! Get out of the way!’

  Taking a stick, he prodded Hyena, who was too scared to do anything but remain as still as if she were dead. And instead of being thrown onto the back of the wagon, like Jackal had said, the wagon continued on its journey without her.

  Hyena picked up her bruised, sore body and hobbled off to find Jackal. Jackal had already eaten his share of the fish and had given the rest to his family.