Nyambi and Kamunu.
A long while ago Nyambi and his wife Nasileli were the only people on earth. Nyambi was a very clever person and made trees, rivers, animals, birds, fishes, and when he had finished these he made a man Kamunu and his wife. He found this man Kamunu was quite different to the other things he made; if Kamunu saw Nyambi making a spoon or working iron, he immediately did the same. So Nyambi began to be rather frightened. One day Kamunu made a sharp piece of iron, and threw it at a lichwe antelope, killed it and eat it. When he found it was easy, he killed many animals like this. Then Nyambi was very angry with him, and asked him why he ate his brothers in this way. Then Nyambi drove Kamunu far away. Kamunu stopped away for some time, but at last he thought Nyambi would forgive him, so he came back. Then Sasisho (a small unknown animal), who was messenger to Nyambi, reported that he had seen Kamunu carrying an anvil and a pot of medicine. Then Kamunu asked Nyambi to give him a place to plant his gardens. This Nyambi did for him. When Kamunu’s mealies grew, the eland came and ate them, so Kamunu killed one of the eland. When he told Nyambi, Nyambi forgave him. Then Kamunu’s dog died, and shortly after his pot broke, and again soon after this his son died, and on each occasion Kamunu came to Nyambi to get medicine to prevent these accidents. But Nyambi was afraid of making Kamunu too powerful, so he told him he did not know of any medicine. At last Nyambi got tired of Kamunu, and jumped over a big river to an island in the middle, but Kamunu cut down a big bundle of reeds and floated across on this. Then Nyambi called all the animals and told them that Kamunu was the strongest and cleverest, and would kill all if they gave him the chance. So the weaker animals and birds all agreed to run away whenever they saw him, and the strong animals said they would try to hurt him if they saw him. Then Nyambi told the animals to bring fire-wood and make a huge fire. When this was done, he put the Nyungu-luila-matanda (a large pot of special medicine) on the fire to heat. When the fire was very fierce and the pot very hot, he called all the animals and Kamunu to see who could take the pot off the fire. The animals all tried in vain. Then Kamunu saw how hot it was, and threw water on the fire, and, taking a bundle of grass well soaked in water, he lifted the pot up with the grass and took it off the fire. Thus Nyambi showed the animals how wise Kamunu was. Soon Nyambi got so frightened of the cleverness of man that he called the spider to spin a thread from the earth to the sky, and by this means Nyambi went to live in the skies. Nyambi is the god of the Barozi, while Kamunu is the first man on earth.