There is a rather curious Nyanja story, introducing a being very like the Chiruwi mentioned in Chapter III. Some children went out into the Bush to gather masuku fruit. While they were out, it came on to rain, and the stream which they had crossed easily was full when they reached it on the way home, and too deep to ford. While they were considering what to do, there came along ‘a big bird, with one wing, one eye, and one leg,’ and carried them over, strictly charging them to tell no one at home that it had done so. One boy, however, told his mother what had happened; the rest all denied it, and asked people not to listen to him, saying they had crossed in the ordinary way. Next time they went to look for masuku they forded the stream, and some of them held out a branch to the boy who had talked, to help him over; it was rotten, and broke, and he was swept away by the current. They called out after him, ‘You told.’
Mr. Macdonald gives a story which in some respects reminds one of Grimm’s ‘Frau Holle,’ though not so much as does a Ronga one given by M. Junod under the title of La Route du Ciel. Both of these, though differing greatly from one another, are evidently the same tale. In the Yao one, a woman who has been persuaded by a trick to throw her baby into the water, and has seen it swallowed by a crocodile, climbs a tree in her distress, and says, ‘I want to go on high.’ The tree grows up with her and carries her to a strange country, where she meets, first, leopards, then the Nsenzi (a large kind of water-rat, or perhaps a bird), and lastly, some great fishes, who all show the way to Mulungu. When she reached ‘the village of Mulungu,’ she told her story. ‘Then Mulungu called the crocodile, and it came. Mulungu said, “Give up the child,” and it delivered it up. The girl received the child and went down to her mother. Her mother was much delighted and gave her much cloth and a good house.’
Her wicked companions were now envious, and, wishing to enjoy like good fortune, began by throwing their babies into the water. They climbed the tree and reached Mulungu’s country, but gave rude answers to the leopards, the nsenzi, and the fishes. ‘Then they came to Mulungu. Mulungu said, “What do you want?” The girls said, “We have thrown our children into the water.” But Mulungu said, “What was the reason of that?” The girls hid the matter and said “Nothing.” But Mulungu said, “It is false. You cheated your companion, saying, ‘Throw your child into the water,’ and now you tell me a lie.” Then Mulungu took a bottle of lightning, and said, “Your children are in here.” The girls took the bottle, and the bottle made a report like a gun. The girls both died.’
In the Ronga version, likewise, the wicked sister is killed by lightning. ‘Le ciel fit explosion et la tua.’ This story, which might almost be classed among religious legends (as, in fact, is done by Mr. Macdonald) has, in its simple way, something very pathetic about it.
The imported stories are interesting, as showing how their ideas and incidents have been translated, so to speak, into African. ‘Rombao,’ in Mr. Macdonald’s collection, told by a native of Quillimane, is perhaps of European origin. The names are Portuguese, and the theme is the familiar one of the Goose-girl; but it may be an Arab or Indian story which has acquired a Portuguese colouring on the Mozambique coast. M. Junod’s ‘Bonawasi’ is one of the Arab ‘Abû Nuwâs’ stories, which seem to be current all down the Swahili coast. Most of the Swahili tales in Steere’s collection are Arab, and some can be recognised in the ordinary editions of the Arabian Nights. It is curious to watch the gradual changes in the details, as these stories travel farther and farther into the interior. Harry Kambwiri, the Yao teacher who dictated the Hare story already given, once told me one which, he thought, must be ‘a story of the Azungu.’ He had got it from a Yao boy who had been to Zanzibar. I recognised it afterwards as the story of ‘The Three Blind Men,’ in Kibaraka. The Sultan’s treasure-chamber has become simply ‘the chief’s money,’ and the story is somewhat obscured by the loss of the distinctively Mohammedan touches. The ‘Story of a Chief,’ already referred to, was written down by one of the Yao boys educated at Domasi. It runs as follows:—
‘There was a chief who had ten sons, and three of them were poor. And the father brought three tusks of ivory to give to his three poor sons. The sons then said, “Let us go to the coast, let us buy goods.” And they called up men to carry their goods. Then they set off on their journey and came to the coast. When they arrived, they built a grass house and slept there one day. In the morning one of them set off with his tusk to buy goods, but his brothers did not know that he had gone to buy goods. And he bought a precious glass for looking into every land.
‘Then the second one set off and bought a mat for flying with into every land. Then the third bought a medicine for making people dead or alive. But each of these did not know that the others had gone to buy goods.
‘Afterwards, he who had the glass began to look into it. When he looked, he saw that in the land of his home there had died his friend. Then he told the others that there was a mourning, and they asked, “How do you know that at our home some one has died?” And he answered, “Because I looked in my glass.” Then he gave them the glass that they might look, and they saw their friend dead. Afterwards they began to grumble, saying, “If only we had medicine for flying”; and the second brother produced his mat. The others said, “Make us fly that we may reach our home to-day, that we may be at the funeral, because he was a friend of ours.” And he placed them on the mat, and they flew, and came to their village on the same day.
‘When they arrived, they again began to grumble, saying, “If only we had medicine to make this man alive, we would make him alive.” Then came the one who had medicine for making alive, and made the man alive again.