I begin with the Creation of Man merely for preference, and not according to the date on which it was related. The legend was delivered by Matageza, a native of the Basoko, in December, 1883. (The Basoko are a tribe occupying the right bank of the Aruwimi river from its confluence with the Congo to within a short distance of the rapids of Yambuya, and inland for a few marches.) He had been an assiduous attendant at our nightly circle, but hitherto had not opened his mouth. Finally, as the silence at the camp fire was getting somewhat awkward, Baruti, one of my tent-boys, was pressed to say something; but he drew back, saying that he never was able to remember a thing that was told to him, but, added he, “Matageza is clever; I have heard him tell a long legend about the making of the first man by the moon.”
All eyes were at once turned upon Matageza, who was toasting his feet by a little fire of his own, and there was a chorus of cries for “Matageza! Matageza!” He affected great reluctance to come forward, but the men, whose curiosity was aroused, would not take a denial, and some of them seized him, and dragged him with loud laughter to the seat of honour. After a good deal of urging and a promise of a fine cloth if the story was good, he cleared his throat and began the strange legend of the Creation of Man as follows:—
Chapter One.
The Creation of Man.
In the old, old time, all this land, and indeed all the whole earth was covered with sweet water.
But the water dried up or disappeared somewhere, and the grasses, herbs, and plants began to spring up above the ground, and some grew, in the course of many moons, into trees, great and small, and the water was confined into streams and rivers, pools and lakes, and as the rain fell it kept the streams and rivers running, and the pools and lakes always fresh. There was no living thing moving upon the earth, until one day there sat by one of the pools a large Toad. How long he had lived, or how he came to exist, is not known; it is suspected, however, that the water brought him forth out of some virtue that was in it. In the sky there was only the Moon glowing and shining—on the earth there was but this one Toad. It is said that they met and conversed together, and that one day the Moon said to him:
“I have an idea. I propose to make a man and a woman to live on the fruits of the earth, for I believe that there is rich abundance of food on it fit for such creatures.”
“Nay,” said the Toad, “let me make them, for I can make them fitter for the use of the earth than thou canst, for I belong to the earth, while thou belongest to the sky.”