In a certain country there are a man and a woman, it is said. The
woman has been brought from another country (district). A paramour
has become associated with the woman.
She said to the woman's husband, "In our country there is a custom. In
the lower part of the garden we must offer cakes to the Yaka who is in
the lower part of the garden; if not, the Yaka causes sickness. When
I was living at my village, too, I offered them every day. Because
of it, we must offer them now also."
Afterwards the man said, "Ha, it is good. Continue to offer them. For
it, what else do you want, etc.?"
After that, the woman said, "We don't want anything else. Having
set up two sticks, cleft into four at the top (aewari kanu), we must
offer on one twenty cakes, on one thirty cakes. That is all."
Having cooked the cakes, on the day on which she offers them she
cannot cook more [food]. At the house no one can eat [afterwards on
that day]; should they eat they will die.
After that, the man having prepared the two cleft sticks in the lower
part of the garden, gave her them. From that day, the woman having
cooked fifty cakes, at one cleft stick offers twenty, at one cleft
stick thirty. [162]
When it is becoming dark, the paramour having come is in the lower
part of the garden. The woman having offered the cakes says, "Leaving
the twenty, taking the thirty, go, O Yaka." Having said [this] the
woman comes home.
The paramour having come, leaving the twenty, eats the thirty, and
goes away. Afterwards the woman having come [there], eats the twenty,
and goes back.
In that very manner, the woman every day having given cakes to that
paramour, the woman also eats. That man was unable to find out the
roguery.
North-western Province.
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 118, a
man who wished to have meat to eat, induced his sons to kill a sheep
and offer the flesh to the deity of a tree which stood in their field,
telling them that their prosperity was due to this god.