The hare (_asima bieso_, native name) was known to everyone as a very
cunning animal. He was very fond of meat, although he was unable to
kill anything himself. He therefore thought out a scheme by which he
would be able to obtain meat without any trouble.
The first thing the hare did was to call all the animals together,
and when they arrived, he said: “We ought to have a king over us,” to
which the animals agreed, and, after some discussion, the elephant
was chosen. A law was also passed, at the hare’s suggestion, that a
piece of ground at the roadside should be set aside for the king’s
own private use, and that if anyone was caught defiling this piece of
ground in any way he should be killed and eaten.
In the night time the hare went to the king’s private piece of ground
and made a mess there.
When the morning came he hid himself in the bush near the place, in
order to see who might be the first animal to pass the piece of ground,
so that he could give false information against him.
After he had been waiting for a short time, a bush cat passed on his
way to the farm, whereupon the hare jumped up and said: “Have you
visited the king’s piece of ground this morning?” Upon the bush cat
saying “No,” the hare ordered him to go there at once. He did so, and
returned saying that the place was very dirty indeed. The hare then
said: “How is that possible? I visited the place myself this morning,
and it was quite clean then. You must have defiled it yourself, and I
shall report you.”
The hare then ran into the town and told the people what he had seen.
The big wooden drum was then beaten, and when all the animals had come
together the bush cat was put upon his defence.
The bush cat told the people what had happened, and that he had nothing
to do with the matter. But the hare stood up as the accuser, and the
people decided that the bush cat was guilty, and the king ordered him
to be killed, and said that the meat was to be dried by Keroho and
brought to him in the morning.
Now, Keroho is a fruit-eating animal, who is very lazy, and sleeps most
of the day. He always seems tired, and after he has taken a few steps
he lies down, and sleeps for a time.
The hare had suggested to the king that Keroho should be told to dry
and guard the meat, and said to the king that, as Keroho only eat
fruit, he would not be likely to steal any of the meat.
In reality the hare suggested Keroho for a very different reason, and
that reason was that Keroho was a fat animal in good condition, and far
too lazy and sleepy to guard the meat properly.
When the evening came, Keroho made a fire and cut up the body of the
bush cat and set it out to dry. He then went to sleep.
The hare, being very greedy and fond of meat, wanted to have it all to
himself, so, when all the people had gone to bed, he slipped out of his
house by the back way, and very soon had taken the dried meat out of
Keroho’s yard and returned to his house, where he made a good meal, and
buried what he could not eat.
Early in the morning the hare went and beat the big drum to call the
animals together at the king’s house.
Keroho, hearing the drum, got up and went to the fire in his back yard,
where he had left the meat drying, and, to his intense astonishment,
found that it had vanished. He was very frightened at this, and went to
the meeting trembling in every limb. He tried to explain that he had
left the meat before the fire when he went to bed, but the hare got up
at once and said, “Do not believe him, most likely he has sold the meat
to get some money. I propose that Keroho be killed so that we shall not
lose our meat.”
All the people agreed to this, so Keroho was killed and cut up, the
meat being given to the bush cow to keep.
The hare, in order to make himself acquainted with the bush cow’s
house, waited until sundown, and then went to the bush cow’s house with
a large calabash of strong tombo. The hare was careful to drink only
a little himself, and very soon the bush cow had finished the whole
calabash.
That night the bush cow slept very soundly, and at midnight, when
nothing could be heard but the occasional hoot of an owl or the
croaking of the frogs in the marsh, the hare went very quietly and
stole the meat from the bush cow’s fire and took it home with him, as
before.
The following morning he beat the drum as usual, and the people met
together. The bush cow, failing to produce the meat, was killed by the
king’s order and his meat given to another animal to dry.
As usual, the hare stole the meat at night and the animal was killed
the next day. This went on until there were only seven animals left.
The meat of the last animal that was killed was handed over to the
tortoise. The tortoise at once placed his wife on guard over the meat,
and went off into the bush to cut rubber.
Now, the tortoise was looked upon as one of the wisest of all animals.
For some time it had seemed to him very curious that every night the
meat should disappear and another animal should be killed. He therefore
determined that, when it became his turn to dry and guard the meat, he
would take every precaution possible, and would try to catch whoever it
was who always removed the meat at night, as he had no intention that
his body should supply food for the remaining six animals.
Before going into the bush, he gave his wife strict injunctions not to
let the meat out of her sight.
When he returned in the evening, he cut up the meat, saying as he did
so: “Ah, there goes another poor animal. I wonder whose turn it will be
to-morrow, but it shall not be mine if I can help it.”
So he made a big fire and put the meat on, and then covered it all over
with the rubber he had brought back with him from the bush.
The tortoise then told his wife that he was tired, and went to bed
pretending to be asleep, but he had one eye open all the time, and that
eye he kept fixed upon the meat, as he was not going to take any risks,
knowing full well that, if the meat disappeared, as it had a habit of
doing, he himself would be the next victim.
When all was quiet, and the hare thought everybody had gone to sleep,
he went round to the back of the tortoise’s house and put his right
hand out to take the meat, but when his hand closed on the rubber, he
found that he could not remove it because the rubber was so sticky. He
tried his hardest to get his hand away, but without success. He then
called out softly, because he was afraid of waking the tortoise, “Let
me go! Let me go!” but the rubber never answered, and held on tighter
than ever. This made the hare angry, so he whispered to the rubber,
“Look here, if you don’t let my right hand go at once I will hit you
very hard with my left hand, and then you will be sorry.” He got no
reply, but thought he heard a laugh somewhere. The hare then hit the
rubber with his disengaged hand as hard as he was able, and that hand
also stuck fast.
Then the hare heard the tortoise murmur, “Yes, to-morrow I will
discover that rat who is always stealing the king’s meat.”
At length the hare became absolutely terrified, and kicked the rubber
hard with one of his feet, which became as fast as his hands were, and
very shortly the other foot also became caught up, so that he was held
quite securely.
When the morning came, the tortoise called his wife to help him, and
together they put the meat and rubber into a basket with the hare on
top, and carried them all to the king’s house.
When the drum was beaten, the people assembled as usual, and discussed
amongst themselves to whom the meat of the tortoise should be given
when he was killed. In the middle of the discussion, the tortoise
appeared carrying the meat with the hare on top.
The tortoise then charged the hare with attempting to steal the king’s
meat, and told the people of the trap he had set. The hare was found
guilty, and was ordered to pay a large number of brass rods, and he
was told that if they were not forthcoming, he would be killed, and
that his mother and sister would be killed with him, as he had been the
cause of the death of so many animals.
The hare begged for a little time to enable him to get the rods, which
was allowed to him.
He then ran home and got his mother and sister to come with him at once
to the foot of a big cotton tree, and, having got a rope round the
lowest branch, he very soon got to the top of the tree, where he built
a small hut for himself and his people.
The hare then went down to the lowest branch where the rope was, and
hauled his mother and sister up. He put them in the hut at the top of
the tree, and sat down himself next to the rope with a sharp knife in
his hand.
As the hare did not appear at the appointed time to pay the rods, the
people went to his house, and found that they had all disappeared. It
did not take long, however, to discover that he had taken refuge in the
cotton tree, so they all went there and found the rope hanging down.
Then they all began to climb the rope together, leaving the tortoise on
the ground, and just as he was about to commence to climb, the others
having already reached halfway, the hare cut the rope with one cut
of his sharp knife, and all the animals fell down upon the tortoise,
smashing his smooth shell into small pieces, and hurting themselves
very much. No one was killed, however, and they limped home one after
the other.
On the way they passed the tortoise’s house, so they told Mrs. Tortoise
that they had fallen on her husband from a great height, and that his
shell was broken into pieces.
On hearing this the mammie tortoise got her basket and went off to the
cotton tree. Having picked up all the pieces of her husband’s shell,
and having placed them in the basket, she lifted the tortoise and
carried them all home.
When she got inside she put all the little pieces of the shell together
and placed them on her husband’s back, where they grew quite strongly,
but the marks showed where the pieces were joined together, and that is
why you always find that the shell of a tortoise is covered in patches,
and not smooth as it was formerly.--[E.D., 26.5.10.]
_Note._
The Inkum people came from a country about five or six days’ march
north-west of the site of their present town, where hares abound. There
are no hares in the country now occupied by them on the Cross River.
This is one of their old stories, which they brought with them when
they were driven south by the Awala tribe, and is still handed on from
one generation to another.