Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/506

 442 The Bantu Element in Swahili Folklore.

We may take, in the first place, a story which is thus referred to in the Preface to Swahiti Tales (p, viii) : —

" There is a famous story of all the beasts agreeing to dig a well, and the Sungura alone refused to help. When it was finished, they watched in turn to prevent his getting water, but he cheated them all except the spider."

This is surely a mistake for the tortoise, as we shall see presently. The story is indeed a famous one, and much more widely distributed than Bishop Steere, writing in 1869, could have any idea of. It seems to be found throughout Bantu Africa, and beyond its limits among the Hottentots, the Ehwe, and the Mandingo, — at least I think we may take " La Caverne des Animaux " in Monteil's Contes Soudanais as a variant of it. This tale is so well known that I need not linger over the variants. It is not included in the Swahili Tales^ but two independ- ent versions are given in Kibaraka. The first of them is called Hadithi ya Vinyama (the story of the animals). Here, after the other animals have failed, and the Hare has refused, the Tortoise succeeds in getting water, not by digging, but by singing, — no doubt a spell of some sort. The remarkable thing is that the other animals, including the elephant, have been trying unsuccessfully to get water in the same way, though, when summoning the Hare, they say, — " Let him come that we may dig for water." Possibly there was some confusion when the story was dictated between the words imba (sing) and chimba (dig). There is a curious incident connected with the tortoise which I do not recall elsewhere, and I hardly know what to make of it.

" Then the Tortoise appeared, and the Elephant saw him and seized him and put him into his mouth ; and he came out at his nose, and his companions said, — " Let him go, perhaps he will get water," and they let him go. And he went, and sang, and got plenty of water."