Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/513

 The Bantu Element in Swahili Folklore. 449

Nati mbuje ngatole. I said, I will go back and fetch it.

Kivasimama audamilile. There they stood all in a row (?)

Wati lutumbo kuchukuchi. My inside said " kuchukuchu " (?)

And he found a zimivi sitting on the rock, who said to him, — "What do you want?", and the child sang (in answer), and the ^/wze;/said, — " I cannot hear, come closer." And, when the child came near, he took him and put him into a cask and carried him off. And as he went he came on some people sitting in the baraza, (as we might say, ' on the village green '), and he said to them, — " I have my drum ; I want a fowl and rice that I may eat." They said, — " Sing," and the child sang. The zwiwi was given food, and he ate, but he gave none to the child, he ate it all himself. He went to the boy's own village, and the people (there) said, — "We have heard that you, Zimwi, have a very fine drum, sing for us ! " And he said, — " I 'want beer." And the child sang, and all the people (knew his voice and) said, — " This is our child." They gave the zimwi beer, and he got drunk and went to sleep. Then the people went and took his drum, and found the child and carried him off and hid him in the inner compartment of the hut, and into the drum they put snakes and bees and biting ants, and fastened it up as it was before. And they went and awakened him, and said, — " Zimwi, wake up ! some people have come and want to hear your drum." He took his drum and beat it, and heard (lit.) silence; he did not hear the child's voice. So he went his way, and on the road he opened it and found a snake, and it bit him, and he died. Where he died there sprang up pumpkins and cucumbers, and some children came that way and said, — " These pumpkins are fine; let us go and get father's sword and cut them open " (lit. strike them). One pumpkin got angry and pursued those children, and they ran away till they came to a river, and they saw an old man there, and said, — "Eh ! father, please ferry us over to the other side, we are running away from a pumpkin." The old man ferried them across and they ran till they came to another village, where they found plenty of people sitting in the baraza and said to them, — " Hide us from that pumpkin : the zimivi has turned into a pumpkin, so do you take it and burn it in the fire." The pumpkin arrived, and said, — " Have you seen my people who have run away ? " The people said, — " What sort

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