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 CHAPTER XI

HARE AND JACKAL STORIES HE HARE, in one part of Africa the favorite hero of folklore, is in others held to be distinctly unlucky. The Abyssinians will not eat hare’s flesh, neither will the Galla, and a hare crossing the path is by them considered the worst of omens. The Hottentots, as already stated, connect him with the Moon in a myth which relates how his blundering brought irreparable disaster on mankind. The Bushmen say that the Hare was once a human being, who assumed his present shape when cursed by the Moon for his imbecility. ‘They have no objection to eating the Hare, but always carefully avoid one particular muscle in the leg which, they think, was taken over unchanged from his human form.

Various reasons have been given for the popularity of the Hare in general Bantu tradition. Natives have sometimes said that his habit of moving his mouth, as if talking to himself, indicates great wisdom. Something must be allowed for the sympathy naturally inspired by the cleverness shown by a weak and insignificant creature in escaping the pursuit of the more powerful and ferocious beasts. And he is undoubtedly among the most beautiful and attractive of “small deer.”

It is sometimes denied that the African native is at all sensitive to beauty in nature, living or inanimate; but a little first-hand research is sufficient to show that this opinion is, at best, only partially true. The Pokomo women, for instance, habitually make songs in praise of various birds—songs which, simple as they are, show both observation and sympathy.

Some of the tricks and adventures attributed elsewhere to