Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/193

 And he ate only two fingers of plantains. His mother began to wonder.

Then he said to himself, "Now, let me try to do as my Uncle has told me." He said, "Ngalo! (a fetish charm) I want this forest here to be cleared, all of it." (As quickly as I speak here, at once the garden was finished, like the passing of yesterday.) He said to his mother, "Take a list of all the plants I have brought; then let us go and plant them." So, he and his mother went to plant; that very day the garden was completely finished.

Previously to that, his Uncle had warned him, "When the plants are sprung up, you will see Kĕnĕnĕ (a kind of small bird) coming to eat them. When they shall arrive, they will be many. Then you take the Spear; fail not to use the cardomoms with it."

The food increased; and the small birds came in countless numbers. Savulaka took up the Spear, and threw it at them; and all, even to the young birds, perished. Then he returned to his mother, and said, "My mother! go and pick up the sĕlĕ" (another name of kĕnĕnĕ). She gathered them; leaving many remaining abandoned in the forest. The village was filled with the sĕlĕ.

The same thing happened with all other kinds of birds. The same with every Beast.

Then Elephants came to the garden. The man picked up the Spear and the cardomoms. When he came to the garden, he lifted up the Spear, and threw it, and wounded the Elephants. Numbers of Elephants that were eating in the garden, were killed. They were gathered, and the whole village was filled with the smell of the rotting meat; so that hardly any one would come to the village. I am not able to tell you the abundance of tusks; the mendanda (long ones), and the makubu (short thick ones), and the begĕgĕ ("scrivillers," the small ones), that cannot be counted.

The next morning, other elephants came again. The man took up the Spear, but he forgot the cardomom-pepper. When he arrived where they were, he did not wait, but hastily threw the Spear after an elephant, the leader of the herd, who turned aside, and ran away with the Spear in its body. The man followed him, but he did not reach him.