Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/33



All of a neighborhood go to a mourning for a dead person. Failure to go would have been regarded, formerly, as a sign of a sense of guilt as the cause of the death. Formerly, at funerals, there was great destruction. Some of a man's wives and slaves were buried with him, with a large quantity of his goods; and his fruit trees adjacent to the houses were ruthlessly cut down. All, as signs of grief; as much as to say, "If the beloved dead cannot longer enjoy these things, no one else shall."

The ancestor of the leopards never forgave the ancestor of the gazelles, but nursed his wrath at the trick which the latter had played on him with the insects. Unable to catch gazelles, because of their adroitness, the leopard wrecks his anger on all other beasts by killing them at any opportunity.

These two beasts, Leopard and Jackal, were living together in the same town. Leopard said to Jackal, "My friend! I do not eat all sorts of food; I eat only animals." So, one day, Leopard went to search for some beast in the forest. He wandered many hours, but could not find any for his food.

On another day, Leopard said to Jackal, "My friend! let us arrange some plan, by which we can kill some animal.