Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/64

 left the Forest, and started on his journey, and came to the towns of Men.

He found so much food lying around, and it tasted so good because it had been touched by that bright thing which he heard people call "Fire," that he delayed the delivery of his message. And Men were pleased with his usefulness in awaking them in the morning, as he called them to get up and make their fires. The situation was so comfortable, as Mankind allowed him to walk in and out of their houses at will, that he forgot his errand, and chose to stay with Men, and never went back to the Forest.

The birds, having no one else who united both audacity to act and ability to speak, never sent another messenger on that errand, and they remain without fire to this day.

An event (the supposed death of the red antelope) is traced to its first cause (sleep) back of the immediate causes (the people who actually sought to kill him). Whence the proverb, "Eziwo a juwi na Antyâvinâ." "Eziwo" is a familiar way of pronouncing Njiwo.

Antelope and Ox went to a town to dance Bweti (a certain spirit-dance). After the dance, Antelope, exhausted with the exercise, fell asleep in the Bweti-house. While he was there, certain persons made a plot to kill him. Ox heard of it, and came to warn him, calling gently, (lest he should be