Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/178

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Folklore of the Banyanja.

of a Man. When the mealies were ripe she sent to tell the Monkeys that they were not to gather from her side of the garden; they could take from the side of her brother the Man. But they came and picked her mealies and she was was very angry and killed two of them. The third said, " What is this? It is not good that you dwell with mankind. I will go and get your skin, so that you may be a monkey once more and we will all live in the veldt again." She went back and brought the skin, singing:

"To-day you speak falsely, Msingulango my sister, Msingulango,
You told me, 'I make a garden,' Msingulango, Msingulango,
And when the mealies are ripe, I will eat them,
Msingulango, Msingulango my sister, my sister."

All the men fled as she came, because they were afraid of her. The sister went into one of the huts and put on the skin, and turned into a monkey again and she and her sister took that garden for themselves.


The Veldt Dwellers.

There was a man who lived on the veldt. He had no hut; he slept on the grass and had no clothes. One day he went to a kraal. All the big people had gone to work in the fields and only the Picanins were left at home. He said to the children, "Lend me the clothes of your parents; I will give them back again." They lent him the clothes and he brought them back again and the children put them all back in the boxes. When the parents came back they said, "Why are our clothes all pulled about?" The children said, "No, we only wanted to look at them." Next day the man came again and he asked the children to lend him their parents' clothes again. They gave them to him and he went off singing:

"The children are fools;
They took the clothes of their parents from the boxes,
And gave them to me, the dweller in the veldt."