Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/193

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Folklore of the Banyanja.
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still and at last she saw that he was dead. Then she said to her husband, "The child is dead; let us go"; and they wept. She said, "Where shall I lay him?" and they took his corpse and went forth singing:

"My child, where shall I lay him?
My child, where shall I lay him?
Let us lay him in the deep water,
The water where the reeds grow.
The water."

They wandered until they came to the water; when they came to it they threw themselves in, the mother holding her child, and were drowned.


The Careless Mother.

There was a mother and she had no one to mind her baby. The others said, "Do not give it to someone you don't know; they might kill it." She said, "All right," and continued to give it to someone she did not know to be taken care of. One day she was working in the garden and a man said, "I will look after your child." She said, "Very well, you must keep it all day and when I want to go home you must give it back." This was done every day. The others said, "Do not give it to someone you don't know; he might kill it." She said, "It is all right." One day he said, "I am going very far with the child." She said, "It is all right." He went very far off and killed it. She went to look for it and found it was killed. She came back weeping and said, "The man who said he wanted to look after my child took it away and killed it. Now, I will kill him. I will set a snare over the water-place where he comes to drink." He came to drink; but he saw the snare, and did not go to the water. Next day he came again and went away without having drunk. Every day he came and could not