Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs And Religious Beliefs. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
a happy tune to himself.
This greatly surprised her, for never before
Had he spoken a word – leave humming a tune!
‘My son!’ she breathed, her soul overflowing with joy,
‘You can talk . . . you are singing . . .’
‘Shhhhhh . . .’ he said, and Kei-Lei-Si saw
Him fixedly stare at some iron ore,
The very piece she had brought to the cave herself,
Which she used on the flints in the cavern walls
When she wished to kindle a fire.
A cold terror struck the poor woman
As her gaze came to rest on the ore;
Her whole body froze with horror and fear
As the penetrating stare of her son
Caused the ore to grow in size!
Still hypnotised she watched and saw
The ore turn soft and starting to flow.
A few heartbeats later two bright stalks grew
At the tips of which glowed small bloodred eyes,
And a hungry-looking mouth took shape
Snarling viciously at Kei-Lei-Si
With a display of razor-sharp teeth!
The woman shrieked with horror and undiluted fear
When she realised her son was in fact creating—
That the tune he was humming was an incantation—
Commanding the hitherto lifeless iron
To assume a shape and Life!
She watched spellbound as the living thing grew
And legs like those of a grasshopper took shape—
Then came pairs of dragonfly wings
And a rat-like shining metal tail, with a sting,
A crystal sting with dark green poison!
‘My son!’ cried she, ‘What . . . and how . . . and why . . .?’
‘This,’ he said, without emotion,
‘Is one of my weapons of conquest!’
‘Conquest? Conquest of what, my son?’
‘Of everything – the earth, the sun and the moon!’
Then turning to the fast-growing metal beast
And indicating his mother with a deformed limb
Snapped, ‘Seize her, and drink your fill!’
At which command the horror leapt
And pounced upon the startled woman,
Seizing her with his insect-like legs.
‘My son, my son, what have I done—
Why do you do this to me?
I am the woman who bore you, and brought you up!’
‘I know very well who and what you are—
But nobody asked you to bear me and rear me
And least of all did I.’
‘I saved you from the big birds my son;
They desperately wanted to kill you!’
‘All that I know,’ said Za-Ha-Rrellel calmly,
‘It was only the instinct of a female beast
And you were obeying a natural law.’
‘Have mercy, my son,’ cried Kei-Lei-Si.
‘What is this thing called mercy?
You are of no use to me any more.
I have now grown to full independence
And I no longer need your protection.
All I need now is nourishment for my new servant
To grow and reproduce its kind.’
From the mouth of the metallic Tokoloshe
Protruded a long needle structure
With which it pierced her chest and heart
And as it sucked it grew.
Through the mists of her last agony
The mother of the wicked Za-Ha-Rrellel
Saw her son’s outrageous future;
She saw his great evil swallow the earth
And the Universe itself.
Too late she appreciated her error—
That after all the birds were right,
But now she could not destroy her child
To save all mankind from its atrocious influence.
Through eyes that were slowly glazing in death
She saw the object withdraw its cruel probe.
She saw it lay some hundreds of silvery eggs
At her son’s express command;
And they all exploded into hundreds
Of fast-growing winged things like itself.
The last thing she saw was how a litter of four
Bore her son aloft in triumph.
‘Farewell, mother,’ he said as he glanced back at her,
With a last contemptuous look in his eyes.
They carried him forth from the lighted cave
Into the darker parts of the caverns
And slowly the glow from all the luminous eyes
Faded in darkness in the echoing distance;
While with a last soft sigh Kei-Lei-Si died
Alone and utterly forgotten for all time to come
In that maze of underground tunnels.
The fantastic reign of the First Chief on earth,
That of Za-Ha-Rrellel was about to begin.
Today known as Tsareleli or Sareleli
He was the deformed incarnation of naked evil
And was about to burst upon the world
Like a glittering poisonous flower.
Woe, oh woe, to all mankind—
Woe to all those, as yet unborn!
Za-Ha-Rrellel, the Wicked, emerged from the tunnels,
Borne aloft by a litter of four of these metal things,
While all the rest of the metal Tokoloshes
Came swarming behind in a vast and glittering cloud
Awaiting his word to enslave and to kill.
The first that this airborne metallic army engaged
In a battle of complete extermination,
Was the Holy two-headed Kaa-U-La birds.
From miles away came the sacred birds
In hundreds upon thousands to stem the tide
Of evil in a final most desp’rate endeavour.
A mighty aerial battle took place
That