The Eternal Belief in Immortality & Worship of the Dead. James George Frazer
of the lizard, men will die." And died they have ever since from that day to this. That is why some of the Zulus hate the lizard, saying, "Why did he run first and say, 'Let people die?'" So they beat and kill the lizard and say, "Why did it speak?" But others hate the chameleon and hustle it, saying, "That is the little thing which delayed to tell the people that they should not die. If he had only brought his message in time we should not have died; our ancestors also would have been still living; there would have been no diseases here on the earth. It all comes from the delay of the chameleon."57 The same story is told in nearly the same form by other Bantu tribes, such as the Bechuanas,58 the Basutos,59 the Baronga,60 and the Ngoni.61 To this day the Baronga and the Ngoni owe the chameleon a grudge for having brought death into the world, so when children find a chameleon they will induce it to open its mouth, then throw a pinch of tobacco on its tongue, and watch with delight the creature writhing and changing colour from orange to green, from green to black in the agony of death; for thus they avenge the wrong which the chameleon has done to mankind.62
Akamba story of the chameleon and the thrush.
A story of the same type, but with some variations, is told by the Akamba, a Bantu tribe of British East Africa; but in their version the lizard has disappeared from the legend and has been replaced by the itoroko, a small bird of the thrush tribe, with a black head, a bluish-black back, and a buff-coloured breast. The tale runs thus:—Once upon a time God sent out the chameleon, the frog, and the thrush to find people who died one day and came to life again the next. So off they set, the chameleon leading the way, for in those days he was a very important personage. Presently they came to some people lying like dead, so the chameleon went up to them and said, Niwe, niwe, niwe. The thrush asked him testily what he was making that noise for, to which the chameleon replied mildly, "I am only calling the people who go forward and then came back again," and he explained that the dead people would come to life again. But the thrush, who was of a sceptical turn of mind, derided the idea. Nevertheless, the chameleon persisted in calling to the dead people, and sure enough they opened their eyes and listened to him. But here the thrush broke in and told them roughly that dead they were and dead they must remain. With that away he flew, and though the chameleon preached to the corpses, telling them that he had come from God on purpose to bring them to life again, and that they were not to believe the lies of that shallow sceptic the thrush, they obstinately refused to pay any heed to him; not one of those dead corpses would budge. So the chameleon returned crestfallen to God and reported to him how, when he preached the gospel of resurrection to the corpses, the thrush had roared him down, so that the corpses could not hear a word he said. God thereupon cross-questioned the thrush, who stated that the chameleon had so bungled his message that he, the thrush, felt it his imperative duty to interrupt him. The simple deity believed the thrush, and being very angry with the chameleon he degraded him from his high position and made him walk very slow, lurching this way and that, as he does down to this very day. But the thrush he promoted to the office of wakening men from their slumber every morning, which he still does punctually at 2 A.M. before the note of any other bird is heard in the tropical forest.63
Togo story of the dog and the frog.
In this version, though the frog is sent out by God with the other two messengers he plays no part in the story; he is a mere dummy. But in another version of the story, which is told by the negroes of Togoland in German West Africa, the frog takes the place of the lizard and the thrush as the messenger of death. They say that once upon a time men sent a dog to God to say that when they died they would like to come to life again. So off the dog trotted to deliver the message. But on the way he felt hungry and turned into a house, where a man was boiling magic herbs. So the dog sat down and thought to himself, "He is cooking food." Meantime the frog had set off to tell God that when men died they would like not to come to life again. Nobody had asked him to give that message; it was a piece of pure officiousness and impertinence on his part. However, away he tore. The dog, who still sat watching the hell-broth brewing, saw him hurrying past the door, but he thought to himself, "When I have had something to eat, I will soon catch froggy up." However, froggy came in first and said to the deity, "When men die, they would like not to come to life again." After that, up comes the dog, and says he, "When men die, they would like to come to life again." God was naturally puzzled and said to the dog, "I really do not understand these two messages. As I heard the frog's request first, I will comply with it. I will not do what you said." That is the real reason why men die and do not come to life again. If the frog had only minded his own business instead of meddling with other people's, the dead would all have come to life again to this day.64 In this version of the story not only are the persons of the two messengers different, the dog and the frog having replaced the chameleon and the lizard of the Bantu version, but the messengers are sent from men to God instead of from God to men.
Ashantee story of the goat and the sheep.
In another version told by the Ashantees of West Africa the persons of the messengers are again different, but as in the Bantu version they are sent from God to men. The Ashantees say that long ago men were happy, for God dwelt among them and talked with them face to face. For example, if a child was roasting yams at the fire and wanted a relish to eat with the yams, he had nothing to do but to throw a stick in the air and say, "God give me fish," and God gave him fish at once. However, these happy days did not last for ever. One unlucky day it happened that some women were pounding a mash with pestles in a mortar, while God stood by looking on. For some reason they were annoyed by the presence of the deity and told him to be off; and as he did not take himself off fast enough to please them, they beat him with their pestles. In a great huff God retired altogether from the world and left it to the direction of the fetishes; and still to this day people say, "Ah, if it had not been for that old woman, how happy we should be!" However, after he had withdrawn to heaven, the long-suffering deity sent a kind message by a goat to men upon earth to say, "There is something which they call Death. He will kill some of you. But even if you die, you will not perish completely. You will come to me in heaven." So off the goat set with this cheering intelligence. But before he came to the town he saw a tempting bush by the wayside and stopped to browse on it. When God in heaven saw the goat thus loitering by the way, he sent off a sheep with the same message to carry the glad tidings to men without delay. But the sheep did not give the message aright. Far from it: he said, "God sends you word that you will die and that will be an end of you." Afterwards the goat arrived on the scene and said, "God sends you word that you will die, certainly, but that will not be the end of you, for you will go to him." But men said to the goat, "No, goat, that is not what God said. We believe that the message which the sheep brought us is the one which God sent to us." That was the beginning of death among men.65 However, in another Ashantee version of the tale the parts played by the sheep and the goat are reversed. It is the sheep who brings the tidings of immortality from God to men, but the goat overruns him and offers them death instead. Not knowing what death was, men accepted the seeming boon with enthusiasm and have died ever since.66
II. The story of the Waxing and Waning Moon. Hottentot story of the Moon, the hare, and death.
So much for the tale of the Two Messengers. In the last versions of it which I have quoted, a feature to be noticed is the perversion of the message by one of the messengers, who brings tidings of death instead of life eternal to men. The same perversion of the message reappears in some examples of the next type of story which I shall illustrate, namely the type of the Waxing and Waning Moon. Thus the Namaquas or Hottentots say that once the Moon