Page:Folklore1919.djvu/156

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144
Folklore of the Bushmen.

know about it. It was a new animal. Its horns had just grown, and they tried to encircle it and stab it, and it always broke through the circle and afterwards came back and lay down at the same place. At last, while it was asleep, Gcwi, who could throw well, pierced it, and they cut it up and took the meat and blood home; but after they had cut it up they saw the snares and traps of Cagn, and knew it was his, and they were afraid. And Cagn came back the third day and saw the blood on the ground where it had been killed, and he was very angry, and he came home and told Gcwi he would punish him for his presumption and disobedience, and he pulled his nose off and flung it into the fire. But he said, “No! I shall not do that,” so he put his nose on again, and he said, “Now begin to try to undo the mischief you have done, for you have spoilt the elands when I was making them fit for use,” so he told him to take of the eland’s blood and put it in a pot and churn it with a little native churn stick, which he made to spin in the blood by rubbing the upright stick between the palms of his hands, and he scattered the blood and it turned into snakes, and they went abroad, and Cagn told him not to make fright-things, and he churned again and scattered the blood and it turned into hartebeests, and they ran away, and his father said, “I am not satisfied; this is not yet what I want; you can’t do anything. Throw the blood out! Coti, my wife! cleanse this pot and bring more blood from the little paunch where they put it, and churn it,” and she did so, and they added the fat from the heart, and she churned it, and he sprinkled it, and the drops became bull elands, and these surrounded them and pushed them with their horns, and he said, “You see how you have spoilt the elands,” and he drove these elands away and then they churned and produced eland cows, and then they churned and produced multitudes of elands, and the earth was covered with them, and he told Gcwi, “Go and hunt them and try to kill one, that is now your work, for it was you who spoilt them,” and Gcwi ran and did his best, but he came back panting and footsore and worn out; and he hunted again next day, and was unable to kill any. They were able to run away because Cagn was in their bones. Then Cagn sent Cogaz to turn the