The Gift of Fire: A Basenji Tale
An excerpts from the book
The Mythology of Dogs
by Gerald and Loretta Hausman
The First Morning of the world, no one knew what gods ruled the waters, the
earth, the mountains, or the heavens. All that people knew was that they
were a part of everything and everything was a part of them. But of every
individual thing- each lacy leaf and diamond dewdrop – they knew nothing,
except wonder. So it was, then, that a man named Nkhango went out for a
walk in the light of the world to see what he might see.
Any the very first thing that Nkhango saw was something sparkling in a
clearing. Before it, paws folded, sat a dog, guarding.
“What strangeness is this?” Nkhango asked.
“You have arrived at my master’s dominion,” the dog said.
“Who are you?” asked Nkhango.
“I am called Rukuba, Guardian of Fire,” the dog answered.
Nkhango saw that the thing Rukuba watched was hungry and that it clamored
for more food. Rukuba got up from where he sat and, reaching into an
enormous woodpile, fed the fire some of its favorite food, which was wood.
The fire was excited to receive the food, and it clapped wildly with its
bright, flashing hands.
“What is this thing you have here, Rukuba?” Nkhango asked.
He was charmed by the leaping light, for he had never seen anything like it.
“It is called fire,” Rukuba said, as if it were nothing at all.
“Who owns it?”
“My master, whose name is Fire God.”
“And where,” Nkhango wondered, “is your master now?”
“Away.”
Rukuba drew nearer to the fire to warm himself.
“May I do that, too?” Nkhango asked.
Rukuba looked all around him. He tall grass quivered. The diamond dew
twinkled. But Fire God was nowhere to be seen or felt. The world was at
ease with itself, for the gods were elsewhere, having their earthly and
heavenly council.
“You may warm yourself,” Rukuba consented.
Nkhango got as close to the fire as he dared, for it touched his flesh with
warmth and then bore all the way into his bones.
“When will your master return?” Nkhango said, rubbing his hands before the
crackly light.
“Be careful,” Rukuba warned. “The appetite of fire is endless.”
Nkhango drew back. He felt the warmth on his skin spread quickly, and now
it was like the sting of an insect.
“I see that it is so,” he said, respectful of the dancing light.
And then a wonderful idea came to him. A thought full of power.
“I should like to have some of this fire for myself,” Nkhango said.
Rukuba wrinkled his nose. He looked about him. The grass shivered, and
quivered, and shone. The wind sighed, the sun swam, the day breathed
deeply, and the trees exhaled.
“And if I should give you what you desire—“ said Rukuba.
“I would reward you.”
“How?”
“By taking care of you forever,” Nkhango promised.
Rukuba liked this very much. His life was nothing but work – his time spent
guarding, watching, looking about. And, always, feeding the fire. How
Rukuba longed to be on his own. To be free these never-ending duties. How
he dreamed of someone taking care of him, of living a life of ease.
“If you take care of me forever, I will steal the fire for you. I will
bring it to your place, and there we two shall live in peace for the rest of
out lives.”
Now, in three days’ time, Rukuba came to Nkhango and he brought with him a
small black urn, which swung to and fro as he walked. The urn smoked
because it contained fire coals.
Nkhango was pleased when he saw the smoking urn. “You have done as you
said, my friend.”
Rukuba, however, hung his head in shame. “I have paid dearly for your
gift,” he said.
Nkhango’s eyes were fixed on the urn. “Hmm,” he mumbled, looking only at
the winking embers.
“You will see what I mean when you pour the fire coals onto the earth. Then
my punishment begins.”
Entranced, Nkhango was still not listening. He took the urn excitedly and
poured the coals onto the earth. The fire sprang up, clapping its hands,
demanding its food of wood.
Nkhango grinned. “Now, what did you say, my friend?” he asked, looking at
Rukuba for the first time.
But Rukuba said nothing, for he could no longer speak. That gift, the
presence of speech, was not taken from him. Fire God had made it so: It
was the punishment for Rukuba’s theft.
However, Nkhango felt sorrow for his new friend. And since he had promised
to always take care of him, Nkhango made a collar for Rukuba, to make up for
the dog’s missing voice. He used wet antelope skin into which he placed a
handful of thorns. When the antelope skin collar dried. Nkhango put it
around Rukuba’s neck, and the collar made a pretty noise.
“There, you can speak,” Nkhango told Rukuba.
And, when Rukuba nodded, the little thorn-bells rang like rain on the leave
of the trees.
Now, when the two friends went hunting together, Nkhango always knew where
Rukuba was because he could hear his collar ringing when Rukuba jumped up in
the grass. And that is why the basenji is called the African Barkless Dog,
or sometimes, the Jumping-Up-Dog, because he loves to jump up and make the
little bells ring like the fourth morning of the world.
AFTERWORD
The dogs of African gods are too numerous to name. There are – to cite only
a few – the dogs of Dahomey, the dogs of Fjort, and the dogs of Yoruba. All
of these are sacred figures, creation animals who have helped humankind “in
the beginning.” As such, these ancestor dogs are considered “culture
heroes”; that is they were our first teachers and they instructed our
foreparents in the ways of the world.
The tale of Nkhango and Rukuba comes from the Nyanga people of the Belgian
Congo. Here, Dog is the bestower of fire and the cocreator of the dog-bell
that exists to this date as the common collar.
The basenji, an African breed, resembles Rukuba. Used as a hunter, this
tough, compact dog was known as the African Barkless and the Congo Dog. He
was also called Jumping-Up-Dog for the way he leaped into the air to gain
height over the tall African grasses. In the Congo region, the Basenji was
employed to hunt twenty-pound reed rats. In his role as the African
Barkless, he spoke not a word—as the legend tells us. However, upon his
first appearance at a dog show in England, he contradicted his own
history—he yodeled.
|
