A
TALE OF KGODUMO-DUMO
A story from Lesotho
A long long time
ago, under the mountains of Lesotho there lived a creature that used to
terrorise and eat anything that was on its path. It swallowed people, cows,
chickens, goats, horses, anything that it could smell and get its paws on. It
looked like a snake, but it was not a snake, it had big red eyes on the back of
its head, a big mouth, big ears, huge feet and a big belly. Everyone was scared
of it, and it was called Kgodimodimo. When this creature was moving, everyone knew
because the mountains would shake, when it was sleeping everyone knew because
the land also heaved up and down and almost everyone was deaf because of its
snoring.
On the other
part of the mountain there was a woman who lived with his son. The young man’s
name was Moshanyana wa Senkatana(son of Senkatana). Moshanyana wa Senkatana and
his mother lived in fear because of this beast. But again the hiding and the
running away from the beast made the young man to grow up big, strong and clever
because he had to think of ways to outwit the beast at all times. He learned to
climb mountains and hide their livestock in the caves where the beast would not
reach.
One day the king had called a meeting,
kgodimodimo had done it again, the creature had swallowed half of the palace
and the princess. The King had offered half his kingdom to anyone who would
save the princess. Now the young man sat down and thought about this very hard,
his mother was getting older and it was getting hard for her to run around to
hide.
Then he had
a plan, he took his knife, dried grass and wood and put it in his bag so that
when the creature swallowed him, it swallowed the bag also. He left for the
mountains to where Kgodimodimo was. He also had his big spear with him and with
it he started poking the animal. As expected the creature saw him and swallowed
him with his bag of goodies.
Once he was inside, he saw his neighbours, the
villagers, the princess and a lot of animals. It was another village inside the
beast’s belly!!!. Some people were even getting married inside there!. Because
Kgodimodimo swallowed everything in its path, people and animals were getting
hungrier and hungrier because there were no means of cooking. But Moshanyana wa Senkatana came in prepared,
he started by making fire with his wood and dried grass, with his knife he
started slicing the beast from the inside and he started cooking the inside of the
beast every day. People were grateful because they hadn’t had cooked food for a
long long time.
The creature
started coughing smoke, it stopped chasing people and animals and it grew weak
day after day. Finally it fell down and died. Finally Moshanyana wa Senkatana and
everyone and everything that was inside the belly of the beast came out. People
were overjoyed to see their long lost relatives and their animals and because
the boy saved the princess, they were married and lived happily ever after. Tshomo
kamathetho!!THE END.