Tales in the Sand

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Very slightly adapted to text only by Nicolai Langfeldt.

There are tales that are told many times. Some tales you tell children, stories that tell them the history of the tribe, what is good to eat, what is not. Cautionary tales. There are the tales the women tell, in the private tongue men-children are never taught and older men are too wise to learn, and these tales are not told to men.

There are tales men tell each other, in the men's hut at night; crude raucous tales of the lizard who lost his male member, or of the malabayo, the trickster, who sold ape dung to king lion, telling him it was the soul of the moon. There are tales the whole tribe tell each other, at the festivals, at feasts: The story of the Rook that jumped, of how fire came, a thousand others.

One tale is only ever told once.

The young one still feels sore from the circumcision, but he bears it with the pride of his newfound manhood. They have walked for two days. When he returns to the tribe he will truly be a man: he will have heard the tale. At night he will sleep in the young men's hut.

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