The evil follows it’s originator: A story told by Faneli Phiri

There were two children. They were sent far away into the forest to collect mushrooms. So when they reached there, they indeed collected mushrooms until sunset. After realizing that it was getting late for them to walk back to their village which was about ten kilometres away, they thought of approaching a nearby village to ask for shelter. They reached a certain village, but were not offered any place to sleep. They walked again to a second village, and again no one accepted to keep them through the night.

As they were continuing to search for a place to sleep, they met an old woman. She asked: „You children, where  are you going at this time?“. The children answered that they were looking for a place to sleep as it was late for them to walk back home. The old woman immediately told them that she would offer them a place to sleep. The children were happy to hear that. They followed the old woman to her home. There, she cooked for them and gave them water to bathe. After all that, they were given a room to sleep and they entered there.

At midnight one of the girls had not yet fallen asleep while the other  one was deeply sleepimg. So the girl heard that the old woman was walking up and going round. The old woman started to sing.

Old woman : (Story teller)  Audience responding :
You door open! Open! kalilamande oh mum! Kalilamande  (X2)
Someone‘s  children Kalilamande
went to the forest Kalilamande
to collect mushrooms Kalilamande
Now dusk had fallen: Kalilamande
„let’s go and ask for a place to sleep at the old woman’s place“ Kalilamande
you are dead today! Kalilamande
you will not sleep! Kalilamande

So the door opened and the old woman went out of the house. She started to sing again in order for the door to close.

Old woman : (Story teller)  Audience responding :
You door close! Close! kalilamande oh mum! Kalilamande  (X2)
Someone‘s  children Kalilamande
went to the forest Kalilamande
to collect mushrooms Kalilamande
Now dusk had fallen: Kalilamande
„let’s go and ask for a place to sleep at the old woman’s place“ Kalilamande
you are dead today! Kalilamande
you will not sleep! Kalilamande

The door closed and the old woman walked away. The girl that was still awake was listening to what the woman was saying in the song. She woke up her sister and told her that the old woman had gone out while singing that the children would die that day. The children planned to run away. But because the door was closed, the girl who had heard the old woman singing in order to make the door open, imitated the voice of  the old woman in the song, asking the door to open. So the door opened and they escaped.

Meanwhile the old woman had gone to invite hyenas to come and help her to eat those children. They all came together to the house where she had left the children sleeping. The old woman told the hyenas to wait outside so that she could first prepare the meat. Upon reaching the room in which the children were supposed to sleep, she found no one. Now the old woman did not know what to tell the hyenas, since they were already expecting to eat meat. Therefore she took two mortars and covered them with blanket in the place where the children were sleeping. She then tied her neck with a rope to  the roof. When the hyenas saw that the old woman was not coming back to call them to enter the house, they decided to follow her. They entered in the room where the children were sleeping, and immediately bit the pounding mortars, thinking that it was the meat they had been invited for. But it was not. They became angry and started to search for the old woman. They searched for her everywhere in the house. Later they found her tied to the roof dead, she had killed herself. They all ate her dead body.

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