Sentencias que resuelven las demandas de Hábeas Corpus, presentadas por

In the Far North there is a story about a hunter that one day stands eye to eye with a Buffon’s kob. As soon as he wants to shoot the kob the animal begins to talk, explaining to the hunter that she is the last kob mother in the world and that she has two young at home. She begs the hunter to let her go home for a minute to explain to her young that she has to die. Although the hunter does not believe the kob is ever going to return he feels sorry for the kob and finally he lets her go (see for full story box 6.2). So far the story could have been a perfect introduction for educating the need of nature protection. After all, it might touch on the issue of extinction as well as on the human reaction to it. But then the story follows a different track. The kob arrives home, tells her two young what has happened and offers her last milk to them. The younger one refuses to drink, however, mourning for his mother, but the elder one took twice as much milk. After an hour the kob mother leaves the house to go and see the hunter. The hunter is very surprised to see the kob again and because she kept her promise he refuses to kill the kob. The kob mother goes home but only finds her younger cub alive. The elder has died because he drunk the milk while not caring for his mother’s death.

Although the story seemed to start with an environmental problem, i.e. the extinction of

an animal species, the final moral is purely social. In short, the story tells that you have to keep your promise, and that you have to respect your parents instead of being selfish. The phenomenon of ‘extinction’ is a non-issue in the story.

The same tendency can be found in a story from Central Province about a bird that was caught in a trap and asked for mercy. This happened several times, in which the bird had to convince two different brothers to release him. The first was a good boy, who was always polite and friendly. He set the bird free. The second was a bad boy, who was always naughty. He did not set the bird free but instead he took the bird home and his wife cooked it. Finally, the good boy got in trouble by getting caught by some ogress, and he was saved by the bird. The naughty boy finally got into the same trouble but was not saved.

In this story there seems to be a rather straightforward incentive for saving a bird. After all, the boy who did not save the bird was killed by the ogress. However, the bird in the story did not at all represent an ordinary bird. His family considered it to be a supernatural force. For this reason, the boy who saved the bird was initially even despised by his family. Later in the story, his family is happy with him because he returns home with a lot of treasures he has taken from the ogress. The reason why he saved the bird was, according to the boy in the story: “If you catch something that normally does not talk, and now it talks, it is like a miracle. That is why I let it go. If it was predestined by God that it was a normal bird, I would have eaten it.”

From this sentence we may conclude that the emotion of the good boy was not compassion but rather a feeling of awe for a supernatural force. Indeed, the bird was not a vulnerable creature. On the contrary, it appeared to be strong enough to save the boy by some

Box 6.2: The hunter and the last kob

Zina: Souleman Ndango, age 25, male, Mousgoum.

A hunter once caught a Buffon’s kob. But before killing him, the kob started crying and said: "Please hunter, let me go. I have two children at home."

The hunter refused since he did not want to miss this nice meal. The kob continued: "Please, hunter, let me at least go home to warn my children that I am not coming back anymore, so they can look for someone else to take care of them."

The hunter said: "If I let you go, you will not return." "I promise I will return."

" I do not believe you."

The kob kept on begging and finally the hunter let the kob go provided that she had to return by the next morning. The kob went home to tell her two children the bad news. She called them to drink her milk for the last time. The eldest did not feel sorry and just enjoyed drinking a lot of milk. But the younger one refused to drink the milk. He felt so sad, realizing he had to miss his beloved mother.

The next morning the kob returned to see the hunter. The hunter was surprised. He said: "I never expected you to come back. Since you kept your word, I will let you go." The kob was very happy and went back to see her children. Arriving home, however, she found the eldest one had died. From this day on, kobs give birth to only one young.

supernatural magic that finally defeated the ogress. The story ends with a moral, the good boy speaking to his naughty brother (who had undergone a miraculous resurrection) : “That is what happens if you are not listening; if you are naughty2 and impolite, you get punished in the end.” So here again, the story talks about a social moral, in this case obedience.

To give a final example, in a story a boy meets a bird that starts to sing: “If you kill me do not pluck me. If you pluck me do not cook me. If you cook me do not eat me.” The boy ignores the bird, however, and plucks it, cooks it and eats it. When his father comes home he finds the boy to be dead. Again this could be a stimulus for not catching birds but finally the story ends with a clear moral: “So this is a story about gluttony. A child should not contradict his parents. It is because of obstinacy that gluttony has come into this world.” This moral

does of course have no direct link with catching birds. Theme 2: the notion of declining animal populations

Another interesting theme for environmentalists may be the notion of declining numbers of animals. There are several stories in Central Province about hunters who are dealing with the problem of a declining animal population.

In most cases the hunters experience the decrease of an animal population but sometimes the problem is expressed by the animals themselves. One story from Nguila starts as follows:

The monkey was the ‘town crier’ of the village. One day he went broadcasting that the king had called all the animals to come together and build a village because people were accustomed to burning the savannah regularly. This endangered the life of the animals and therefore the number was decreasing. All the animals had to stay quiet and regroup themselves against the human beings. The animals came together and built the village. They were very well organised. The lion was chief and the elephant was his representative. As their representative of justice they chose the hare. The house of the hare was far away from the village, like the quarter of the Hausa3. If there was a problem the hare had to return from a long distance.

Again this seems a good starting point for discussing environmental problems. However, the rest of the story focuses entirely on the personal problem of the hare, leading to a funny clue: he finally uses the hyena as his horse. The human-caused problem of burning savannah does not get any more attention in the story.

Some stories deal with a declining population but in a rather different way. In the Far North there is an aetiological story that discusses the reason why elephants only give birth to one young. According to the story, the elephant went complaining about this fact at the place of God. However, God explained him that he was too big and he was eating too much, so in

2 _{It should be noted that in the story the indication of good and bad are reversed. The good boy from the} beginning becomes the naughty boy at the end.

order to protect other living beings, the number of elephants needed to be limited. Here a declining population is thus seen as a solution rather than a problem.

Related to this theme there are stories in which nature takes personal revenge on people who endanger its life. In stories from Central Province it is often the clever turtle that manages to defeat mankind, often by catching a person by closing his rear side. Revenge often takes place through witchcraft. Many old trees, for example, are inhabited by spirits that take revenge if you cut the tree. A typical example of witchcraft that appears in this context is shapeshifting. In Central Province there are numerous stories about this such as a story about a hunter who kills hundreds of buffaloes each day. One of the buffaloes decides to kill the boy by transforming him into a beautiful girl and seducing the boy. The boy is enticed to a remote place in the savannah. There the fight takes place. He is finally saved by his first wife who appears to possess magical power. The story expresses the idea that animals may be strong enough to fight for their existence. However, in the end, mankind always gains a victory over the animals. I will come back to this in section 6.8.