The hunter and the leopard (part 4)
The hunter did not have too long to wait. Very soon, the leopard arrived. Its tail kept swishing to the left and to the right – an indication that it was in a greatly excited state.
Without much ado, the leopard again went through the drill of ordering, asking the boy to assemble the skulls of dead animals on the ground, and identifying each animal by name; each in its turn.
In due course, he reached the skull of the dead leopard.
The boy hesitated for only half a second, but the leopard, frothing at the mouth at the delicious thought of eating a human, yelled at him: “YEsESSSS? WHAT ANIMAL IS THAT?”
And the boy, feigning fear, replied:
“This is: Gyahene! (King of Fire) Etwie (The one whose claws can scratch any creature to death!)
LEOPARD: “Okay!… Okay! Enough of the nicknames. What do those who do not have a good command of animal nicknames call that one?” With that, the leopard jumped to the left side of where the boy stood. At that moment, the boy heard his father whistle: “WHEEEEEE!”
The boy innocently readjusted the position where he stood, in relation to where the leopard stood, doing it so naturally that the leopard did not notice anything unusual taking place, with regard to their standing postures.
He next said: “That is Osebor! (The feared Leopard who can kill with just one death-blow!) Kurotwiamansa a….
The leopard growled as to attack the boy. But he liked what the boy had said so much that he said: “I only heard what you said with my left ear. Say it again so that my right ear too can hear it!” Meanwhile, he shifted positions again, so that the boy now faced him on his left side.
But the boy noticed this, and like someone dancing a pas de deux with another in a ballet on the stage, he too stealthily changed positions again.
The boy next did as he was told by the leopard.
As he was finishing the sentence, the leopard again moved leftwards, into its springing position. At the same time, the hunter whistled again to his son, “WHEE!WHEEEE!” (Move aside! NOW!)
The leopard shifted on his legs for just half a second to readjust his position, as the boy also moved.
The hunter had been anticipating this and pointed his gun at the springing leopard in a way that would catch him in-mid-air:
“TENGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!”
And the leopard fell in mid-spring, dead at the feet of the hunter’s son.
It was from that day on that hunters regularly began to take their young boys with them into the forest, to apprentice them in the craft of hunting.
They heard from the hunter’s own lips, how leaving his beloved son alone in his cottage whilst out hunting, had nearly cost him his son’s life.
Wicked leopards could “strike at anyone at any time!” he cautioned his fellow hunters. They readily took his advice to heart, for he was a good story-teller and his technique convinced them that he was only interested – sincerely – in preventing them from making the same mistake as he had once made.
By Cameron Duodu
