The Heart of the Dawn has a daughter - the Child of the Heart of the Dawn. He calls her "my heart." He swallows his daughter, and now he walks alone, now it is the only star - the Heart of the Dawn. When his daughter grows up, he spits her out. And she becomes his wife, now she too is the Heart of the Dawn, and she spits out another Child of the Heart of the Dawn, which follows the husband and wife - the Hearts of the Dawn...
In ancient times, the wife of the Heart of the Dawn, the lynx, was a woman of the ancient people, she was very beautiful. Her name was Gtso-Gnuing-Tara. The husband of Gtso-Gnuing-Tara hid their child under the leaves of the edible gtsuissi root - he knew that his wife would find him there. But first other animals and birds came there - hyenas, jackals, blue cranes and black crows - and they all pretended to be the child's mother. But the Child of the Heart of the Dawn only laughed at them, until finally his real mother appeared, and the child immediately recognized her. Then the offended jackal and hyena, in order to take revenge, decided to bewitch their mother and turn her into a lynx with the help of poisoned termite larvae.
Gtso-Gnuing-Tara had a younger sister, Tse-De-Koe, a girl of the ancient people, who carried her digging stick for her. And so they wandered around in search of larvae and dug, looking for larvae in the dug up ground. Then they collected them, preventing them from going back into the ground.
And the hyena poisoned the larvae with the blackened sweat of her armpits. Gtso-Gnuing-Tara began to eat the larvae, and suddenly all her jewelry - earrings, hand and anklets, anklets - began to fall off her, and her kaross untied itself and fell to the ground, and her leather skirt also slipped off her and fell to the ground, and her sandals also untied themselves.
Gtso-Gnuing-Tara warned her younger sister:
- Don't touch these larvae - they have an unpleasant smell. Now you have to take care of the child.
She turned into a predatory beast, jumped up and rushed into the reed thickets.
The younger sister wanted to hold her, she ran after her and shouted:
- O Gtso-Gnuing-Tara! Who will feed your child?
Her older sister replied:
- You will bring him, and I will give him breasts. And as long as I feel that I am a man and not a predatory beast, I will talk to you. But come quickly with the child, don’t hesitate. Bring it tomorrow morning.
The younger sister returned home, and the hyena also came with her, wearing the jewelry of Gtso-Gnuing-Tara. She made her way into the hut and sat down in her place. The Heart of the Dawn, along with other men - jackals, quaggas, wildebeests, ostriches - were hunting. When Dawnheart returned home, the child was crying and only his sister-in-law was with him.
He exclaimed:
- Why is this child screaming, but Gtso-Gnuing-Tara does not pay attention to him?
But the hyena did not answer, and Tse-De-Koe calmed the child.
After waiting until her older sister's husband went hunting again, she put the child behind her and went to her older sister.
She walked until she reached a reed thicket and called:
- O Gtso-Gnuing-Tara, give the child the breast.
Her older sister jumped out of the bushes, ran up and grabbed her, but she exclaimed: “It’s me!” - and gave her the child.
The elder sister gave the baby the breast and said:
- Bring the child again, but quickly, while I still feel human. It seems to me that I am starting to forget you, I no longer recognize you.
And she hid in the reed thickets, and her younger sister put the child on her back and returned home.
Before sunset, she again went with the child to her older sister.
Having reached the reed thickets, she called:
- O Gtso-Gnuing-Tara, give the child the breast.
Her older sister jumped out of the bushes, ran up to her and grabbed her, and she screamed:
- It's me, it's me!
The mother breastfed the child and said:
“Hurry up and bring it again, because I feel like I’m forgetting you.” I don't recognize you anymore.
And she disappeared into the bushes, and her younger sister returned home.
In the morning the younger sister again went to her older sister, she walked, walked, walked, walked, walked, until she reached the reed thickets, and called:
- O Gtso-Gnuing-Tara! Give the baby your breast. And her older sister jumped out of the bushes, ran up to her and grabbed her.
The younger sister recoiled and shouted:
- It's me!
And the older sister said:
“You shouldn’t come to me anymore, because I don’t feel like a human anymore.”
And the younger sister returned home.
And the people staged a gtsu dance: the women clapped their hands and the men nodded their heads. But the hyena did not leave the hut, she was afraid that she would be recognized, although she was wearing the jewelry of Gtso-Gnuing-Tara. And so the Heart of the Dawn, nodding his head, approached his sister-in-law and laid his hand on her shoulder.
And she dodged and exclaimed in anger:
- Leave me alone! Let your wives, the old hyenas, clap their hands for you!
So she betrayed the hyena, revealing her deception. Then the Heart of the Dawn, grabbing his assegai, rushed to where the hyena was sitting and threw the assegai at her, but missed. And the hyena jumped out of the house and started to run, but, having stumbled, she fell into the fire and burned her leg. The hyena ran away, but the Gtso-Gnuing-Tara jewelry that the hyena was wearing remained lying in the place where she was sitting.
The Heart of the Dawn began to scold his sister-in-law for not immediately telling him about the substitution and hiding from him that a hyena had taken his wife’s place. After all, the hyena was sitting with its back to him, and he thought that it was Gtso-Gnuing-Tara. If she had sat facing him, as his wife always did, he would not have been mistaken. And if a person is sitting with his back to you, you never know who might turn out to be him! And so it happened that he married a hyena! The Heart of the Dawn asked his sister-in-law to quickly tell him where his wife was now.
But she answered:
- Wait until it's dawn. We'll go there when the sun rises. But don't think that your wife is the same as she was before.
In the morning, he again began to hurry his sister-in-law so that they could leave quickly.
But she said:
“First we need to bring in the goats to lure her out of the reed thickets.”
And so they drove the goats to the thickets. There Tse-De-Koe told her older sister's husband to stand behind her, and everyone else hid behind him, so that she would be alone near the goats.
Then she called:
- O Gtso-Gnuing-Tara, give the child the breast!
Then her older sister jumped out of the reeds and ran up to her. But, noticing the goats, she turned and rushed at one of them, and meanwhile her husband, her younger sister and her brothers grabbed her. Then they slaughtered the goats and began to rub Gtso-Gnuing-Tara with the contents of the goat's stomachs, and her lynx skin began to come off.
Then she said:
- Look, don’t pull out all the fur, leave a little hair on the tips of my ears, otherwise I’ll stop hearing.
And so her husband left tassels on the tips of her ears. But although the Gtso-Gnuing-Tara brothers pulled her out of the lynx skin and she again turned into a beautiful woman, she could no longer eat termite larvae - after all, she was bewitched by the poisoned larvae. And now she has become a lynx that eats meat.
Heart of the Dawn could not forgive the hyenas for bewitching his wife, and from then on, when returning home, he always kept his bow and assegai at the ready. He walked, stabbing his assegai into the ground, and his huge eyes burned like fire. And everyone was afraid of him because of his eyes, the jackals scattered when he approached.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru