The Broken String

Nuing-kuiten my father’s friend   

was a lion sorcerer   

and walked on feet of hair.   

People saw his spoor and said:   

“The sorcerer has visited us.   

He is the one who treads on hair.   

This big animal prowling   

was Nuing-kuiten.”   

He used to travel by night—

he did not want to be seen   

for people might shoot at him   

and he might maul someone.   

At night he could go unseen,   

after other lion sorcerers   

who slink into our dwellings   

and drag out men.   

The sorcerer lived with us   

hunting in a lion’s form   

until an ox fell prey to him.   

Then the Boers rode out   

and shot my father’s friend,   

but he fought those people off   

and came home to tell father   

how Boers had wounded him.   

He thought father did not know   

he was wounded in his lion form.   

Soon he would have to go   

for he lay in extreme pain.   

If only he could take father   

and teach him his magic and songs,   

father would walk in his craft,   

sing his songs, and remember him.

He died, and my father sang:   

“Men broke the string for me   

and made my dwelling like this.   

Men broke the string for me   

and now   

my dwelling is strange to me.   

My dwelling stands empty   

because the string has broken,   

and now   

my dwelling is a hardship for me.”