The Origin of Baboons

The  people of the Amafene tribe were lazy, asking others for food. "We live without digging," they boasted. "We eat the food of those who farm."

The chief of the Tusi clan told his people, "Let's leave our homes and go into the wilderness." They used the handles of digging sticks to carry bundles of food behind them.

In time, they became baboons. The sticks became tails. Hair grew on their bodies; their faces changed shape.

Now they dwell in the rocks. When people kill a baboon, they say, "It's one of Tusi's people." 

That is the origin of baboons.

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Inspired by: "The Origin of Baboons" in Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus by Henry Callaway, 1868.
Notes: You can read the original story online, and the Zulu text is also available: "It's one of Tusi's people" = Umuntu wakwatusi.

(chacma baboon)