The Man, the Antelope, and the Snake

God created Man, then Antelope, then Snake.

"Plant these seeds," God told them, and they did.

Then trees grew, and God came to eat the fruit.

"We should eat too!" said Snake.

"But we don't know anything about that fruit," protested Antelope.

Man and his wife ate.

When God returned, he asked, "Who ate the fruit?"

"We did," said Man. "Snake told us to eat. We were hungry."

God asked Antelope, "Were you hungry?"

"Yes," said Antelope. "But I ate the grass, not the fruit."

Then God gave other seeds to Man for planting, and to Snake he gave poison.

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Inspired by: "Unumbotte's Creation" in The hero with an African face : mythic wisdom of traditional Africa by Clyde Ford, 2000.
Notes: You can read the original story online. The god's name is Unumbotte. Ford notes that Frobenius collected this story from the Basari in northern Guinea, insisting that the story predated any missionary contact, despite the similarities to the Genesis story in the Bible. 

by Herman Pijpers at Flickr