Mkulu, the Unfinished Giraffe

In Edonia there are artists who carve animals from wood. Anapa was such an artist.

As a small child he had dreamed of wood carvings that would make him famous throughout the land of Edonia. He had dreamed of being asked to carve animals for the King’s throne, and that he, Anapa, would be invited to create such a throne.

As he grew up he spent hours watching animals in the bush, noting the long-necked giraffes, their dappled colouring, their honey-coloured eyes and long eyelashes.

He watched the elephants and the buck and the crocodiles and he learned in his soul how to carve them from wood.

A carving by Anapa came to be much prized by Edonians. He got his wish, and carved a new throne for the King, and people came from miles around to look at the throne and marvel at the delicate carvings that decorated it.

One hot morning, Anapa left his hut and took up his work under the msasa tree beside it. He was carving a large giraffe, which stood as high as his own head.

The village children crept close to look at the wooden giraffe that was coming to life under Anapa’s clever hands and knife. The giraffe was big enough for a child to sit on, and Anapa good-naturedly helped the smaller children on to the giraffe’s back, and held them as they pretended to ride it.

And so the peaceful, sunny hours passed. Wood shavings piled up at Anapa’s feet.

From a distance, you would have thought that a real giraffe stood beside Anapa’s hut, so great was his skill.

Anapa had finished the delicate detail of one eye and was about to begin carving the next eye, when Chief Gadzu came over to Anapa, as he worked outside his hut.

“I will buy that giraffe,” he told Anapa. “How much?”

“It is not for sale,” said Anapa quietly. “This is a gift for my unborn son.”

“Carve another one for your son,” growled the Chief. “I want this giraffe.”

“Very well, you may have it when it is finished,” said Anapa, turning back to his carving.

At this, Anapa’s pretty young wife burst into tears.

“How could you agree to give the giraffe away?” she sobbed. “You promised it would be for our first son!”

“Yes, and so it will,” replied Anapa.

“But you now say the Chief can have it!”

“I said he can have it when it is finished,” said Anapa. “Do not weep, my wife. It will never be finished.”

“Oh, my husband, how clever you are!” cried his young wife, running her hands over the carving of the giraffe.

“He is finished except for one eye,” said Anapa. “Our son will inherit a one-eyed giraffe.”

Now, Chief Gadzu became even more angry when he heard that Anapa had no intention of finishing the wondrous carving of the great giraffe.

How dare a mere wood carver frustrate his desires? He would have his revenge.

For some days he brooded over his plans. He would make sure that neither Anapa nor his son would possess the carving.

The villagers called the carving Mkulu, or the Big One, and every day they inspected the beautiful wooden animal that stood in the shade of the tree outside Anapa’s hut.

Being a simple man himself, Anapa never imagined that anyone would be so spiteful as to harm his beautiful creation.

Early one morning before the birds had begun calling to each other, the Chief sent one of his strong young warriors with a burning brand to set light to Mkulu, the Big One.

The warrior built a nest of dry twigs and branches around the wooden carving, and set fire to it.

The crackle and roar of the hungry fire woke the villagers, who sat up in alarm when they smelled the thick smoke. One by one they rushed out of their huts and exclaimed in dismay when they saw Mkulu burning brightly in the midst of the fire.

Anapa stumbled sleepily from his hut and gave a terrible cry. His masterpiece was on fire, blackening as the hot tongues of fire devoured it.

“Who has done this?” demanded the villagers.

“Chief Gadzu,” said Anapa sadly. “I would not sell it to him. So he has burned it.”

Anapa’s wife started to wail.

“It was a present for my baby son,” she sobbed. “Chief Gadzu is a hateful man!”

“Look!” said the villagers, pointing to the fire that now spread to the msasa tree and from there leaped to the roof of Anapa’s hut, and from his hut to the next hut, and from the next hut to the next, until the whole village was on fire.

That evening the villagers stood in the midst of the smoking ruins of their village, anger in their hearts.

“What will you do?” they asked Anapa.

“I will give him my carving,” said Anapa, picking up a small piece of charred wood that was all that was left of the one-eyed giraffe. “He wanted my carving. He shall have my carving.”

“What are you going to do?” cried his wife fearfully.

“I will make him eat it,” said Anapa.

His face as black as thunder, Anapa stalked away to find Chief Gadzu.

What happened to Anapa and Chief Gadzu? Nobody knows. Neither of them was ever seen again.

The villagers built new huts on the ashes of the old ones, and Anapa’s small son plays under an msasa tree with a little wooden carving of a giraffe, made by his sorrowing mother.

Sometimes the village children ask the boy, “Why does your giraffe only have one eye?”

“I do not know,” he replies. “I have asked my mother to finish my giraffe, but she shakes her head, thus, and smiles, so, and then she cries and tells me to go outside and play. It is something I do not understand, but I love my giraffe even though he is not finished.”

Perhaps this is why, when the moon is full, say the Talking Drums, you may see a wooden giraffe slipping quietly down to the Fula River, mysterious eye fringed with mysterious lashes.

On his way back, Mkulu, the Big One, will visit the hut of Anapa’s wife, and pause to look at a sleeping child, before once more vanishing into the night.

It is possible, say the Talking Drums, that so much love went into the carving of Mkulu that it is Anapa himself who looks down on his sleeping child.

Who can tell whether this is so, or not so?

End

Author’s note: The African bush is full of magic and we are free to believe what we please. It pleases me to think that it was Anapa himself who watched over his son.
 Pene Beavan Horton

Copyright reserved 2010

From The Drums That Would Not Stop Talking, a book of African Fairy Tales by Pene Beavan Horton