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Musa goes to fish in a stream through the bush near his father’s hut. A stranger tells him not to fish there, it is the home of the Water people, and harm will come to him; but Musa persists. He catches a fish that gives him directions. "I must be taken to your house, cleaned, and my head cut off. Then I must be cut up and put into a pot with water, pepper, salt, and palm-oil, and set over the fire to boil. Then you must put on the fire a pot of rice and cover it well with water. When the soup and the rice are cooked, put the rice in a bowl, and pour over it the soup. If you do what I say, you will have fine, fine chop. But you must eat it at once." Musa goes home and does what he was told; but with the first mouthful a big fish-bone catches in his throat, and he strangles to death. "Hard-headed little boys must not fish where the Water people live," says the fish as he jumps out of the soup, joins his head on the ground, and goes back to the stream.

Sub-Saharan Stories