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The Eagle and the Baby

The Eagle and the Baby is an African folktale explaining how human murder came to be. Translated and told by Italian author Alessandro Ceni in Fiabe Africane (African Folktales), the story is of Zambian descent and originated within the Ila people. 

Synopsis

The story begins with a woman and her baby boy. Every day the woman goes to work in the fields and, unable to find someone to care for her child while away, takes him with her. After settling the baby in the shade and nursing him, the baby would remain peaceful while the woman began her chores. One day, after settling the baby beneath a banana tree and nursing him once again, she is surprised to find that the baby boy will not stop crying. She is able to soothe him, but not long after the baby begins to cry again. It is then that an eagle descended from the sky and landed next to the small boy, caressing him with her feathers and tickling him with her beak. Seeing this, the mother uses one of her tools to chase the eagle away. The woman is concerned by this, but fears her husband will not believe such a whimsical tale and decides to keep what happened to herself.

The next day, the woman once again went to work in the fields with her baby boy in tow. As always, she settled her son under the shade, nursed him, and then began her work. Soon, the baby boy began to cry, but before the woman can react the eagle has returned once again to comfort the child. Amazed by the eagle’s tenderness, she takes her baby and runs back to the village in search of her husband. Once found, the woman explains the amazing feat she had witnessed, but is rejected by her husband and sent back to the fields.

She again settles and nurses the baby before tending to the fields, but it is not long before the baby begins to fuss. The woman, determined to prove her validity, races back to the village with the baby boy and convinces her husband to come with her to the fields to witness it himself. Startled by his wife’s return, he agrees to follow her to the field with bow and arrows in hand. The woman instructs him to hide behind some bushes while she places the baby under the shade once more, before joining her husband. Noticing that he is alone, the baby boy begins to cry and, lo and behold, the eagle appears once more. As the woman and her husband watch the eagle calm the child the husband becomes alarmed and shoots an arrow at the eagle. Unfortunately, at that moment the eagle moved to the side and the arrow instead struck the child. The eagle immediately flies away, but not without a warning: “Man, and with you all men who are and those who are yet to come: Just as I came down to comfort your child, so may my curse come down on you. You have killed your own flesh and blood and one of your fellow creatures will kill you; thus men will kill one another forever.”