THE ENGRAVED ROCK OF KOPONG AND LOE. 445 



typed copy of the paper was procured through the courtesy of 

 Dr. W. A. Roberts, and is reproduced here; 



A Native Leigend of the Origin of M!an and Animals, 



AS TOLD B)Y A NATIVE LaD. 



When I was still a small boy, my parents told me that there is a 

 very deep hole. This hole is where the people of the olden times are 

 supposed to have come from. The name of the hole is Lowe. Lowe 

 might be called a hole or a cave, because the hole is at the mouth 

 of a cave. At the mouth of the cave there is a wide flat stone, stretching 

 about half a mile all round the hole. The story of Lowe is as 

 follows : — Long ago, when that stone was still soft and wet, a lot 

 of people came out from that hole. Numerous tracks of wild beasts 

 and many tracks of people can be seen, veld-schoens of the Bechuanas 

 and Bushmen, and the footprints of dogs, lions, tigers, and a good 

 many other beasts. These tracks are still there even now. Among 

 those tracks of people there was a very long track of a man's foot, 

 very wide also. This man was supposed to have led the people from 

 there. They called him " Matsieng." The place where he trod is 

 called " Neneke." It is not very far from Kanye. When they went 

 out from that hole one nation went in one direction, and another in 

 another direction ; even the beasts and cows took their own directions^ 

 Of course, the cows took the same direction as their owners, and the 

 dogs also. It is said before they went far the leader was told by God 

 to gather the various tribes in one place, so that they could be given 

 wisdom. He gathered them and encamped them on a certain place ; 

 the name of the place is not given. It is said that God told the leader 

 that they must not go anywhere until he came back. The people were 

 different in colour, but could speak the same language. About the 

 middle of the day some vultures flew past above them. Matsieng 

 saw those vultures. He knew that they flew to something dead. He 

 broke the command of God and ran after them. The black people 

 were not given so much as the white people, because they broke the 

 command of God. From this time the black people went their way 

 and the white people theirs. After they had gone their way, God 

 wanted to punish the leader, so he was sent back to the hole. Since 

 that time he has never come out. The hole is just in the centre of 

 Bechuanaland, between Chief Khama's country and Chief Scheie's 

 country. 



Many people go to see that hole and those tracks. They told me 

 strange things about the hole. What they say is this : When any 

 person is near the hole, he can hear the voices of boys milking the 

 cows or talking to each other, and the dogs barking, the lowing of 

 the cattle and calves, just as one hears them when they are at a cattle- 

 post. They also say that if a person throws a stone inside the hole 

 at six o'clock in the morning, and goes away, if he returns next day, or 

 two or three days after, he will hear the sound of that stone distinctly.* 



A remarkable thing is that none of Matsieng's footprints can be 

 seen facing either north, east, or south ; they always face west. At 

 Neneke his footprint is pointing towards the west, and in all those 

 places where his footprint has been seen it is always the footprint 

 of the right foot. Among the natives it is believed that when any 

 stock gets lost, if they faced the east, it is a sure case that they 



* With reference to this, Mr. J. D. Knobel writes : " I do not know 

 Neneke. The place where a stone can be heard falling for a long 

 time is a different place in Khama's country. The Rev. Willoughby 

 visited it, and told me that the sound supposed to be that of the 

 falling stone is made by the bats that inhabit the hole, called Sebono- 

 sanaga " 



