ix WA-KIKUYU 117 



hungry he will carry off babies from the huts and some- 

 times adults are seriously bitten. It is the habit of the 

 animal to bite pieces off the exposed parts of the body 

 >iu-h as the cheek or buttock. 



Donaldson Smith gives some facts concerning the 

 strength of the jaws of hyaenas. He saw one of these 

 animals pull the horn out of a goat which had been 

 fastened to a stake, and with another bite tear off the 

 whole hind-leg. On one occasion he wounded a 

 hartebeest with a bullet, breaking its leg. A number 

 of hyaenas set on the hartebeest and succeeded in 

 pulling it down and began to bite pieces out of the 

 hindquarters ; several of them were shot and the rest 

 left the hartebeest. The antelope regained its feet and 

 began to make off, but a merciful bullet finished its 

 career. 



Hollis has translated from the Nandi the following 

 folk-tale which explains how leopards got spots on their 

 coats, and hyaenas blotches : Two lion whelps seeing 

 some warriors adorned for war thought they would look 

 well if painted. They procured some paint, and one 

 whelp dabbed a number of black spots on the coat of 

 his friend. The spotted whelp began to paint his 

 companion when they heard the cry, " A goat has been 

 lost." The painter then threw the paint-pot at his 

 friend and rushed away to find the lost goat. The 

 spotted whelp became a leopard, the partially painted 

 one, a hysena. 



References : \V. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge 

 With a Prehistoric People : The Akikdyu oj British East Africa 

 1910. 



