A story is told of two men, Wanjohi son of Kĩnyua and Njorua son of Gĩthae, who during the short rains made a hunting bet. They agreed to meet at sunset under the mugumo tree by River Nyamaita, each carrying his best catch.
Wanjohi thumped his chest so hard the sound bounced across the compound like a drum. “Tomorrow,” he boomed, “I will bring something so huge the whole village will invent a dance in my name.” He thumped again, grinning at his contestant. Njorua stood aside, hands behind his back, face as calm as still water. He did not smile or frown. Instead, he noted the bet with a single and quiet nod.
At sunrise Wanjohi and Njorua separated at the river ford. Wanjohi charged east, his spear banging against every branch. Njorua turned west, his bare feet reading the ground with quiet care.
What happened over the next few hours remains a big village joke ever since.
Wanjohi’s hunt was a parade of small disasters. First, he mistook a warthog’s dust hole for a hint of a big catch. He ended up only scaring a flock of doves into the sky. Then he slipped into a stream and crawled out draped in waterweed only to trip over a root and hit a termite mound with his head.
By mid-afternoon he had nothing to show for his hours of hunting. The only creature he managed to pin down was a skinny squirrel.
Njorua, meanwhile, had found a salt lick in a gap between rocks. He sat completely still and let the forest forget he was there. A young bushbuck arrived, stepping lightly without a care. Njorua’s arrow struck with certainty. He whispered a quiet thank-you and lifted his catch onto his shoulders. He reached the mugumo tree a full hour early, laid the deer on a bed of ferns and sat down to wait.
The agreed time came and slipped past. Then, out of the bushes, burst Wanjohi looking more like a scarecrow than a hunter. Wanjohi stumbled into the clearing, one sandal gone, and his cloak in tatters. His eyes spotted the deer, and something inside him sank like a punctured gourd. Between his thumb and finger hung the squirrel. Its tiny paws curled up as if even in death it felt ashamed.
Njorua rose. He did not gloat. He simply said, in a voice as dry as a cricket’s wing, “The forest favours quiet, because quiet is the only language it agrees to listen to.”
He walked towards the village, deer on his back. Wanjohi stayed under the tree, the squirrel a permanent lesson. To this day, on that ridge, whenever a man beats his chest too loudly, someone will lean to a neighbour and whisper, “Beware the hunter of squirrels.”
Now picture Samuel Muchina Nyaga uprooting a bountiful harvest with Sammy Douglas Kamau Waweru Ngotho pulling out a measly rat-bitten tuber with expectant onlookers waiting!
Siku ni Alhamisi terehe 16 mwezi huu wa Saba! Atakayekuwa na mwana ataelekea jiwe…
