Tone

Tone is the protagonist of a Chagga aetiological legend of famine and landscape. Having provoked the high god Ruwa into bringing famine upon the land, Tone was driven out by his angry neighbours and found refuge only with a solitary dweller whose stones miraculously turned into cattle. Warned never to open the cattle stable, Tone disobeyed; the herd stampeded, throwing up hills — including Mawenzi and Kibo — as they fled, and Tone, exhausted by the pursuit, finally collapsed and perished upon Kibo. The tale, published in translation by Hutchinson from the German mission-era collections, ties the visible topography of the Kilimanjaro region to a moral narrative of divine anger and broken prohibition.

Domains

• famine

Powers

• to provoke the god Ruwa into sending famine upon the land

Relations

• subordinate to: RuwaTone was a mortal subject of the high god Ruwa, whose anger he provoked and whose famine punished the whole land.J. A. Hutchinson, 'The Meaning of Kilimanjaro', Tanganyika Notes and Records, No. 64/65 (1965) (secondary)

Sources

• Tone is the legendary Chagga man who provoked the god Ruwa to send famine, was driven out by his people, and, chasing the escaped miraculous cattle of the hermit who sheltered him, collapsed and died upon Kibo as the fleeing cattle threw up the hills of the region.: J. A. Hutchinson, 'The Meaning of Kilimanjaro', Tanganyika Notes and Records, No. 64/65 (1965), p. 65 (secondary); Bruno Gutmann, Volksbuch der Wadschagga: Sagen, Märchen, Fabeln und Schwänke (1914) (secondary)