Hare, False Messenger of the Moon
The Hare is the miscarrying messenger of the Khoekhoe account of how death became final, one of the most widely recorded of all Khoekhoe narratives; Bleek's 1864 collection prints several Nama versions. In the tale written down by the missionary J.G. Krönlein, the Moon first sent an insect with the promise that people, like the moon, would die and rise again; the hare, claiming to be the swifter runner, took the message and told humankind instead that, as he dies and does not rise, so they too would die and rise no more. For this the Moon struck him and split his upper lip — in one version with a hatchet, in another by burning his mouth with a hot stone — while the hare scratched the Moon's face, leaving its dark patches. Nama custom shunned the flesh of the hare, a scruple observers connected with the animal's part in bringing death or with fear of taking on its faint-heartedness.
Domains
- death
Powers
- to outrun the Moon's appointed messenger and take the message himself
- to deliver the Moon's promise of renewal as a sentence of final death
Relations
Sources
- W.H.I. Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South Africa; or, Hottentot Fables and Tales (London: Trübner & Co., 1864), 'The Origin of Death'
- I. Hartmann & M. Sukdaven, 'The interrelatedness between the Nama Khoikhoi supreme being and celestial objects', HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 80(2), a9299 (2024)
- Timothy Harley, Moon Lore (London, 1885)