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The Elephant DanceLoading
'The Elephant Dance' is a short story that takes place in South Africa at the turn of the 19th century.
We will open the story of the 'The Elelphant Dance' with a beautiful video and song from Africa. Lyrics 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' by a Soweto Choir In the jungle The mighty jungle The lion sleeps tonight In the jungle The mighty jungle The lion sleeps tonight (Chorus - (Zulu) Near the village The peaceful village The lion sleeps tonight In the village The peaceful village The lion sleeps tonight (Chorus - (Zulu) Hush my darling Don't fear my darling The lion sleeps tonight Hush my darling Don't fear my darling The lion sleeps tonight (Chorus - (Zulu) Near the village, the peaceful village The lion sleeps tonight Near the village, the peaceful village The lion sleeps tonight (Chorus - (Zulu) My little darling Don't fear my little darling My little darling Don't fear my little darling
The men were preparing for the dance. Phelo was attaching shell rattles to his ankles. Kotukokee was blowing a tune through a bamboo flute, Be/tee was strumming rhythm on buck gut string attached to a tortoise shell. Kaang sat alone; leaning his naked brown back against the trunk of an acacia tree. He looked away from the hunters’ fire and watched the white foamed waves breaking on the sand in the dusklight. Mambakush danced out of her hut, singing. Women started swaying their hips to the rhythm and clapping. They circle the fire, chorusing the hunters. A steady clash of tortoise shells. High pitched notes from the four stringed harp. Phelo twirls into the air. Cantering feet like hooves in the sand. The hunters rise.
He fetched a kaross from a hut and lay under a tree, wedged himself in the sand, and watched the wind blow pictures with the clouds. He squeezed his eyes tight and thought. But the rhythm of the dance brought dreams. He was awake when the hunters left. He stood beside the trunk of the flat topped acacia tree and watched the band of bow and arrow men disappear through the trees. 
He strode over to his mother; curled around the fading warmth of the dim embers outside of her hut. “Qae…Qae…” he tapped her shoulder. “What is it? what is it? Leave me in peace…” she grumbled. “When can I sit at the hunters fire?” Nxam peered at her son through sleep filled eyes. “Your time will come. You are still a boy.” she mumbled. “How can I become a man if I have to swop my arrows with the hunters and shoot an eland with my own bow, and you do not let me join my father in the hunt?” his voice rising. “His mother's tone softened. "Wait. Wait until the rains fall. When we light a new fire for a new year, then your father and I will speak.” Kaang slouched away, climbed into a tree and sat high upon a branch. "It is still two seasons before the new rains!" he shouted. “Kaang ! --- Kaang !” Tshipikan dashed from his hut calling to the older boy. “My father has told me they are seeking the kraals of the tall black tribes. He is going to speak to their chiefs. They are taking our hunting grounds and our fountains of water,” He swung himself up beside his friend on the branch. “I know, my father has told me also. Tshipikan?” muttered Kaang, more to himself than to his companion. "How can I show them that I am old enough to help poison the arrows and sit at the hunters fire? My mother tells me to wait until the new rains and I know that I cannot” A puzzled expression suddenly altered his countenance and he breathed deeply. He stood up on the branch and scanned the horizon. “Can you smell them?” he whispered, excitement creeping back into his voice.He dropped down from the branch. Pressed his ear to the ground, and laying his palms on the sand.“Listen…..Elephant!” He buried his hands under the sand, feeling for tremors from their footfalls.Tshipikan scrambled out of the tree to join him, imitating his gestures.Kaang chewed on his lip, his honey brown eyes flashed and his lips relaxed into a grin. “If I bring home the curved horns and the heart of a bull elephant, then they can never refuse me. After one nights sleep, when the eye of Xameb shines over there” and he pointed towards the dawn,” then the herd will be near these hills”. “You’ve been eating bad-berries” laughed Tshipikan, standing up. He put his hands on his hips and spoke defiantly. “You are not even as tall as a bull elephants trunk” and he swung himself back up into the tree, and dangled his legs over the branch. “You will be killed" he called down with an air of derision. You have no poison for your arrows, and even then. A grey bull is the king, the giant of the early race. All the strength in your body is not equal to that even of his little toe.”and Tshipikan broke into peals of laughter. Kaang leapt up on the branch and sat down beside him."I will join the fire circle of the men, before the new rains” The clan was stirring to life. Xanis led a group of small children towards them. “Come down, you look like the people who sit on their heels” she cried. Tshipikan barked like a baboon, and swung out of the tree.“We’re going to the rocks to pick shell fish, come.” Kaang shook his head with a grunt.“That is the work of women and children. Before the eye of Xameb has set two more times I will poison my arrows at the hunters fire.” The young girl raised her brows. Bad-berry talk” laughed Tshipikan to his sister. “He talks of the horns and the heart of a Grey Bull to prove it is his time to join the hunters’ fire.” Kaang dropped down beside them. He smiled, raising his eyebrows back at her and strolled over to Kotukotee, the greybeard, who was carving a wooden flute outside of his hut. The boy stood silent for a while absorbed in the skill of the craftsman.And then he asked softly “Would you tell me again, the tales of the days, when you were a hunter?” The old man’s face crumpled into creases. His watery eyes twinkled with new life.He patted the ground. “Sit. Sit” And the grey beard laid the bamboo aside and relived many tales of his days as a hunter. They sucked the marrow of many bones and the shadows began to lengthen. Tell me again of the Elephant Dance, Kotukotee…” whispered the boy."You cannot suck all the marrow from all the bones in one sitting" chuckled the old man but he began the tale with renewed animation. The sky was purple when he left Kutukotee outside of his hut. He gathered wood to make a fire away from the clan.Quietly he stole a coal from the hunters fire and covered it with kindling. The sound of children laughing blew over the grass. Mambakush was telling a story.
He picked up a sharpening stone and his spear. The voices of the night began to filter through the air. The croaking of bull frogs from the river, tunes from the circkets in the long grass, the crash of the waves as they broke upon the shore. Footsteps. He looked up.Tshipikan.Another figure. It was Xanis. They crouched beside him by the fire. “What are you doing here by yourself? Why did you carry coals for a new fire?” demanded Tshipikan. Kaang looked away from his questioning gaze. But Xanis saw the heaviness of his heart and the signs of worry and pain in his expression. “Tonight I must dance a prayer to the Great God =Gao!na and the Grey Bull, Kaang replied. I must learn the ways of a man before the new rains.” Xanis sighed. “Tshipikan says you are drunk on bad-berry juice”. Shall I believe him too?” Kaang rubbed the stone against the blade. Tiny sparks, gold in the dark, almost trembled in the air. “=Gao!na will be angry” retorted Tshipikan. “We kill so we may live. To provide meat, bone for our tools, hides to keep warm…” Kaang replied, without meeting his gaze. “The gray bull that you seek is not for that reason.” answered Tshipikan. “I will not kill a giant grey, I will bring him home to our fires so the hunters can see it is my time” Tshipikan laughed “How?” Kaang lay down the spear and fed the fire. “I have listened to Kotukotee, he has told me the song and the steps of the Elephant Dance..” Xanis interupted “Why? Why not wait until the new rains”. Her fingers were beginning to quiver and she fiddled at the shell beads in her hair. Kaang returned to sharpening his spear and then lay it down and looked up at the night sky. “I have seen the pictures in the hair of the ancestors as they form in the wind" Tshipikan suddenly alert to the depth of sadness in Kaangs voice felt his heart lurch in his chest. A sudden knot of fear tightened in his belly as Kaang pointed up at the curved moon that lit up the clouds as they blew across the sky. "Can you see the skulls of the ancestors?" Clumps of silvery hair wove into pictures; bones, skulls, skeletons and then stretching away into faces of pain. Xanis shook her head.“If you can read the pictures in the page of life. Tell us. What does it mean?” Kaang frowned.."I am not certain. he admitted. I do not throw the bones by the hunters fire or dance like the medicine men in a trance, so that what is hidden might be known. But I must join the hunters fire before the new rains... When will they return?” “Mambakush says, before night, after one sleep. They follow the tracks of the Quagga, and they seek out a kraal of the tall tribes.” Kaang got to his feet and broke two curved branches from a tree. Xanis' hands tightened into fists and she looked at her brother. They both read, 'A giant grey will kill him,' in each others eyes. They watched him fasten a rattle of shells to his ankles, her eyes began to water and she turned her face, biting her lip, then slipped away from the fire into the dark. Kaang resumed sharpening his spear and Tshipikan watched on in silence. He listened to the crash of waves upon the shore and gazed up at the clouds as they swept across the moon. Kaang ran his finger along the edge of the blade, satisfied he lay it down and stood up. He picked up the wood tusks holding one in each hand and let his head roll back onto his shoulders. Breathing deeply, he stared up at the night sky; at the campfires of the souls of the ancestors burning in the night. Little starlights of green, blue, yellow, clusters of silver. A wild and mournful howling flew on the breeze. Jackals, Hyenas… Suddenly, snapping his head forward, Kaang raised his knee high and pounded the ground. He raised the wood horns to his face, and crouched over.. weaving around the fire, waving his head from side to side.The hyaenas laughed. Xanis appeared in the shadows, she was returning and leading a group of small children. They came stamping into the firelight.They started clapping, swaying their hips from side to side...and then their chorus of voices broke the night into song. Tshipikan slipped the bow off his shoulder, plucking notes from the taut string. Kaang smiled… tilted his head, cupped his hands to his mouth and the trumpet of an elephant bull screamed through the night. The eerie voices in the hills fell silent. He bent over and held the wood horns to his face, weaving, dancing, twisting and twirling, whispering and singing his stream of magic words. It was cold when he awoke. The camp was quiet.The rhythm of elephant footsteps rippled through the earth. He could feel their presence down to the marrow in his bones. Their aroma filled the air. A chill wind blew up his spine, stirring him from the warmth of the fire. He rose. Dim crimson lit up the morning clouds.He took his spear, his boy bow, three and three arrows; tied the quiver to his back. Gazed up at the last campfires burning in the dawn sky. Then turned and ran toward the hills. Tshipikan pretended sleep under the folds of his kaross, he heard Kaangs footfalls over the sand away from the clan. The wind was cold, but he threw off his hide blanket, shivered and cast his eyes toward the hills. He stood motionless watching Kaangs figure recede into the distance. Standing at the top of the sand bank Kaang looked back, down upon the huts of his clan nestling in a clearing of the tall yellow grass.They were awake. Fires were being tended. Silver streams of smoke flew away with the wind. They would know he was gone. He ran down the bank toward the river. It was lion, leopard and cheetah country beyond the grassy dunes. Their paw marks were deep in the river mud. He stopped. Lions. females, three and three more, cubs, two males. The wind had blown some of the drier patterns away. He ran on. The smell of elephant was thick in his nostrils, the sound of them beat with rythum through his veins. He swung up into a tree, stood high upon a branch and grinned. Herds and herds of roaming elephants were crashing through the bush. A giant grey was scratching himself against a tree.
Elephant cows were helping their infants down the slippery mud banks by curling their trunks around their bodies. Others were moving slowly through the trees, grazing on branches. A giant elephant bull with massive curved cream coloured tusks was following the herd. Kaang relaxed into the tree to watch him. The heat of the day was rising, soon the herd would rest in the shade. He slithered down the trunk and crept through the grass. A fish eagle swooped over the river, dropped down fast upon the water, flapped back into the air with her wide brown-white wings and a silver fish clutched in her talons. Kaang hid in the reeds, waiting for the sun to slide toward the setting sky. He chuckled at the mother elephants, teaching their young to suck water with their trunks and spray it like a shower over their backs. He waited.The elephants found shade at midday away from the scorch of the sun. The shadows began to lengthen and again the herd began to graze. The bull was snatching branches from the trees near a smaller herd of elephant cows and their calves. Kaang slowly rose to his feet, gripped the spear in one hand. Beads of perspiration were forming on his forehead. He bent low and crept without a sound toward the herd. The giant grey raised his trunk and sniffed the air. He looked around, small eyes searching for the threat. He flapped his ears, waving his head from side to side. Kaang leapt out of the grass, his cry of war burst free from his lungs and he began to run. In, out, dodging and dancing between the elephant cows and their young. The bull pounded the ground with his foot, shaking his head from side to side and then a loud and deafening trumpet shattered the silence and the bull elephant charged.
Kaang turned and fled, screaming a stream of magic words, weaving, twisting, out of reach of the goring tusks and the trampling feet. He bolted down stream leading the bull towards the dunes.The elephant slowed, stopped, trumpeted once more and then turned back to follow the herd. “!xa !xa !xa” the boy called with fearful excitement.He stood his ground as the elephant turned to face him. Again, Kaang sang his string of magic words over and over and the bull elephant charged. Deafening trumpeting split the air and the boy danced, weaving and twisting out of the reach of the mad elephant charging. He was swerving, dancing, twisting, moving, reacting with lightning speed and all the while he kept singing, singing, singing, singing his rhyme of magic words. The bull slowed, stopped, puzzled at the little figure, then turned again to tramp back to the herd. The boy hunter stalked up behind him, throwing small pebbles; teasing, taunting the bull. The elephant flapped his ears and waved his trunk and another burst of furious trumpeting rent the air. Kaang raced up the dune, leading the bull crashing through the long yellow grass toward the clan. The hunters were sitting by their fire, dividing the meat of the Quagga. “There’s a mad elephant bull coming too close” said Phelo picking up his spear and rising. Where is that boy of mine? He was dancing through the grass. Swerving this way and that way. His tiny shadow slipped behind the elephant and he drew his spear swiftly slicing into the tendon above the elephants heel. The grey bull stumbled. Kaang flashed his spear again, hacking, cutting, slicing into the tendon above the back foot; whispering,praying, crying, chanting his stream of magic words. The elephant whipped out with his trunk, snatching at the boy behind his heels. They broke together through the grass into the clearing, the bull now stumbling on three legs and then the tendon snapped. Another deafening shreiking trumpet and the furious beast gouged at the boy with his tusks as Kaang attacked at the right. But the elephant was crippled and slow. Kaang danced in and out of his trampling feet and goring tusks singing and chanting his stream of magic words. The second tendon ripped and the bull elephant fell helpless to his knees.Kaang was stumbling backwards away from the bull. His eyes glazed by the trance of the dance. The women and children were moving towards the beach. The men were collecting poisoned arrows and spears, organising their defence. The hunters appeared through the grass and strode into the clearing. “You should have been killed! What game is this?” Phelo bellowed shaking his spear at his son. But the furious bull elephants trumpeting drowned his words. “Do you know…why, why you are not dead…?” Phelo shouted, shaking the boy at the shoulder. Then he took him by the arm and led him back to the hunters fire. "What game is this? "He demanded again. And then Phelo began to laugh."Do you know why you are not dead? Because you are.. and he broke into peals of laughter. "Because you are a Bushman !" he said at last wiping the tears from his eyes. Tshipikan beat on the hide of a drum.Xanis danced into the air, starting the chanting. A steady of clash of tortoise shells. Kotokotee blowing on a bamboo fluteBe/tee strumming rhythm on buck gutstring. Kaang glowed.The hunters fire ! 
The Eye of Xameb lifted into a new day.Phelo gazed with dark worried eyes at his son. He reached out for another log and dragged it onto the hunters' fire. Kaang sat beside him, silent, studying the patterns in the scarlet clouds on the horizon. “We must leave. Follow the shore line,” said Phelo. “Clouds of red dust are rising in the hills. Warriors of the tall black tribes spill blood, plundering shorthorns and corn, spearing the men, capturing the women. Skeletons cover the grass where kraals once stood. The lion and the leopard grow many from the flesh on the floor. We must leave, follow the shore line. But before we can gather our hides, you must kill the bull, Kaang” The boy looked over at the elephant lying in the sand. Children had crowded around him. Tshipikan was carrying leafy branches, Xanis was throwing grass at his feet. He swallowed the lump that had formed at the back of his throat. “I hope I do not have to bury my son before the blanket of darkness covers the land. It is one thing to hamstring a giant grey, it is another to chase the breath from his lungs. I, cannot help you, and I forbid the hunters to come to your aid. In your wisdom you have brought back the bull to prove your skill, now you must complete what you have begun” said Phelo solemnly. “Yes father.” “Go now, and return before the eye of Xameb burns in the setting sky. And think long. The bull can no longer trample you beneath his feet, but your spear is short. His tusks can still rip the heart from your chest and with his trunk he can still squeeze the marrow from your bones…” Kaang slowly rose to his feet and walked away from the hunters fire. Kotukotee was sitting outside his hut.He wandered over and sat down beside him, drawing pictures in the sand. “You have to end the days of the old bull?” asked Kotukotee, breaking the silence. Kaang looked into the dim eyes of the old hunter and sighed. “What is it that brings rain clouds to your heart? said the old man gently. “It is the life of a hunter to kill and provide for his clan… Do you grow weak before the strength of the bull, or do you cry a calabash full of tears for his life?” “I do not fear the power in his trunk or his tusks, neither do I fear the end of my own life,” Kaang whispered. He paused, watching the bull struggle to his feet and collapse back into the sand. “I or he, will meet the spirits of our ancestors before the dawn. My face burns with shame because... Because I seek the life of the grey bull so that I can join the fire of the hunters, not to provide for the clan” Kotukotee shook his head and spoke in a grave voice. “Kaang. Watch the moon as he walks across the sky and one night and you will know why you were called to do this deed” Kaang acknowledged his encouragement with a grateful smile. Remembering the bigger picture and the patterns in the clouds, new courage flickered to life in his heart. “Fetch your spear and the stone and we will sharpen the point and the blade so peace will come swiftly to the grey bull. I cannot dance out of reach of his tusks, or his trunk, for you, I am too old,” he chuckled, “but I can tell you of the days of when I was a Great Hunter. Fetch your spear. Run .” The eye of Xameb seemed to race across the sky, faster than ever before."I must go to my father” said Kaang. The elephant was trumpeting, gouging at the earth with his front legs, flapping his ears, arcing his trunk. “The giant grey tires of sitting still,” said the old man. “See, how he lunges forward to find strength in his back legs. He cannot...it is better that the fire of his life be set free.” Kaang stood a few paces from the hunters fire; only his father sat by the flames. “Come” commanded Phelo.Kaang stepped forward, crouched down on his haunches.“It is still some time before the blanket of darkness falls from the sky. Elephants have bad vision, so we will play fair to the bull…” His mother rushed toward them. “Phelo! Please ! He is just a boy ! What madness is this? ” But the father just raised his hand. “This is the hunters fire. Here, women make not the decisions for the men. Kaang must decide now for himself.” A hush of silence settled upon every member of the band, even the birds in the trees stopped chirping. Even the wind held its breath. Only the waters breaking on the shore and the groaning of the elephant bull sounded in the stillness. “I must follow through that which I started…” and Kaang rose to his feet. Phelo just stared into the flames, nodding his head solemnly. Tension descended on camp. Women and children gathered huddling together in a group, reaching out and looking for support from one another. The boy's spear was just a stick. How could he do this thing? What was Phelo thinking? Was it not enough that he brought home the giant grey and that it lay crippled in the clearing? What madness was this? But they did not say anything. Kaang looked at his mother. Her lip was quivering, tears glistened in her eyes but she was brave and she smiled at him. Can you do this thing Kaang? was the mixture of confidence and fear that he read in her eyes. Xanis and Tshipikan ran up towards him. They reached out to touch him, to somehow imbibe him with their feeble strength. Small smiles of encouragement twitched at the corners of their mouths. How could he do this thing? But they had heard him confide the secrets of the clouds - there was more at stake than just Kaangs entry to manhood. Their was no doubt in their eyes, no disbelief. Kaang had been called to do this deed. Their blind faith in his ability to overcome his adversary dropped the boy to his knees. He bent his head, mumbling a prayer to the Great God =Gao!na and to the spirit of the Giant Grey. He raised his head holding his boy spear in one hand and started to chant. Repeating his magic words over and over until nothing else existed on the stage of life; only he and the elephant remained. Then he sprang to his feet. A thin scream escaping his throat. He kicked up his heels, running like the wind. The bull elephant knew his scent. His ears began to flap and a piercing trumpet rang through the silence at his approach. The elephant heaved his weight on his front legs, stabbing his tusks and snatching at the boy with his trunk. Kaang was dancing in circles, chanting.Dancing in and out, weaving, twisting, whispering his stream of magic words. He moved from the rear, taking his adversary from behind. The bull swayed from left to right, craning his neck to see the dancing threat advancing from behind. The elephant turned again and again, swivelling his neck to see the boy dance up, now on his left side now on his right. Kaang was ready with his spear and as the elephant turned his head Kaang lunged with all his strength embedding the blade deep into the elephants eye. Concentration and determination to find the angle that would penetrate through to the elephants brain; he forgot his magic rhyme. Screams from the women and children. Kaang was siezed by the rippling muscles in the elephants trunk and swung up into the air. Two ribs snapped as the trunk began to crush him. But Kaang still gripped and pushed with the spear and the elephant flung him into the sky, sending him crashing into the sand.He stumbled to his feet. The bull was blind on one side, screeching, screaming, trumpeting in fury. The elephant gored and thrust with its tusks at the small figure. Kaang lurched forward again thrusting the blade deep into the other socket, pushing the spear deeper and deeper into the animals brain. The bull's trunk whipped out and Kaang went spinning over the ground. He crawled to his feet.His spear was well lodged in the elephant’s skull. The giant grey was dying. Kaang returned to stand in front of the elephant bull. A great sadness descending upon him; watching the bull shaking his head, slowly, weakly from side to side. A shrill trumpet. Then a rattling wind and the great elephant slumped his giant head onto the yellow sand. Kaang did not hear the clash of tortoise shells; or the high stringed harp. He did not feel Phelo touch him lightly on the shoulder.He buckled to his knees, smudged the hot tears with his shoulder. Then wrapped his arms around the elephants head and buried his face in the blood so they could not see his calabash of tears. “Come, said Phelo gently and he tapped him again. Let us divide the meat and cure the hide. We can see that you do not kill so that you can become a man with a stiff back.
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