The Princess Of The Lost Village: An African Tale

Description

When the Ngoni princess returns to her village from hiding at the leopard’s nest, she is horrified to find that her village was turned into ruins after an enemy attack. However, at the evening twilight with the wind hushed and quiet as the princess places her ear on the ground, she can hear sounds of animals, children playing, women pounding and men chopping wood, coming from beneath the earth. Had her village sank?

This work is entirely fiction but it is inspired by a myth that is popular in my village and was told to us as we grew up. The myth says that there was once a neighboring village that got lost and believed to have sank in the earth. It is said that at the evening twilight, visitors to this place would hear various sounds coming from beneath the earth. These were sounds of animals such as cows, sheep, goats and chickens, sounds of children playing, sounds of women pounding and men chopping wood. Though the other version of the myth says that it was not the village that sank but it was just discovered that all the men in the village went missing and only the women remained. Therefore, they called the place CHIZIYE which means the betrayer. They believed that the place betrayed all the men and left the women to be widows. Up to this day the place retains the same name but whether the village sank or it were the village men that went missing, it still remains unverified.