How Death Came: the goat, the sheep, and the message that arrived wrong
When Nyame withdrew, he did not abandon the people.
Told at wakekeepings, where the moral has weight.
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How Death Came: the goat, the sheep, and the message that arrived wrong
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How Death Came: the goat, the sheep, and the message that arrived wrong
When Nyame withdrew, he did not abandon the people. He sent word.
He called a messenger and said: Go down and tell them — men will die, but they will not stay dead. They will come back. And the messenger went.
Then, in most tellings, there is a second animal and a second message, and the two get tangled. The goat is sent with the good news but stops to eat along the road, browsing at a bush, in no hurry, because a goat is a goat. The sheep goes ahead of him and delivers the message — but the sheep gets it backwards, and says: men will die, and they will stay dead.
By the time the goat arrives with the true version, the people have already heard the other one. And what a people has already heard, it has already become.
Nyame does not intervene. The word is out.
If you visit Ghana. Told at wakekeepings, where the moral has weight.
When Nyame withdrew, he did not abandon the people. He sent word.
He called a messenger and said: Go down and tell them — men will die, but they will not stay dead. They will come back. And the messenger went.
Then, in most tellings, there is a second animal and a second message, and the two get tangled. The goat is sent with the good news but stops to eat along the road, browsing at a bush, in no hurry, because a goat is a goat. The sheep goes ahead of him and delivers the message — but the sheep gets it backwards, and says: men will die, and they will stay dead.
By the time the goat arrives with the true version, the people have already heard the other one. And what a people has already heard, it has already become.