Deep down in Tanzania's Pugu Hill there is the Mzimuni also known as the ghost cave which is inhabited by restless spirits. The villagers claim to have seen a long, flaky python wiggling through the thick bushes and passing over the dirt tracks. This python is so big that a Daladala bus could not cross over it. No villager has ever seen the start or the end of the dangerous animal. People say that the python comes from one side of the hill all the way to the sacred spring but has never been seen crossing back. At the same time, villagers claim to have seen an unknown man sitting along the brownish water of the mud dam. They only saw him crossing from the dam going to the other side of the hill, where the python came from. They never saw him walking the other direction. The villagers concluded what they saw and say, that the python is a spiritual creature that can change into human form and walk from the spring to the other side of the hill and come back as a python. This creature lives underneath the sacred spring, next to the Ghost Cave at the heart of Pugu Hill.
Photo by: Stefan Heise
The python is considered one of the spirits of Pugu Hill. Ancestors used the water from the spring as a cure to many diseases and placed sacrifices there for the spirits. The cave is said to be a place of eerie occurrences, and locals often avoid it, especially at night. And till today people still go and worship the Gods.
The Who Cares? exchange visited the cave with a guide, and everyone was given a warning before entering, to avoid the strange things that can happen, when the supernatural spirits are inside the cave. After the visit Jackline shared her opinion: “I have my own belief, which does not align with the one in Pugu Hill. Still, I respect their beliefs and I don't want to get involved in them.”
All over the world we can find legends and fairy tales like this, that forms a part of our culture. Often, they are told from centuries from one generation to another. In some places of our planet the people still believe strongly in the legends and fairy tales, because they give reason to big questions of life and can explain to us how and why the world works. In other cultures, they teach morals to the ones who listen or just tell a scary story. In Germany there are a lot of fairy tales, which have a moral learning in the end, like “you shall not lie” or try to teach kids to be obedient with their parents. Unlike in Tanzania, people in Germany don´t believe a lot in urban legends anymore. But it wasn't always like that. Before Meteorologists could explain how the weather works, farmers tried to find a way to find regularity in the weather and made up the “Bauernregeln” (Farmers rules) to predict the weather. They are rhymes about
Photo by: Fabia Kassim Ally the weather, which try to predict consequences for agriculture, nature, and human beings, who live in it. One famous rule says “Soll gedeihen Korn und Wein, muss im Juni warm es sein” (If grain and wine are to flourish, it must be warm in June) or “Ist der Winter kalt und weiß, wird der Sommer lang und heiß” (Is the winter cold and white, the summer will be long and hot).
Even Though Germany is the origin for many famous fairy tales, these stories are not commonly believed anymore. But they are a great cultural good for Germany, by now, even Disney used a lot of them to create children's movies that are known all over the world. In Germany almost every child knows the original story as well as the big movies. They are usually told to little children by their parents or grandparents to entertain and teach certain values.
Thea remembers from her early years” When I was visiting my grandmother during a foggy day in late October, she would prepare me a hot cup of black tea with some sugar crystals in it. I would sit on her old soft carpet in front of the fireplace playing with the chestnuts I found in the garden. When she would take out her heavy old fairy tale book, I would stop playing to listen to the stories my grandmother had told me so many times before. She would sit down in her wooden rocking chair and put on her reading glasses. With her scratchy and calm voice she started telling me about great Kingdoms, captured princesses, evil witches and talking animals. But my favorite story always was the one with the rabbit and the hedgehog. My Grandma always told it to me like this:”
It was on a Sunday morning in autumn when the yellow and brown leaves started falling off the trees, a warm morning breeze went around and the birds started singing, the bees humming and the people were going to church as usual. All creatures were amused and so was the hedgehog.
He had his arms crossed, enjoying the morning breeze and was humming a song, as good or as bad a hedgehog could manage to sing on a Sunday morning.
It came to his mind that he could go for a walk looking after his beets, while his wife and children would wash themselves and get dressed.
He closed his door and started walking to the beets, which were just near by his house, when he saw the rabbit. Who had a similar idea, checking on his cabbage/Kohl. The hedgehog greeted him in a friendly way. However, the rabbit was a noble man and horribly arrogant, so he did not reply immediately but phrased a derisive question "Why are you up so early in the morning wandering around the fields?
The hedgehog replied, "I am going for a walk.” "A walk?" asked the Rabbit, while laughing, "You should use your short and crum legs for something else." The hedgehog was not happy to be reminded of his short legs, which made him strongly self-conscious."You think so highly of yourself. Do you believe you can do better with your legs?" he answered. The rabbit taunted him, "yes of course I can, we should make a race so I can show you. Do you want to bet a bottle of wine and some liquor?" "Of course," the hedgehog said,"but I want to have breakfast first, I will be back in half an hour." So the hedgehog went home to his wife, which looked just like him as hedgehogs usually do. He told his wife to come with him, stand at the end of the field and scream "I am already here" when the rabbit is close. As the rabbit and the hedgehog met on the field they counted "eins, zwei, drei”. The race began and the rabbit started quickly. So mighty quick that the wind pushed his ears back. However, the hedgehog only took five or six steps and then laid on the ground. When the rabbit was just a few steps away from the end of the field the hedgehog's wife yelled "I am already here" So the rabbit asked for another race back down the field. This time the rabbit tried even harder, stretching his long legs to run even faster but the hedgehog screamed "I am already here". It went on for a while but after the 75 run the rabbit collapsed and died. The hedgehog left the field, took the fancy wine and the liquor to have a nice afternoon with his wife.
The moral of this German fairy tale is, that you should not make fun of a person with a lower status.
In the Who Cares? Program the participants shared a lot of moments where differences between cultures and ways of living came up. We found it very interesting that in every culture we can find fairytales, pieces of wisdom and myths who try to explain or teach us something.
Authors: Nabiha Kassim Ally, Stefan Heise, Thea Kohrt, Jackline Shio