The following is a traditional story as told by a Maasai Elder. The story has a moral that may surprise American teachers and their students. The story was used to teach the Maasai children about their culture. In the traditional Maasai culture it was important for children to know that when there were raids on their cattle, or when women of the group were taken by their enemies, or if they were doing the raiding, the children needed to know how to be clever and deceptive. This is a fable created for basic survival.

Once upon a time there was an elephant that was carrying honey in his bag. He went to cross a swollen river and found a hare waiting to cross.

The hare asked if the elephant could help her cross the river. The elephant was very kind and told the hare to climb on his back. While they were crossing the river, the hare discovered that there was honey in the elephant’s bag and she started eating it all up untill she emptied the bag. She then thought of a way of tricking the elephant by asking him to collect some stones from the water as she wanted some to play with when she got home. The elephant was happy to collect a number of stones for her and she put them in the elephant’s bag to make it heavy again.

After crossing the river, the elephant helped her climb down off his back but, unfortunately, his trunk cut off the hare’s tail. The hare was very grateful to the elephant for bringing her across the river, but she was now tailess! When she ran into a group of other hares she asked them to cut off all their tails, otherwise an elephant would come to finish them off if they did not do this. The hares believed her and cut off all their tails.

The elephant soon discovered that his honey was gone and all he had left was a bag full of stones. He then hurried to find the hare and came upon the large group of other hare’s. When he asked for a tailess hare, they said “we are all tailess! The elephant felt fooled and left.