Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Cheetah Weeping

Cheetah
Inspired by the Zulu folktale concerning the origin of the black lines running down a cheetah's face from its eyes. These lines were the tear tracks of a mother cheetah weeping for her lost cubs. The young cheetahs had been stolen by a hunter who wanted to train them to hunt for him.

When the mother's grief came to the attention of an old man from the hunter's village, he informed the village elders of the hunter’s conduct. The villagers expelled the hunter. The old man returned the cheetah cubs to their mother, reuniting the family. But the tear tracks remained on the cheetah’s face as a reminder to hunters not to do wrong again.

The moral condemnation for keeping hunting cheetahs is certainly not universal. Listed here are a few (not all) of the peoples that had tamed cheetahs for hunting: