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Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter => History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library => Somali Mythology Project => Topic started by: Jubal on September 09, 2015, 12:39:22 AM

Title: [Story] The Heavenly Camel
Post by: Jubal on September 09, 2015, 12:39:22 AM

The Heavenly Camel

Introduction
This is a story of people's failed attempts to reach for the stars.

Story
Abridged and paraphrased from Hanghe: what is preserved here is the essentials of the plot.^{1, 2}

There is a group of stars that form the shape of a camel, called the “heavenly camel”³. People have tried to reach this camel so that they can bring it to work for man on earth. They did this by climbing a high mountain⁴ and standing on top of each other in an enormous human pyramid.

The person at the top of this pyramid caught the camel's tail but had forgotten a rope to pull it down. This had to be brought up, but, when the person at the bottom bent to reach for the rope, the whole pyramid lost its balance and fell, and the camel's tail came off.

Variants
~None as Yet~

Links

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REFERENCES/NOTES

• Paraphrasing by Rachael Ayres.
• Folk Tales from Somalia, pp.111
• The Great Southern Cross
• According to Hanghe this was the "calamiskeed", one of the highest peaks in the north-eastern Golis range.

BIBLIOGRAPHY/FURTHER MATERIAL

• Hanghe, Ahmed A. - Folk Tales from Somalia (1988)

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Analysis
~None as Yet~