10 Ancient Legends About Odd Animals

People have long told stories about the animals around them. Some explain a creature’s appearance or habits; others use an animal to explore how people should treat one another, the land, or their food. These stories belong to distinct traditions, and many are still told today.

From an antelope-like teacher of farming to a kangaroo whose tail began as a spear, here are five animal legends and the surprising turns they take.

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10 Chi Wara, the Teacher of Farming

In a story told by the Bamana people of Mali, Chi Wara was a remarkable being: part antelope and part human. People gathered roots and grasses for food until Chi Wara showed them how to cultivate the land. His head and neck became a hoe for tilling the soil, and his spittle made the fields fertile. With his help, people learned to raise crops.

But plentiful harvests made Chi Wara’s students careless. They wasted the food they had learned to grow, and Chi Wara left them, never to be seen again. The lesson remained. In Bamana agricultural ceremonies, dancers wear carved antelope headdresses honoring the being who taught people to farm.

The headdresses often appear in male and female pairs associated with the sun and the earth. Chi Wara’s story is therefore remembered through both the work of growing food and the ceremonies surrounding it.^[1]

9 How Karora Brought Bandicoots Into the World

In a Northern Arrernte account, the ancestral being Karora slept beneath the earth. As he began to stir, bandicoots emerged from his navel and armpits and burst through the ground. Karora followed them into the daylight and found himself surrounded by the animals he had brought into the world.

After eating two bandicoots, Karora slept again. This time, a son emerged from his armpit. The young man danced around his father, and the two took part in the first ceremony. More sons appeared as Karora slept on subsequent nights, and they hunted bandicoots for food.

Karora’s connection to the animals did not end with their appearance in the story. He is an ancestor of the Bandicoot clan, whose members maintain their relationship with him through their stories, ceremonies, and sacred place. The bandicoot is more than a curious creature in this account: it is part of that continuing kinship.^[2]

8 The King of Hyenas and the Four Brothers

In an Afar folktale from Ethiopia, four brothers entered a forest ruled by the King of Hyenas. Few people dared to go there, and the brothers soon found themselves surrounded. The king demanded to know what had given them the courage to enter his territory.

The first brother said he relied on God, who had already determined the course of his life. The second relied on his clansmen, who would avenge his death. The third put his faith in Mother Earth, to whom everyone ultimately returns. The fourth brother chose a different answer: he said he trusted the strength and goodness of the hyenas themselves.

The king considered each reply. He would not quarrel with God, risk a feud with the second brother’s clan, or set himself against Mother Earth. But hyenas quarreled among themselves all the time. The fourth brother’s faith in them offered him no protection, and the king ordered his hyenas to eat him.^[3]

7 The Alligator Who Helped a Hunter

A Choctaw story tells of a man who could find deer but never managed to kill one. After three unsuccessful days away from his village, he came upon an alligator stranded on dry, sandy ground. The animal was desperate for water. If the hunter carried him to a nearby pool, the alligator promised, he would help the man become a successful hunter.

The hunter was wary. Before lifting the alligator, he bound its legs and mouth so it could not hurt him. Once they reached the water, he untied the animal and let it go.

The alligator then gave him remarkably precise instructions. He would meet a small doe, a large doe, and a small buck; he must spare them all. When he encountered a large old buck, he should shoot it. The hunter went into the woods, found each deer just as the alligator had said, and brought home the old buck. From then on, his household had venison.^[4]

6 How the Kangaroo Got His Tail

In a story collected by W. E. Thomas, Mirram the kangaroo and Warreen the wombat were once men who hunted together. Warreen had built himself a snug shelter, while Mirram preferred to sleep outdoors beside his fire. That arrangement suited Mirram until a storm put out the fire and left him cold and soaked.

Mirram asked his friend for a place to sleep, but Warreen refused, even though there was room. Furious, Mirram returned after Warreen had fallen asleep and struck him with a flat stone. The blow left Warreen with the flattened forehead that, in the story, wombats would have ever after.

Warreen waited for a chance to get even. One day, he spotted Mirram hunting in the forest and threw a spear into his lower back. Mirram could not pull it free. According to the tale, that spear became the kangaroo’s long tail, leaving both former friends with a lasting reminder of their quarrel.^[5]

5 Karagul and the Ibex

A Kyrgyz song tells of Karagul, a hunter who killed ibex without sparing the females or their young. He and his wife waited many years for a child. When they finally had a son, the boy grew troubled by his father’s relentless hunting and begged him to stop.

Karagul went out hunting anyway. Without his father’s knowledge, the boy followed him into the mountains. Eventually, the child grew tired and fell asleep beneath a bush. Nearby, an ibex that Karagul had been pursuing sought cover behind the same bush. The hunter took aim at the animal and fired, only to discover that he had struck his son.

The tale gives Karagul’s hunting a terrible personal cost. His pursuit of the ibex ends with the loss of the child he and his wife had waited so long to have.^[6]

4 How Coyote Freed the Bison

In an Apache story, a powerful being called Humpback kept the bison shut away, leaving the people hungry. Coyote decided to free the animals. Disguising himself as a dog, he persuaded Humpback and his son to take him in.

Coyote waited until they had fallen asleep. Then he barked, startling the bison. The frightened animals stampeded, trampling Humpback’s house as they escaped. At last, they could roam the land and provide food for the people.

Coyote is often a troublesome trickster in animal stories, but here his deception helps the hungry. Humpback had kept the bison for himself; Coyote’s trick put them beyond his control.^[7]

3 Kākāpō and Toroa Play Hide-and-Seek

In one Māori telling, the kākāpō and the toroa, or albatross, held a contest to decide which bird would claim the land. They would take turns hiding on a stretch of open ground. Whoever proved harder to find would win.

Toroa went first, but his bright white feathers gave him away. He tried again, and kākāpō spotted him just as easily. Then kākāpō covered his head with a fern and lay down on the bare ground. Toroa searched everywhere and found him only when kākāpō burst out laughing. On the second try, kākāpō kept quiet, and toroa could not find him at all.

The other birds judged toroa the loser and sent him out to sea, while kākāpō remained on land. Another recorded version has the two birds part ways after arguing about which place would be safer, but in this telling, a game of hide-and-seek settles their dispute.^[8]

2 The Woman Who Became a Dugong

A story recorded on Pulau Tinggi, Malaysia, tells of a pregnant woman who craved seagrass. Her husband would not take her to gather it, so she went to the shore alone at low tide. She began eating and stayed so long that the water rose around her. When the tide became too high for her to return, she changed into a dugong and swam away.

The transformation links the woman’s longing to an animal that feeds in seagrass meadows. It is one of several dugong stories recorded in coastal communities, though the details and the relationships people describe with the animals differ from place to place.

Seagrass also matters to living dugongs: it is their food, and the meadows where it grows are their habitat. In this tale, the woman’s final journey into the sea brings her to the very place where the animal lives and feeds.^[9]

1 How the Platypus Came to Be So Unusual

In “Gayardaree the Platypus,” an Australian tale collected by K. Langloh Parker, a young duck was warned about Mulloka, a water devil said to lurk near the creek. But the creature who seized her was Biggoon, an enormous water rat. He held her captive and threatened her whenever she tried to leave.

The duck concealed her fear until Biggoon stopped watching her so closely. Then, while he slept, she escaped and returned to her own people. When her eggs hatched, however, her young had fur instead of feathers. Each had four webbed feet, a ducklike bill, and points on the hind feet that recalled Biggoon’s spear.

The other ducks rejected the young. Their mother took them upstream to the mountains, away from her former home and from Biggoon. Her children survived and had young of their own. In the tale, they became the Gayardaree—the platypuses whose mixture of familiar and unexpected features still makes people look twice.^[10]