him. ‘You are my father,’ he told one bone, ‘and you are my mother. You are the biggest,’ he said to the third, ‘so you shall be the ogre who wants to eat me; and you,’ to another, ‘are very little, therefore you shall be me. Now, then, tell me what I am to do.’
‘Collect all the babies in the village the same size as yourself,’ answered the bones; ‘shave the sides of their heads, and hang white beads round their necks, and tell them that when anybody calls “Motikatika,” they are to answer to it. And be quick for you have no time to lose.’
Motikatika went out directly, and brought back quite a crowd of babies, and shaved their heads and hung white beads round their little black necks, and just as he had finished, the ground began to shake, and the huge ogre came striding along, crying: ‘Motikatika! Motikatika!’
‘Here we are! Here we are!’ answered the babies, all running to meet him.
‘It is Motikatika I want,’ said the ogre.
‘We are all Motikatika,’ they replied. And the ogre sat down in bewilderment, for he dared not eat the children of people who had done him no wrong, or a heavy punishment would befall him. The children waited for a little, wondering, and then they went away.
The ogre remained where he was, till the evening, when the woman returned from the fields.
‘I have not seen Motikatika,’ said he.
‘But why did you not call him by his name, as I told you?’ she asked.
‘I did, but all the babies in the village seemed to be named Motikatika,’ answered the ogre; ‘you cannot think the number who came running to me.’
The woman did not know what to make of it, so, to keep him in a good temper, she entered the hut and prepared a bowl of maize, which she brought him.
‘I do not want maize, I want the baby,’ grumbled he ‘and I will have him.’
