“Hale!” “Halele!”
Once upon a time there were seven sisters. The six eldest were beautiful and proud; the seventh, the youngest, had skin covered in scabies, and her sisters refused to sleep near her. “Never go into the forest,” their parents kept saying. “The zimwi lies in wait for children there.”
One day, a magnificent stranger came to the village. He wore fine clothes and spoke in a gentle voice, and when he smiled, you could see his teeth, filed to a point. “Come to my house,” he said to the sisters, “I will give you fruit and jewels.” The six eldest followed him, laughing. The youngest followed at a distance, hidden in the bushes.
The stranger's house was deep in the forest. He served a good meal and spread out a mat for the night. The eldest fell asleep at once; the youngest scratched her scabies and did not sleep a wink. Around midnight, she heard the stranger sharpening a knife and humming: “Six nice plump little girls…” It was the zimwi.
“Aren't you asleep?” he growled. “I can't,” answered the little one. “At home, my mother washes me with water from the river before I go to sleep.” So that she would finally fall asleep, the zimwi went off to fetch water. The little one had handed him a basket full of holes: he struggled for a long time at the riverbank. Meanwhile, she woke her sisters, and they all fled into the night.
The zimwi chased them through the forest, faster than the wind. But just as he was about to catch them, the first call to prayer rose from the village, and the monster shrank back into the shadows. Since that day, the six eldest sleep beside their little sister, scabies or no scabies. And when a handsome stranger with teeth that are too pointed passes through the village, they are the ones who shut the door.
The smallest, the one who is despised, is sometimes the only one keeping watch; beware of smiles that are too beautiful.
What we know about it
The despised child who saves the older siblings from an ogre is a hero found in tales all over the world, from Hop-o'-My-Thumb to the stories of East Africa. Zimwi is the name of the ogre, a shape-shifting creature, in the tales of the Swahili coast. His filed teeth give him away, just as the djinns' feet give away the passenger with ox's hooves.
This tale was reported to us as coming from the north of Grande Comore (Mbude, Mitsamiouli), where it is also told under the name “the beast of Ivoini”. We have not found it in the published collections we have been able to consult: this version follows the most common outline of the tale, in our own words.
Further reading
- Voices of the archipelago Salim Hatubou, Contes et légendes des Comores ou Genèse d'un pays bantu, 2004. reissued as Aux origines du monde : contes et légendes des Comores, Flies France, 2015.
- Voices of the archipelago Ahmed Ali Mroimana et Mohamed Ahmed-Chamanga, Contes comoriens de Ngazidja. Au-delà des mers, 1999. L'Harmattan, Archipel des Comores series.