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Saharan Cheetah

Acinonyx jubatus hecki

Status: Critically Endangered, from past hunting and habitat loss, also from losing their prey to human activity.

The Zulu of South Africa have a story about how the cheetah got her markings. Once there was a hunter. He was out in the bush, seeking game, but it was hot, and he was very lazy. As he sat resting, he saw a cheetah. She moved with remarkable stealth and speed through the tall grasses, tracking down prey, killing it, and bringing it to her cubs.

Astonished at her efficiency, he thought to himself about how he could harness that for himself, for not only was he lazy, he was envious. He latched upon the plan to steal her cubs. Upon doing so, he returned to his village with the cheetah cubs in hand.

The mother cheetah was very distraught at the loss of her cubs. She wept and wailed, heartbroken. Day and night she roamed, seeking her lost cubs. Her tears left dark marks across her body. A village elder happened to hear her, and when he asked what so distressed her, she told him of the hunter who had taken her cubs.

The elder was angry, and the lazy hunter was cast out from his village for dishonoring their traditions, and for trying to steal that which he did not earn by his own earnest work. The cubs were returned to their mother, but even after, cheetah retained the dark marks of her tears.

 

References:
https://anikefoundation.org/african-folktales/the-cheetah-and-the-lazy-hunter