Cave painting depicting the arrival of animal-men, Namimbia, roughly 25,000 BC"...Perhaps most noteworthy of all bedtime stories in east Africa is this cautionary lyric of animal men, passed orally through generations, which children sing before sleep, supposedly to ease their nightmares. Similarly, like in several parts of the world, animal men are used as the figure of the boogeyman, of which this poem offers comfort from; the last lines chanting "we wait for them to die". This is almost identical to the Moroccan tale of the boy and the snake man, where the child waits for the beast to die, before cutting it's stomach open to free his father, who had been swallowed whole."
Bhimbetka rock painting of the Snake Man walking among men, Mesolithic Period, 12,000 BC
"We Wait" Old African nursery rhyme.
Nobody knows where the animal people came from.
Nobody knows why they are here.
They talk like a man, they can even sing songs.
Nobody thinks to fear.
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Nobody knows where they go at night.
Everybody hears them creep.
Run little boy. Hide inside!
Nobody knows who they will eat!
They eat and eat til there's nothing left.
They eat til you disappear.
They eat your bones, they eat your soul.
They will even eat your screams.
Nobody loves them, but they look for a mate.
We wait til they die.
We wait. We wait.
Nobody loves them, awaken, awake.
We wait til they die.
We wait. We wait.
Contemporary painting depicting an animal man dancing, Niagara Art Collection, original oil on canvas
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