So he went to his friend and said, “Lend me an arrow, so that I will look a proper hunter with three arrows.”

Eliot Elisofon/National Museum of African Art

A Luba woman making clay pots in a village near Kananga, Zaire.

“Okay, but only so you may show off.  Don’t shoot it.”

He who took the arrow agreed.  His name was Boar Hunter.

Then Boar Hunter went out to the fields to look for the boars.  He heard them coming.  Excited, he shot one of the arrows, hitting a boar.  Wounded, the boar ran off with the arrow.  It was, however, the one belonging to the other lad.  Boar Hunter followed the trail of blood but lost it as he arrived at a termite hill.

Boar Hunter returned to the village and told his friend how the boar had run away with the arrow.

The owner of the arrow answered, “I want my arrow back.”

Boar Hunter called his relatives, saying, “Help me find the boar I shot with somebody else’s arrow.”

He and his family looked, unsuccessfully, a very long time before returning to the owner.  “If you don’t mind,” they said, “Boar Hunter will give you another just like the one lost.”

Arrow Owner said, “No, I want my own arrow.”

The elders in the families of Arrow Owner and Boar Hunter had no choice but to meet with the chief.  The elder of the family of Arrow Owner said, “Chief, we tried to talk our son into accepting an arrow that looks exactly like his, but he is stubborn.”

The chief said, “Son, you are children of the same village.  Therefore, this is what I want: Accept that your arrow is simply lost, and let them pay with one that looks like yours.”