“Come nurse me,” said his father.  “When I am well again, I will give you the arrow there in that rack.”

He stayed with his father for nearly two years.  One day the father gave Arrow Searcher the arrow with which he had been hit.  He also gave him two dogs.  He said, “These dogs will serve you well if you do what I tell you.  When you go for a hunt with them, take care to give them the first kill, even if it is meat you like.  Let them eat it all.  If you don’t, they will run away.”  Arrow Searcher put a leash on the dogs and returned home.

When the people saw him coming, they ran away from him.  He had been gone so long they thought him dead.  He said to them, “Don’t run away, I am alive.  I just went to fetch the arrow of my friend.”

So now that Arrow Searcher was back, every time they organized a hunt, setting a grassy plain on fire, he unleashed the dogs, and the dogs would seize the first animal flying from the fire and devour it completely.  If afterward Arrow Searcher wanted even ten buffalo, the dogs caught them.  His name was Dog Owner.

And so it was for all the days and all the years.  Time went on, and Headstrong, who owned the arrow, forgot about it.

Art Resource

A Luba sculpture of a male figure. The wooden relic could be a memorial to a royal ancestor.

One day, while Dog Owner attended a circumcision dance, Headstrong fetched the dogs to go for a hunt on the savanna.  But he did not know how to handle them.  Coming into the plains, the dogs seized the first animal.  Headstrong wanted it brought to him.  As soon as he told the dogs to set it down, they ran away—lost for good.

Returning to the village, he told his relatives what had happened.  They said, “You know what must be done.  You made someone follow your arrow to the world below.  Now you follow the dogs.”

When Dog Owner learned that Headstrong had lost the dogs, Dog Owner wanted to kill him, but his relatives said, “Don’t be silly.  Let him follow the dogs.”