Deer of the First-Food Pact

Overview

In Chatelain’s nineteenth tale, Hunter’s wife and Deer’s wife both give birth. The human child needs deer liver along with mush, beans and fish as first food; the deer’s child needs mudia-mbambi. Hunter sets his seat in that food tree and waits with his gun. When Deer arrives, it speaks before he shoots, explaining that both households have a newborn whose first meal is needed. Immediate killing would prevent it from obtaining the food for its own child.

Deer proposes a specific bargain: let it take the tree’s food home first, and it will return the next day to be killed for the human child. Hunter consents, Deer carries away mudia-mbambi and both go home. In the morning the animal returns as promised. Hunter shoots it, binds and carries the body, skins it and removes the liver. The human child is then taken out. The conclusion preserves the deer’s voluntary return and death; it gives no return to life, escape or replacement victim. The collection’s adjacent deer tale has a quite different outcome and is not silently substituted for this one.

Origins & earliest records

Jelemía dia Sabatelu contributed this hunter narrative to Chatelain. The collection identifies the narrative dialect as Mbaka; the collector’s comparative character judgments are kept separate from the actual episode.

Records & interpretation

Complete tale XIX, The Child of Hunter and the Child of Deer, bilingual pp. 158–159; English p. 159. Contributor and first-food notes XIX p. 292.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Folk-Tales of Angola

   Héli Chatelain, collector, editor and literal English translator; named contributor in origin · 1894

   Complete tale XIX, The Child of Hunter and the Child of Deer, bilingual pp. 158–159; English p. 159. Contributor and first-food notes XIX p. 292.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Collected Ki-mbundu text with facing English translation and contributor notesChatelain 1894 — Deer of the First-Food PactResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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