There are few things on the web these days that ring no bells at all. Even the most obscure topics seem to have half a million web sites devoted to them. So, I was very surprised to find that the title of today's story ("Tsalane and the Dimo") and its permutations pulled up a big fat goose egg on all of the search engines. Since "Tsalane in the Dimo" is such a popular folk tale in South Africa, I figured that there would be several versions of the story sanitized and packaged for the children's book market, but I couldn't find one. Perhaps it has been neglected because it is as rough and old school as any of the original Grimm Brother's tales. A note to Parents: If you haven't figured it out already, this site talks frankly about sex, death, HIV, and other realities of life in contemporary South Africa, and is not fit for the kiddies. This goes double for this fairy tale. Today's picture is not an illustration for today's story, but it is the only picture of one of the main characters that I ever drew. A dimo (pronounced "Dee-mo") is the equivalent of a European ogre. He was described to me by several people as being big, nasty, hairy, coal-black, voracious, and extremely well-endowed. See if you can find him above. The belief in dimos as real flesh and blood creatures is waining in rural South Africa, even while the belief in witches is nearly universal(See South Africa # 1.) Still, a 26-year-old friend of mine would not travel into the bush to collect firewood unescorted in the sincere fear that a dimo would snatch her up and take her to his underground lair-no kidding. As for the rest of the picture, it is based on several dreams that I had in the winter of 2003-you Jr. headshrinkers can have at it, because I sure don't know what it all adds up to. If you like this story, let me put in a plug for Alexander McCall Smith's excellent book of folk tales from Botswana and Zimbabwe: "The Girl Who Married a Lion." I heard several versions of "Tsalane and the Dimo" while I was in South Africa. This one comes courtesy of Mma Seitsang via her grandmother which gives it the date of 1900 or earlier. I translated it from several tellings in Setswana and added my own touches here and there:
TSALANE AND THE DIMO: In a happy village there lived a happy family. Mother, Father, a young son, and a teenage daughter named Tsalane (pronounced "Sa-la-nee".) One morning while out hunting rabbits near the family home, Father discovered a small cave that he had never seen before. He approached very cautiously, because he knew that caves often hide things that happy people would rather not think about-things best left to powerful people like chiefs and healers. As he drew nearer and near the cave, Father began to hear the horrible stompings, smackings, and fartings of a dimo family having breakfast in its new home. It took all of the self-control that Father could muster not to shout out loud when he discovered that this filthy pack of dimos was living so close to his own sweet little home. He felt this way because dimos are not satisfied with the food that you and I like to eat. A dimo can't stand eggs or fried chicken. And the thought of thick hamburger with a big cold glass of milk would make a dimo's stomach do flip-flops. No, a dimo would never touch such dainty finger-food as that. If given a chance, a dimo would swallow a whole cow leaving nary a stray flop behind-the whole thing, horn, hoof, and tail alike. But, to tell the truth, the thing that the dimo loves to eat most of all is people-fat ones, skinny ones, young ones, and old ones. He likes them all. As a boy, Father had watched as two of his cousins and one of his brothers was snatched up and taken away by a hungry dimo, so perhaps you can understand Father's horror upon finding this new family in the neighborhood. Father reached his house at a dead run and told everyone that they must pack their small donkey-cart and leave the village NOW! Both Mother and Son listened to Father, but (as teen aged girls sometimes do)Tsalane didn't listen and refused to go. She stamped her foot and cried and asked a million questions like: "Where will we go? What will we eat when we get there? And what about MY FRIENDS?!" To this outburst, Mother said, "If you are going to act like that, you may stay here by yourself and I will bring you your food every day. And just so you know that it is me visiting you and not the dimo, I will sing you a little song: Tsalane my child. Tsalane my child. Come and take your food." And, for weeks and weeks this system worked well for Tsalane. Mother travelled long hours from her new home to her old and back again and one very stubborn girl got her own way. But unknown to both Mother and Tsalane, their daily routine was being watched closely by Big Papa Dimo. Next time : Part 2 of "Tsalane and the Dimo."
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