Quickly the family packed up their possessions and left.
“The Inzimu will try to take revenge on Mulha. It was she who tricked him,” said the mother. “We must send her away.”
To be sure Mulha would be safe, her parents decided to send her to stay with an older married sister living in a distant kraal. Since this was less than a day’s walk, Mulha assured her parents she could follow the track to the kraal alone.
Dressed in her best garment, a gaily striped black cloth knotted about her waist, and wearing her brightest ornaments, Mulha set out with a light step. She promised to be very careful and to remember her mother’s warning to eat nothing along the way.
It was midsummer, however, and the afternoon was hot. Soon Mulha became very thirsty. When she saw a manumbela tree covered with ripe berries, she could not resist them. Hitching up her skirt, she climbed the tree, and she ate the juicy berries.
As soon as she returned to the ground, the tree trunk opened. Out came a huge woman, an Imbula, with an ugly animal snout and a hairy red pelt covering her body.
“You are not safe traveling alone,” said the Imbula, making her voice as sweet as honey. “You will be robbed of all your pretty things. I will go with you to protect you, but first we must exchange clothes so that you will be safe.”
Mulha protested in vain, but the Imbula promised to return everything to Mulha when they approached the kraal. Then she pulled off Mulha’s skirt, and in no time at all, she had forced the exchange of clothing.
To her horror, Mulha found that the red, hairy pelt of the Imbula clung to her tightly, as if it were her own skin. The Imbula, wearing Mulha’s skirt and ornaments, now looked exactly like Mulha, while Mulha had become an ugly monster!
Not knowing what else to do, Mulha followed the Imbula along the trail. When they approached the kraal, Mulha cried, “Now give me back my clothes!”
Not only did the Imbula refuse, but she walked in through the gate of the kraal with great assurance and asked for her married sister. The sister welcomed the false Mulha warmly.
“What shall we do with this strange creature with you?” asked the married sister, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
“Put her away in an old hut; she can eat with the dogs,” said the Imbula. “It’s all she’s fit for.”
So Mulha, whom her parents had thought the prettiest maiden in Swaziland, was sent to a wretched hut to live with a poor old woman. The Imbula, seemingly a pretty maiden, was made much of by the people in the village. The false Mulha had just one problem: all Imbulas have tails, as Inzimus do, and this she could not get rid of. She had managed to wind hers around and around her waist, where it was hidden by her clothing. Each day she feared it would be discovered, but for a time all went well for the Imbula.
Meanwhile, the real Mulha lived as an outcast in the hut of the old woman. But she did not waste time crying over the cruel revenge taken by the Inzimu and the Imbula. She quickly discovered that the ugly, hairy pelt she wore gave her some magic power; she could obtain choice food simply by commanding it. So, with the old woman sworn to secrecy, the two ate well and lived quietly together in comfort.
Almost every day, Mulha went down early to a deserted part of the river to bathe. As soon as she entered the water, the hairy skin floated away, and she became her own self. She swam happily about for a while, but as she left the water, the skin attached itself to her again, and she became the strange creature as before.
One day the married sister went down to the river to wash some clothes. Catching sight of the strange, hairy woman at the water’s edge, she hid herself and watched. What she saw astonished her. She hurried home at once to consult the chief’s aging sister, who was well known for her wisdom.
The next time the creature went to bathe, the two women hid near the riverbank. They saw the ugly pelt float away while Mulha swam, and reattach itself when she left the water.
The two women confronted Mulha, demanding an explanation. She told them she was the real Mulha, and explained how she had been tricked by the Imbula.
“If you really are Mulha and the other is not, surely you can prove it!” said the married sister. But it was clear she was not certain in her mind that this was her sister, and Mulha was hurt.
“Why bother with me?” said Mulha. “You took the Imbula in as your sister; now you can keep her! I have everything I want. Only more trouble will come to me if I accuse the Imbula.”
“The girl is right,” said the chief’s sister. “The Imbula still has power to do her harm. She may take further revenge because Mulha outwitted her brother, the Inzimu. Come away now,” said she to the married sister. “We will consult with my brother, the chief, and devise a plan. For the true Imbula must be discovered and killed if Mulha is to be saved.”
A few days later a big hole was dug in the middle of the kraal. In it were placed food and a large calabash filled with fresh milk. Each woman in the kraal was commanded to walk all around the hole by herself.
At last came the turn of the Imbula. She begged to be excused. “I am too shy a maiden to walk about before all the people,” said she in a tiny, sweet voice. This did not help her at all.
The chief and his sister forced her to begin the walk around the hole. At the sight of the fresh white milk, her Imbula nature could not be controlled. Of its own accord, her tail uncoiled and slithered down into the hole to suck up the milk—for no Inzimu or Imbula can control its tail when milk is on the ground! The chief’s sister had known this when she devised the trap.
With a shriek of rage at her unmasking, the Imbula seized a nearby child and leaped toward the gate. But the hunters were waiting with spears ready, and she was slain. The moment the Imbula was killed, Mulha regained her own true form.
After that, Mulha lived peacefully with her sister’s family. Eventually she married the chief’s youngest son. The one hundred cows paid to Mulha’s father as the bride price made it possible for her family to live in great comfort.
And that was how Mulha outwitted the ogre Inzimu and, with the help of the chief’s sister, escaped the Imbula’s revenge.
“Mulha” is drawn from Fairy Tales from South Africa (1910), written by E. J. BOURHILL and J. B. DRAKE. Versions of this tale have been compared to the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.”
Long ago, among the Zuni people in the Southwest, there lived a young maiden. She lived alone with her aged parents in their pueblo. Her two brothers had been killed in warfare, and it was her responsibility to supply the family with food and firewood.
The little family lived very simply. During the summer, when the girl grew beans, pumpkins,
