At our place in Rushinga there is a half-leopard, half-lion. The head and chest are like a leopard, while the legs are like a lion. So if you hear that animal crying, someone will die. It also cries if any taboos have been broken. You will hear it crying in the middle of the night, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, hah!” So then you ask yourself, “Oh! I wonder what has happened.”
There is a story that happened there. The people who live there were named Madyirapanze and Manetsera, and they were son-in-law and father-in-law. So they both had magical powers. When they were in a fight with someone, they could disappear. And people would say, “Oh, there is no one here.”
So now, the father-in-law possessed a type of medicinal charm, which is called gona. But his son-in-law undid his powers by telling people, “My father-in-law possesses a gona, and this is what it can do.”
So his father-in-law became caught up in war. Then he activated his gona, but it failed to work. Then he and his companions climbed into a cave, and the cave swallowed them up. His companions never emerged again.
But the father-in-law did emerge, and he said, “You, son-in-law! When you die, you shall turn into an animal. One half will be a leopard, and the other half a lion.” And his son-in-law replied, “ You! When you die, you shall change into a jackal.”
So when you hear a jackal cry there, you know that something has happened. And if you hear a lion cry here, you know that something has happened. So, that is what happened long ago.