In Banyarwanda mythology Imana was the creator and supporter of the universe. He ruled all living beings, and guaranteed them immortality by huntingDeath, a savage wild animal. When he was hunting, his orders were that everything in creation was to stay in hiding, so that Death would have no refuge. But one day in the quietness of the hunt, an old woman crept out to hoe her vegetable garden - and Death hid under her skirt and was taken inside with her. Imana tried a second way of cheating Death by telling the old woman's relatives to bury her body but leave cracks in the earth above her, so that she could hear him calling her back to life. But the old woman's daughter-in- law who hated her, filled the cracks with earth and banged the surface hard with her pounding stick - and Death became endemic. Research Imana
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Research Imana
