The Lost Message

The Lost Message, a South African folklore tale

Ants have always had many enemies and there have been a great many slaughters among them. Birds picked them off one by one, Anteater lived almost wholly from them, and Centipede beset them mercilessly

A few among them thought it would be well to hold council together, and see if they could come to some arrangement whereby they could retreat to a place of safety when their many enemies attacked them

There was Red Ant, Rice Ant, Black Ant, Wagtail Ant, Gray Ant, Shining Ant, and many other ants from far and wide. The discussion was a true babel of diversity, which continued for a very long time

Some suggested that they should all go underground and live there; others wanted to have a large, strong dwelling built above ground where nobody could enter but an ant...

Yet another wanted to dwell in the trees to avoid Anteater, forgetting entirely that up there they would be the prey of birds; some even seemed inclined to have their own wings and fly away...

So the ants talked, and talked, and talked some more, but in the end their deliberations amounted to nothing, and each party resolved to go to work in its own way and on its own responsibility

Greater unity than that which existed in each separate faction could be seen nowhere in the world; each had their appointed task, each worked regularly, and all worked together in the same way

The ants did accomplish one thing: from among them all they chose a King, and under his authority and guidance they divided the labor so that all went as smoothly as it possibly could

Their old problems remained, however: each group worked in their own way, oblivious of the others, while the onslaught of their enemies continued as it had from time immemorial

So it was that the Red Ants spent many days of precious labor to build themselves a house on the ground... but it took Anteater mere minutes to level the fine building and leave the survivors homeless

The Rice Ants lived under the ground but with them it went no better for whenever they came out to forage for food, Anteater visited them and took them away, never to return

The Wagtail Ants fled to the trees when danger loomed but there sat Centipede waiting on a branch, or the Birds flew in to gobble them up

The Gray Ants were determined to save themselves by growing wings and taking flight, but this availed them nothing because Spiders set webs and the Birds could fly a great deal faster than they could

All of this greatly troubled the Ant King. When he heard that his subjects could not come to any agreement, he sent them the secret of Unity and the message of Working Together

But unfortunately, he chose for his messenger the Beetle and after all this time he has still not arrived at the Ants, so that today they are still the embodiment of discord, preyed upon by enemies

(adapted, via Laura Gibbs and James Honey)

(images via Firefly, Reddit and The Channel of Tales)