How the Cheetah got her tear stained Cheeks

Long ago there was a lazy hunter who was to hot and bothered to go hunting.
The heat had made the animals very lazy too but he didn't feel like hunting.
Then out of the corner of his eye he spotted a cheetah getting ready to pounce on her prey, and he noticed she had left her cubs hidden in the bushes.

The hunter watched as the cheetah dragged her kill towards her cubs, and while he watched he conjured up an evil plan. He would steal one of her cubs, later on when she went back to the water hole in the afternoon. And he would train it to do the hunting for him, then he would never have to bother with hunting for himself again.

When the sun began to set, the cheetah left her cubs concealed in a bush and set off to the waterhole. Quickly the hunter grabbed his spear and trotted down to the bushes where the cubs were hidden. There he found the three cubs, still to young to be frightened of him or to run away. He first chose one, then decided upon another, and then changed his mind again. Finally he stole them all, thinking to himself that three cheetahs would undoubtedly be better than one.

When their mother returned later and she found her babies gone, and was broken-hearted. The poor mother cheetah cried and cried until her tears made dark stains down her cheeks. She wept all night and into the next day. She cried so loudly that she was heard by an old man who came to see what the noise was all about.

Now this old man was wise and knew the ways of the animals. When he discovered what the wicked hunter had done, he became very angry. The lazy hunter was not only a thief, he had broken the traditions of the tribe. Everyone knew that a hunter must use only his own strength and skill. Any other way of hunting was surely a dishonor.

The old man returned to the village and told the elders what has happened. The villagers became angry. They found the lazy hunter and drove him away from the village. The old man took the three cheetah cubs back to their grateful mother. But the long weeping of the mother cheetah stained her face forever. Today the cheetah wears the tearstains on its face as a reminder to the hunters that it is not honorable to hunt in any other way than that which is traditional.