Why do Ichisongas hate elephants and hippos?
In the mythology of the Lambas people of Zambia, there is a creature called the Ichisonga. It is a herbivore, and very rhinoceros-like in appearance.
Upon hearing a hippopotamus, it allegedly sneaks up on the hippo and then stabs it to death with its horn. It has a similar hatred of elephants and will stand by an elephant carcass in spite until rots away.
Imagine that the Ichisonga was a real creature, a species of rhinoceros inhabiting Africa. Why would it - a herbivore - be so aggressive towards hippos and elephants? There are cases of herbivores exhibiting somewhat predatory behaviour, like Cape buffaloes, which actively seek out, stalk and kill lion cubs and even injured humans, but why specifically hippos and elephants?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/145903. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1 answer
A tale of envy.
Hippos.
The Ishisonga remembers swimming as a cub: it loved swimming, it would dive beneath the water and feed on the lush and delicious water-weed, reveling in the cool splashy games with the hippo children; swimming was what it dreamt about, what made life worthwhile.
Then time passed: it grew, its head heavy with horn, it became more and more difficult to keep it above the water; it could not dive for delicacies and return to the surface with such ease. Eventually it could not dive, could not swim. Its dreams were broken. Ichisonga was cast onto the dry hot and dusty land it hated so.
At times Ichisonga would take a drink by the rivers and lakes, there would be the hippos - friends of youth, grown now. Their honking laughter would fill the air for miles around, taunting and humiliating Ichisonga. Bitter tears would be all the water Ichisonga would enjoy. Instead of the sweet taste of water-weed, Ichisonga vowed to enjoy the sweet taste of revenge for this betrayal.
Since the hippo children were so lucky as not to grow horns, horns would be their undoing, so Ichisonga took the only weapon it had and ended their laughter, one by one.
Elephants.
Ichisonga wandered the lands in sorrow, envy and anger, feeding on tasteless dry grasses; thorny bushes would scratch and stab at its lips any time it tried for a succulent leaf - there were none of the sweet fruit Ichisonga remembered as a child and longed for the taste of.
Ichisonga would see sweet fruit, out of reach in the high trees; the monkeys would drop the seeds with a trace of the sweet smell - so tantalising, but Ichisonga could not reach. The elephants would snake their supple trunks with ease to twist the lower fruit away from the tree, then to enjoy the sweet taste. Ichisonga was envious and even sadder.
Ichisonga would wander the savanna, occasionaly stumbling upon the carcass of a hunted elephant, one caught by the big cats or a tribe, then would gaze longingly at the remains, imagining the snakey trunk grasping sweet fruit, imagining the taste, wishing there were a way for it to belong to Ichisonga, but there was no way, only more sadness, envy and anger for Ichisonga - and dry dusty grass.
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