The Boiling Springs of Kanangorok

The second legend refers to a hot spring, Kanangorok, on the Dodoth track to the southwest of Lotuke. There is ample water here at all seasons of the year, and during the dry weather, both livestock and game drink from it freely. Though the pond is only just above normal heat, the spring itself is almost unbearably hot at its point of issue.

"A Lotuke man," thus runs the story, "went to waylay Dodoth, and on his way across the plain found a small pot resting against the branch of a fig tree which was beside the track. There was some rainwater inside the pot, and the lightning spirit had entered it with the rain and had adopted the pot as his home. The spirit was away at the time, but discovered that this man had taken the pot, for after returning from his walk, the spirit found that the pot had vanished and followed the tracks of the man who had taken it. The whole sky immediately clouded over, and a terrific storm gathered.

Now the man who had taken the pot thought that it was only an empty pot, and if he had known that it was the home of the lightning spirit, he would not have taken it. So when the man saw the storm coming up behind him, he ran homewards without thinking much of it. He ran and he ran, but the faster he ran the more the storm concentrated on his tracks. The rest of the sky was clear and sunny, but the menacing cloud gathered behind him, whirling

great columns of dust, and came gyrating in great spirals after him. He knew fear, for he could see that the storm was shaped for him along, and he thought that this must be God, and he threw the pot away at the place called Kanangorok. The storm stopped where he threw the pot, and it rained there for four days without ceasing. But the pot broke when he threw it and the water in it was pilled. So the spirit came to live there, and it became the boiling spring of Kanangorok where formerly there had never been any water.