One day his neighbors took him to church with them, and when they returned home they asked him, "Who have the best kind of religion, the kites or the crows?"
To which crafty old Koongooroo replied, with great enthusiasm, "Oh, the kites, by long odds!"
This answer tickled the kites like anything, and Koongooroo was looked upon as a bird of remarkable discernment.
When almost another week had passed, the sultan of the crows slipped away in the night, went to his own town, and called his people together.
"To-morrow," said he, "is the great annual religious festival of the kites, and they will all go to church in the morning. Go, now, and get some wood and some fire, and wait near their town until I call you; then come quickly and set fire to the church."
The crows were very busy indeed all that night, and by dawn they had an abundance of wood and fire at hand, and were lying in wait near the town of their victorious enemies.
So in the morning every kite went to church. There was not one person left at home except old Koongooroo.
When his neighbors called for him they found him lying down. "Why!" they exclaimed with surprise, "are you not going to church to-day?"
"Oh," said he, "I wish I could; but my stomach aches so badly I can't move!" And he groaned dreadfully.
"Ah, poor fellow!" said they; "you will be better in bed;" and they left him to himself.
As soon as everybody was out of sight he flew swiftly to his soldiers and cried, "Come on; they're all in the church."
Then they all crept quickly but quietly to the church, and while some piled wood about the door, others applied fire.
The wood caught readily, and the fire was burning fiercely before the kites were aware of their danger; but when the church began to fill with smoke, and tongues of flame shot through the cracks, they tried to escape through the windows. The greater part of them, however, were suffocated, or, having their wings singed, could not fly away, and so were burned to death, among them their sultan, Mwayway; and Koongooroo and his crows got their old town back again.
From that day to this the kites fly away from the crows.
Once there was a man named Go'so, who taught children to read, not in a schoolhouse, but under a calabash tree. One evening, while Goso was sitting under the tree deep in the study of the next day's lessons, Paa, the gazelle, climbed up the tree very quietly to steal some fruit, and in so doing shook off a calabash, which, in falling, struck the teacher on the head and killed him.