When I was little my dad used to tuck me into bed. One night when I was getting ready for bed, I saw a huge black creepy crawly spider with long ugly legs in the corner of my ceiling. I screamed really loud and ran out of my room and asked my dad to kill it forme because I was scared of spiders. He said the spider wouldn’t hurt me and he wasn’t going to kill it. I told him that spiders are bad and ‘yucky” and are not needed in the world. Then he told me this story:
 

A man from the Muco clan of the Oromo nation had to travel a long distance. He had gone to buy some cattle and on his way back he was forced to travel in unfamiliar territory. He camped outside a village of another clan. In the middle of the night people from the village came and stole his cattle. He ran away fearing for his life. The men who stole his cattle saw him run and they chased him. He frantically looked for a place to hide and found a hole in the ground made by Waldiigessa. He jumped in and became very still and quiet. He could hear the villagers coming and he knew he could still be seen. If they caught him, he would be a dead man. Suddenly he looked up and saw the opening of the hole being filled in with threads of a web. He watched the legs of a spider working fast and furiously to cover the hole. As the last strand was in place, the villagers came. The man could heat them talking as they looked around.
 

“It is impossible for him to be here. Looking the spider web isn’t evenbroken. Let’s go.” The man looked up at his friend, the spider, and said, “thank you.” after telling his village and clan the story of his incredible adventure, they adopted the spider as their “sign of the clan” and vowed never to kill another spider.
 

This story is taken from Children’s Corner of Qunnamtii, Vol. II, Issue III, Winter 1991.