(The Three Brothers in the River - Wikimedia)
The three brothers had always listened to the river-spirit, for it had saved their life. The river-spirit had never led the brothers wrong. This time they really had to think about what the spirit had said about the intruder though. They had never heard about their mother and knew nothing about her. How would they even be able to tell if it was her or not? The brothers also agreed that their priority was to keep themselves and their land safe. The brothers decided to go check out who this intruder was and then make a judgement on what to do with them once captured.
The brothers went to the spot where their son saw the intruder, but she wasn't there anymore. They searched the whole rest of the day for the intruder but could not find them. Later that night the river-spirit told them again that the intruder was their mother and to not harm her. The three brothers listened to this warning but decided to continue with their original plan of hunting and killing the intruder if they saw her again.
Meanwhile, the three brother's father had gone back into town to gather supplies in order to continue their journey. The mother rested in a ditch by the riverbed to wait for her husband to return from town and sleep. The father gathered a backpack full of water and food to bring back to his wife. She wanted to have as much energy and strength as she possibly could before she met her sons.
The brothers awoke the morning after the intruder was spotted on their land and spent that whole day searching far and wide again, but found nothing. They began to blame the brother's son who saw the intruder in the first place. They accused him of just seeing an animal or something, saying that it probably wasn't even a person at all. But again that night the river-spirit spoke to the brother's and assured them that the brother did see someone the previous day, and the person he saw was their mother.
After two days of searching, the brothers decided to call it quits. They came up with a plan in case they ever had future intruders and decided to be on guard for anyone on their land the next few days.
The brothers father had a hard and long day walking back to his son's house to meet his wife. When he met back up with her they rested for a few more hours and drank lots of water and filled up on food. After this long day, they finally decided it was time to go up to their son's house. It was nighttime now and the three sons were all inside.
The father and mother finally made it to the house. The mother was very excited to finally meet her grown sons, for she had wondered about them every day since giving birth to them. They knocked on the door but no one came to answer so they knocked again. Finally the door opened and they were greeted by the three sons holding bats and hunting weapons. The sons tried to come after their mother and father because they didn't know who they were. Their mother and father pleaded for them to stop and listen. The brothers finally did so because of all the warnings given by the river-spirits.
The three brothers eventually settled down enough to let their father and mother inside. They stayed up and talked all night about their lives and everything their mother had missed out on. She explained how she always regretted leaving them but that she was unable to care for three children at that time in her life. She told them about the sadness she had when leaving them by the river that day, and her feelings about seeing the river now all these years later. She plead for the river-spirit to watch over her three babies before leaving that day, and somehow she knew that they would.
Their mother and father ended up moving in with the three sons. They lived out their final elderly years all as a big happy family.
Bibliography: Congo Unit, The Three Brothers, By. R.E. Dennett (1898).
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