Among the Kabyle people of Algeria on the African Continent, Achimi is a Buffalo god. He is the son of Itherther and Thamuatz, the first creatures living on earth. Between Achimi and his father Itherther, they helped in the first humans’ development of hunting and eating meat.

Achimi was known for being wild and adventurous. So much so, that Achimi eventually left his parents to go out on his own.

In his wanderings, Achimi came across a village that had been built by the first humans. The humans of this village nearly got him

At some point during his escape from the villagers, a bee told Achimi how it would be a much better and easier life for him to be domesticated by humans as they would care and provide for him and protect him from predators such as lions.

A slight variation to this is that instead of a bee, it is an ant who tells Achimi all about how to have the easy life. All Achimi has to do is be domesticated by humans and he’ll have it made. Sure it will be short, but it will be comfortable.

But if he wants a long life and one full of freedom, the Achimi needs to avoid getting caught by the humans and domesticated. The downside being, that there would be times that Achimi would go hungry.

Stubborn as ever in his youth, Achimi refused the “advice” of the bee (or the ant) and went off in his own ways, bound and determined to maintain a life of freedom and independence.

Eventually Achimi returned to where his herd roamed. In his absence, his father and mother had had another calf, a younger sister to Achimi. This enraged Achimi and he challenged his father for dominance of the herd. His father ousted, Achimi proceed to mate with his mother and sister. Back to the other variation of this story with the ant, it had told Achimi he could take over the herd, usurping his father and mating with his mother and sister.

Time moves on and Achimi mated with his mom and sister to create a herd of buffalo. And, as time does, Achimi got old and a time came that the herd was cold, hungry and experiencing a lot of suffering. Remembering what the bee (or ant) had told him, Achimi decided to lead his herd to where the village was and allowed the humans there to tame and domesticate them, living an easy and short life from then on.

I’m sure such a story seems great from the human perspective, domestication and herding of cattle for an easy source of food.