@ilinx:~$ Tchattuk
Stories concerning Tchattuk, Stillwell tells us, invariably refer to Tchattuk stealing something from Katak. Devotees of Tchattuk insist that it is this act of theft which triggers Katak’s journey around the time-cycle. Tchattuk is both she-who-steals and what-is-lost, simultaneously wounding Katak and making her what she is.

It is easy to see why Tchattuk was held in special reverence by the Tak N’Ma, and why that reverence had a peculiarly ambivalent quality. The Tak language had a special word for this admixture of dread and love: Tukka.
According to the Mu N’Ma and the Dibboma, the Taks would stage bloody ceremonies in honour of Tchattuk. Tak rituals would show Tchattuk swooping from the sky, sometimes to take Katak up into thestars with her, sometimes to take what she had stolen from Katak into the dark regions of the cosmos. Tchattuk is sometimes called ‘the strange-lights’, and there are persistent hints of an extraterrestrial origin.

Mu sorcerers who follow Tchattuk talk of riding her to the whirlpool beyond. This ‘ride’, however, is anything but an easy journey. Impairment and even destruction of memory is always a feature of the voyage. The word Tchattu, common to all three N’Ma tribes, is used to refer to amnesia and senile dementia; its literal meaning is “taken by Tchattuk”. Some of those who specialize in the Tchattuk-ride pride themselves on their inability to remember anything.