Thursday, February 12, 2015

Did cattle dreams found in Bible, Quran and Ethiopia's remote Konso tribe really predict the future?


As I listened to the elders of Ethiopia's Konso tribe tell me about their dreams, one nocturnal story really stood out. They explained that when they dreamed of red cattle, they would have a good harvest that year. A number of the elders reported this Red Cattle dream.


On several trips to the Konso tribe in Ethiopia's Omo region, the elders told me that when they dreamed of red cattle, they would have a good harvest that year. This is my illustration of the Konso Red Cattle dream. Konso tribe, Omo region, Ethiopia, Africa.

As the Konso elders described their Red Cattle dream, I couldn't help but recall the Bible story of Joseph interpreting the Pharaoh's seven cattle dream.


Pharaoh had two bad dreams. In the first, seven fat cows are devoured by seven lean cows. In the second seven thin ears of corn eat seven full ones.

Joseph, who was the Pharaoh's prisoner at the time, interpreted the dreams to mean that Egypt will soon have seven years of plentiful harvest followed by seven years of very poor harvest. 

This woodcut artist Hans Holbein the Younger did in 1538 shows his interpretation of  the Bible story of the  Pharaoh's seven cattle dream.
So is this coincidence? Both the Konso and Bible cattle dreams predict future harvest.

While the Bible story confirms the truth of Joseph's interpretation, I cannot scientifically confirm if the Konso Red Cattle dream works.

While I'm not a scholar of the Quran, I found the same seven cattle dream story there:   Surah Yusuf (Joseph) beginning with Verse No:43

This is part of my 15-year Project which is looking for a definitive name. Now I call the Project:
We All Have Five Fingers 
One seeker's journey to find Modern Man's First Stories






Here is the Bible's predictive cattle dream story found in the book of Gensis:

The king told Joseph:
I dreamed I was standing on the bank of the Nile River. 18 I saw seven fat, healthy cows come up out of the river, and they began feeding on the grass. 19 Next, seven skinny, bony cows came up out of the river. I have never seen such terrible looking cows anywhere in Egypt. 20 The skinny cows ate the fat ones. 21 But you couldn’t tell it, because these skinny cows were just as skinny as they were before. Right away, I woke up.

22 I also dreamed that I saw seven heads of grain growing on one stalk. The heads were full and ripe. 23 Then seven other heads of grain came up. They were thin and scorched by a wind from the desert. 24 These heads of grain swallowed the full ones. I told my dreams to the magicians, but none of them could tell me the meaning of the dreams.

25 Joseph replied:
Your Majesty, both of your dreams mean the same thing, and in them God has shown what he is going to do. 26 The seven good cows stand for seven years, and so do the seven good heads of grain. 27 The seven skinny, ugly cows that came up later also stand for seven years, as do the seven bad heads of grain that were scorched by the east wind. The dreams mean there will be seven years when there won’t be enough grain.
28 It is just as I said—God has shown what he intends to do. 29 For seven years Egypt will have more than enough grain, 30 but that will be followed by seven years when there won’t be enough. The good years of plenty will be forgotten, and everywhere in Egypt people will be starving. 31 The famine will be so bad that no one will remember that once there had been plenty. 32 God has given you two dreams to let you know that he has definitely decided to do this and that he will do it soon.



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