In Asiatic folktale, jackal provides for the lion; he scares
up game, which the lion kills and eats, and receives what is
left as reward. In stories from northern India he is
sometimes termed "minister to the king," i.e. to the lion.
From the legend that he does not kill his own food has arisen
the legend of his cowardice. Jackal's heart must never be
eaten, for instance, in the belief of peoples indigenous to
the regions where the jackal abounds. ... In Hausa Negro
folktale Jackal plays the role of sagacious judge and is
called "O Learned One of the Forest." The Bushmen say that
Jackal goes around behaving the way he does "because he is
Jackal".
[ Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore ]