African Myths of Origin

by Stephen Belcher

  Her lover cast about in all directions from their tracks, looking for his lost bride, but he could find no sign of her. Finally, he returned to her father and asked for his help: the servant had escaped thanks to the endurance of his camel, and only with a similar animal might he hope to find their trail. The father gave him a four-year-old she-camel which had been tested for its endurance and courage. Then the man set off.

  He rode for forty days over the desert, following the direction his servant had taken. He came to an oasis and met a man living there. He asked for news of his servant and the captured bride, but the man could tell him nothing.

  ‘But perhaps the birds can give a sign,’ said the man. ‘I have watched them for some time now. They fly north, and return six days later with fine white camel-hair for their nests. If the woman was riding a white camel, perhaps that is the direction you should take.’

  The man followed his advice and rode north, following the line taken by the birds. After several days, he saw the signs of a camp nearby. Then he began to move with caution. He crept up over the dunes until he could see the rude camp which the servant had made. He watched until he saw the servant ride off on the racing-camel, accompanied by his monstrous dog. Then the man crept into the camp and found the woman, filthy and unkempt. She had two small children, a boy and a girl, born during this captivity. She recognized him, and greeted him hesitantly. But he was able to restore her spirits, and together they planned how to overcome the servant with his beasts and the marvellous sword. The servant was accustomed to challenge the woman to tie him as tightly as she could with leather thongs made from camel-hide, to test his strength: he would then flex his muscles and the thongs burst apart like thin cotton thread. The man gave the woman a rope made of goat-hair, and she helped him to dig a pit in which he hid.

  The servant returned and found the woman more gay and cheerful than he had seen her in years. She explained that she had become resigned to her lot, and had decided to become a loving wife to him and a good mother to their children. But, she added, she was mortally afraid of his dog, and she was sure that some day it would kill or maim her or one of the children. The servant scoffed at her fears, but agreed to tie up the dog so that it could not come near her while in camp. Then he told her to bring out the thongs and bind him, so he could test his strength.

  ‘You know you will burst the camel-hide,’ she said. ‘But I have just found an old rope which may be a better test of your strength. It was at the bottom of my sack.’

  ‘Bring it, and lash me to the tree,’ ordered the servant, and the woman did so with fervour. She pulled the rope about him as tight as she could, bracing herself against the tree-trunk, and then she tied the knots. The servant strained against the rope. It gave a little, but it did not burst into pieces like the thongs. Then the man came from his hiding place and seized the sword which was hanging nearby.

  ‘Do you know me?’ he asked.

  ‘I know you,’ said the servant.

  ‘And what do you have to say for yourself today?’

  ‘I say that if it were not for this rope, I would be slicing you up for jerky as we speak.’

  ‘So be it,’ said the man, and with one blow he struck off the servant’s head. Then, bit by bit, he sliced up the servant’s body, and when he had finished he killed the dog.

  They left the two children with six milk-camels in the wilderness. They rode back together to his home. The children were clever; they knew where to get water and how to milk the camels. They grew up, and when they were adults the boy married his sister. Their offspring became the Ihaggaren.

  ALI GURAN AND HIS NEPHEW ADELASEQ

  These two figures, and their stories, are widespread among all the Tuareg groups of Niger; it is interesting that the opposition of uncle and maternal nephew also marks one of the major historical narratives of the Songhay, the story of Mamar Kassai (the Askia Muhammad) who overthrew Sonni Ali to establish the Ture dynasty. These stories are retold from a recent collection of tales.

  Ali Guran feared his sister’s children, for he felt they would threaten his power. Accordingly, he killed every child born to her. But at one time she and her slave-woman were both pregnant and gave birth at the same time. The noble mother exchanged her son for that of the slave-woman. Ali Guran took what he thought was his nephew and killed him, but in fact the true nephew survived.

  As the child grew, Ali Guran began to suspect that in fact the slave-boy was of his blood, for the child showed unusual intelligence. Once, Ali Guran, his son and his nephew Adelaseq were travelling across the desert. They had a store of food and water with them. Ali Guran told the boys that they must give the desert its share. His son immediately spread out his stores and poured out a part of his water, and threw away some of his dried meat and dates. His nephew simply drew closer to him and began to recount the doings of the men of the camp and the news he had heard of nearby camps: where they had raided, what booty they had taken, how they had treated their camels, where they had found water, until the day was almost over and they had completed their trip. Ali Guran then asked the boys what they had given the desert for its share. His son answered that he had given the desert a portion of his supplies. Adelaseq answered that the desert’s share was talk, for by keeping up the conversation they had crossed the desert without noticing the time pass.

  Another time, Ali Guran was travelling alone in the desert and was taken captive by another group of Tuareg. He offered them a ransom, and they agreed to let him buy off his life. He told them to ride to his camp and ask for his belt and the draw-string of his trousers. The raiders were puzzled, but agreed. They bound up Ali Guran and left him on the sands, and they rode into his camp. They asked for the belt and the draw-string to his trousers; Ali Guran’s son had no idea what they were talking about. But Adelaseq came and told him that he, Adelaseq, was the belt, and the son was the draw-string. He added that clearly the father had been taken captive and they must find a way to rescue him.

  He invited the raiders to wait for a meal, and then set the slave-women to work. But instead of grain they pounded sand in their mortars, and the work continued for some time until the raiders all became sleepy and dozed off. Adelaseq then went among them, gathered all their weapons and placed them in a pile in the middle of the camp, in the sun. Then he took the dish of sand and went as though to bring them their meal. But he tossed the sand in their faces and then drew his sword and began striking them. The raiders grasped for their weapons, but found nothing close at hand. Some of them saw the pile and reached for the swords and spears, but the sun had made the weapons so hot that the raiders could not hold them. In this way Adelaseq routed them and drove them from the camp. Then he and Ali Guran’s son retraced the raiders’ path and freed Ali Guran from his bonds.

  Ali Guran then decided that he must kill this clever lad. He sent Adelaseq out to mind the sheep, giving him two raw hides. He told him he could use the one as a sunshade, and he should peg the other one to the ground to dry out. But Adelaseq mistrusted his uncle, and so he wrapped the hide over an ewe. Ali Guran came in the middle of the day and speared the sheep through the hide, thinking he had killed his nephew, but Adelaseq arose from his resting place and told his uncle he had killed a sheep instead.

  Another time, Ali Guran, his son and his nephew were out camping together. They were near a waterhole, but the boys did not know where it was. That night, Adelaseq slept some distance from his uncle, fearing a trick or an attempt on his life. In the middle of the night, Ali Guran roused his son and the two of them crept down to the waterhole and drank their fill. They spent the night by the water, drinking, and then slipped back to their camp in the morning. Adelaseq at that time was beginning to feel very thirsty, for he had emptied his own waterskin during the night. He saw his uncle and cousin sleeping, and knew that there must be water in the area. So he took some of the grease from their food – they had a good store of meat – and daubed it on the bottom of their sandals. Then he waited. That night, the u
ncle and cousin returned to the waterhole and again they drank their fill. They returned to the camp the next morning. But Adelaseq followed their trail by noting where the ants had come to feed on the grease from their sandals, and so he was able to find the waterhole and drink his fill. Then he observed a tall stalk of reeds, and guessed that this served as his uncle’s marker to find the waterhole. He cut it down and returned to the camp.

  That evening, Ali Guran could not find his way to the waterhole. Adelaseq came and mocked him. ‘I understand your tricks,’ he said. ‘You wished me to die of thirst. But now you are suffering, are you not?’ Then he showed them the way to the waterhole. As he was drinking, Ali Guran drew his sword and prepared to strike him, but Adelaseq saw the reflection in the water and was able to dodge the blow. Then he had his own sword out, and beat down his uncle’s blade. Ali Guran gave up, muttering that they were united through mothers’ wombs and mothers’ milk.

  Sources and Further Reading

  GENERAL

  M. G. Adam, Légendes historiques du pays de Nioro (Paris: Augustin Challamel, 1904).

  Stephen Belcher, Epic Traditions of Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

  Cambridge History of Africa, 8 vols., ed. Oliver D. Fage and Roland Oliver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975– ).

  Harold Courlander, A Treasury of African Folklore (New York: Crown Publishers, 1975; reissued New York: Marlowe and Co., 1996).

  Luc de Heusch, The Drunken King, trans. Roy Willis (1972; repr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).

  Leo Frobenius, The Voice of Africa, trans. Rudolf Blind (2 vols., 1913; repr. in one vol., New York: Arno Press, 1980).

  —— Atlantis: Volksdichtung und Volksmärchen Afrikas, 12 vols. (Iena: Eugen Diederichs, 1921–8; Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1978).

  John Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  H. R. Palmer, Sudanese Memoirs (3 vols. in one, 1928; repr. London: Frank Cass, 1967).

  Raffaele Pettazzoni, Miti africani (Turin: Unione Tipographico, 1948).

  Harold Scheub, Dictionary of African Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  Harry Tegnaeus, Le Héros civilisateur (Stockholm: Studia Upsaliensa Africana, 1950).

  Unesco General History of Africa, 8 vols. (Paris, London, Berkeley: James Currey and University of California Press).

  Alice Werner, Africa: Myths and Legends (1933; reprinted London: Senate, 1995).

  CHAPTER 1. THE SAN PEOPLES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

  The Battles of Khaggen, retold from J. M. Orpen, ‘A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen’, Cape Monthly Magazine, July 1874; reprinted in Folklore, 30 (1919), pp. 142–6, 149–51; Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman Folklore (London: George Allen, 1911), pp. 17–30. Khaggen Creates an Eland, retold from Dorothea F. Bleek (ed.), The Mantis and his Friends: Bushman Folklore (Capetown: Miller, 1923), pp. 1–5, 5–9. Qwanciqutshaa, retold from Orpen, pp. 146–9. The Marking of the Animals, retold from Megan Biesele, Women Like Meat (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 116–21. The Python Wife, retold from Biesele, pp. 124–33 (three versions).

  Mathias Guenther offers a collection of stories in Bushman Folktales: Oral Traditions of the Nharo of Botswana and the/Xam of the Cape (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1989) which combines recently collected material with much older unpublished material from the Bleek and Lloyd archives. An early standard ethnography is Isaac Schapera’s The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1930), which includes a comparative discussion of mythology. More recent is Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s The Harmless People (New York: Vintage Books, 1958–9), to which one might add Marjorie Shostak’s Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman (New York: Vintage, 1983), but either would be only a starting point in a very large bibliography. Megan Biesele’s Women Like Meat does provide good commentary on the stories given above. A title attempting a new synthesis is The Bushmen of Southern Africa: A Foraging Society in Transition, by Andrew Smith, Candy Malherbe, Mathias Guenther and Penny Behrens (Capetown: David Philip; Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000). Penny Miller has put together a nice collection of South African myths (including almost all the major groups besides the Khoi-San), Myths and Legends of Southern Africa (Capetown: T. V. Bilpin Publications, 1979). There is also a useful new reference work: Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), which covers a number of African groups on pp. 175–229.

  CHAPTER 2. PYGMIES OF THE CENTRAL AFRICAN FORESTS

  The Creation of Humans, retold from H. Trilles, Contes et légendes pygmées (Bruges: Librairie de l’œuvre St Charles, 1931), pp. 78–9. Why Pygmies Live in the Forest, retold from Paul Schebesta, Among Congo Pigmies, trans. Gerald Griffin (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1933), p. 166. How the Pygmies Got Fire, retold from Schebesta, pp. 81–2.

  There is a good deal of ethnographic literature upon the various groups; one of the most sympathetic accounts is that of Colin Turnbull, The Forest People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), although other ethnographers have since questioned his portrayal.

  CHAPTER 3. THE SONGHAY HUNTERS OF THE NIGER RIVER

  Musa Nyame and the Hira, retold from A. Dupuis-Yakouba, Les Gow, ou chasseurs du Niger (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1911; Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1974), pp. 20–39. Kelimabe and Kelikelimabe, retold from Dupuis-Yakouba, pp. 88–149. Fara Makan and Fono, retold from Jean Rouch, La Chanson de Fara Makan (Documents presented to the SCOA conference in Niamey, 1978) and A. Prost, ‘Légendes Songhay’, Bulletin de l’IFAN, 18 (1956), pp. 188–201.

  Dupuis-Yakouba provides other narratives at the end of Louis Desplagnes, Le Plateau central nigérien (Paris: Émile Larose, 1907), pp. 383–450. Leo Frobenius also gives a number of stories in Dämonen des Sudan, Atlantis, vol. vii. For Songhay political traditions, see Chapter 61.

  CHAPTER 4. THE ORIGIN OF HUNTERS’ ASSOCIATIONS: SANEN AND KONTRON OF THE MANDEN

  First Version, retold from Youssouf Cissé, ‘Notes sur les sociétés de chasseurs malinké’, Journal de la société des africanistes, 34 (1964), pp. 175–226, at p. 177. Second Version, retold from Fodé M. B. Sidibé, ‘Deux récits de chasse Banmana: Ndoronkelen et Bani Nyenema’, master’s thesis, Université Cheik Anta Diop, Dakar (1984), pp. 164–7. Third Version, retold from Youssouf Cissé, La Confrérie des chasseurs Malinké et Bambara (Paris: Nouvelles du Sud/Arsan, 1994), pp. 39–44.

  See Leo Frobenius, Dämonen des Sudan, Atlantis, vol. vii, and Karim Traore, Le Jeu et le sérieux (Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2000) for a supplementary view of Mande hunters. For the Manden, see also Chapters 64–6.

  CHAPTER 5. HOW HUNTERS LEARNED ABOUT MAGIC

  The story is retold from Melville and Frances Herskovits, Dahomean Narrative (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1958), pp. 232–5. For other references on the Fon, see notes to Chapter 51.

  CHAPTER 6. THE ANIMAL BRIDE I: THE CHANGED SKIN

  This story appears widely in hunters’ narratives, and is occasionally known by the name of the hunter as given in some Mande versions, Maghan Jan. See the references given for Chapter 7.

  CHAPTER 7. THE ANIMAL BRIDE II: SIRANKOMI

  The story is retold from multiple versions: Annik Thoyer, Récits épiques de chasseurs bamanan du Mali (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995), pp. 27–98; Gerard Meyer, Contes du pays malinké (Paris: Karthala, 1987), pp. 25–9; Leo Frobenius, Dämonen des Sudan, Atlantis, vol. vii, pp. 47–50; Mamby Sidibé, Contes populaires du Mali (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1982), pp. 19–43.

  CHAPTER 8. KHOI-KHOI CATTLE STORIES

  The Two Men, retold from Wilhelm Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South Africa (London: Trübner, 1864), pp. 83–4. Heitsi-Eibib and the King of Snakes, retold from Jan Knappert, Myths and Legends of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), p. 53.

  For further references on the Khoi-Khoi, see notes to Chap
ter 38. On African pastoralism in general, see Andrew B. Smith, Pastoralism in Africa: Origins and Development Ecology (London: Hurst, Wit-watersrand University Press, 1992).

  CHAPTER 9. FULBE STORIES OF CATTLE

  Tyamaba, the Great Serpent, retold from Lilyan Kesteloot, Christian Barbey and Siré Mamadou Ndongo (eds.), ‘Tyamaba, mythe peul’, Notes africaines, 185–6 (1985), multiple versions given on pp. 44–68. A Muslim Version from Northern Nigeria, retold from M. D. W. Jeffreys, ‘Mythical Origin of Cattle in Africa’, Man, 113–14 (1946), pp. 140–41. The First Cow: Why Fulbe are Herdsmen, retold from Sheikou Balde, ‘L’Origine de la première vache’, Éducation africaine, 101 (1938), pp. 29–32.

  For the political traditions of the Fulani or Fulbe, see notes to Chapter 69.

  CHAPTER 10. THE MAASAI OF EAST AFRICA

  The Origin of Cattle, retold from A. C. Hollis, The Masai: Their Language and Folklore (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1905), pp. 270–71; and Naomi Kipury, Oral Literature of the Maasai (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 30–31. Women and the Camps, retold from Hollis, pp. 120–22.

  On Maasai history, see Thomas Spear and Richard Waller (eds.), Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa (London: James Currey, 1993), and as a personal statement, Tepilit Ole Saitoti’s The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior: An Autobiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

  CHAPTER 11. THE GREAT LAKES I: THE ORIGIN OF CATTLE (RWANDA)

  The story is retold from Claudine Vidal, ‘De la contradiction sauvage’, L’Homme, 14 (1974), pp. 5–58; her source was L. Delmas, Généalogie de la noblesse du Ruanda (Kagbayi, n.d.); see also A. Coupez and Th. Kamanzi, Récits historiques Rwanda (Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, 1962), pp. 70–84, and Pierre Smith, Le Récit populaire au Rwanda (Paris: Classiques africains and Armand Colin, 1975), pp. 284–9. For other stories from Rwanda, see Chapter 29.