CHAPTER 12. THE GREAT LAKES II: THE STORY OF WAMARA (BAHAYA)
The story is retold from P. Césard, ‘Comment les Bahaya interprètent leurs origines’, Anthropos, 22 (1927), pp. 440–65, at pp. 447–52.
For background on the BaHaya kingdoms and culture, see Peter R. Schmidt, Historical Archaeology: A Structural Approach in an African Culture (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978), especially pp. 61 ff.; Peter Seitel’s The Powers of Genre: Interpreting Haya Oral Literature (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1999); Mugyabuso Mulokozi, The African Epic Controversy (Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, 2002), pp. 13–109.
CHAPTER 13. THE CHAGGA OF EAST AFRICA: MURILE
The story was first reported by the Revd J. Raum in 1909, and retold or reprinted by Carl Meinhof, Afrikanische Märchen (Iena: Eugen Diederichs, 1921), pp. 71–8, and Alice Werner, Africa: Myths and Legends, pp. 70–76.
CHAPTER 14. UTHLAKANYANA, THE ZULU CHILD TRICKSTER
The story is retold from the Revd Henry Callaway, Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (Natal: John A. Blair, London: Trübner and Co., 1868), pp. 6–40. Other Zulu stories are given in Chapter 37.
CHAPTER 15. STORIES OF MONI-MAMBU OF THE BAKONGO
The stories are adapted and retold from J. van Wing and Cl. Scholler’s Légendes des Bakongo-Orientaux (Brussels: Bulens; Lou-vain: AUCAM, 1940), pp. 11–34. The hero has also been turned into a novel by Guy Menga, Les Aventures de Moni-Mambou (Yaoundé: Editions Clé, 1971). For the kingdom of Kongo, see Chapter 40.
CHAPTER 16. TURE, THE ZANDE TRICKSTER
Ture Releases the Waters, retold from E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Zande Trickster (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 38–9. Ture Sets Fire to the Bush, retold from Evans-Pritchard, pp. 39–40. Ture’s Wife and the Great Bird Nzanginzanginzi, retold from Evans Pritchard, pp. 40–42. Ture Dances, retold from Evans-Pritchard, pp. 58–9. Ture and his Innards, retold from Evans-Pritchard, pp. 111–13. Ture and his Mother-in-Law, retold from Evans-Pritchard, pp. 144–6.
Evans-Pritchard also published a number of other works on the Zande.
CHAPTER 17. ESHU OF THE YORUBA
Eshu’s Knowledge, retold from William Bascom, Sixteen Cowries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), pp. 101–3. Eshu, Orunmila and the Servant of Death, retold from Wande Abimbola, Ifa Divination Poetry (Lagos: Nok Publishers, 1977), pp. 89–93. Eshu Parts Two Friends, retold from Ulli Beier, Yoruba Myths (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 55–6; Pierre Verger, Notes sur le culte des Orisa et Vodun à Bahia…, Mémoires de l’IFAN, 51 (Dakar: IFAN, 1957), p. 112. Stories about Eshu are widely told and printed; other principal sources would be Harold Courlander, Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes (New York: Crown Publishers, 1973). Verger’s valuable study of orisa cults in Brazil and on the west coast of Africa retells many of the well-known stories.
For West African tricksters in general (Eshu, Legba, Ananse), see Robert D. Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). Leo Frobenius also gives additional early material on Yoruba religion in Die Atlantische Götterlehre, Atlantis, vol. x, pp. 50–199; for Eshu especially pp. 168–81. Other Yoruba stories are given in Chapter 49.
CHAPTER 18. LEGBA OF THE FON
This story is retold from Melville and Frances Herskovits, Dahomean Narrative (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1958), pp. 142–8. Other Fon stories are given in Chapter 51.
CHAPTER 19. ANANSE THE SPIDER, OF THE ASHANTI
The Story of Nanni, retold from Ludewig Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea (1760); (ed. and trans. Selena Winsnes, published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 80–83. How Ananse Got the Stories from the Sky-God, first published by R. S. Rattray, Akan-Ashanti Folktales (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1930), pp. 54–8; the story has also been collected by Harold Courlander, The Hat-Shaking Dance and Other Ashanti Tales from Ghana (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1957). The story has been widely retold and reprinted. Ananse and the Corncob, retold from A. W. Cardinall, Tales Told in Togoland (1931; repr. London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 15–21. This story is a type (‘successive exchanges’) which is widespread in Africa: see Denise Paulme’s essay on the topic in her collection of essays, La Mère dévorante (Paris: Gallimard, 1976). For Ashanti political traditions, see Chapter 52.
CHAPTER 20. EGYPTIAN STORIES
The literature on ancient Egypt is enormous. The corpus of stories, however, is limited, although available in many translations.
The Contending of Horus and Seth, Cheops and the Magicians, The Two Brothers, retold from multiple translations: Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, 1975); William Kelly Simpson (ed.), The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972); M. V. Seton-Williams, Egyptian Legends and Stories (London: The Rubicon Press, 1988); and E. A. Wallis Budge, Legends of the Egyptian Gods (New York: Dover Publications; first printed 1912). The Treasure of Rhampsinitus, retold from Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954), pp. 147–50.
CHAPTER 21. ETHIOPIA
The story of Solomon and the queen of Sheba is a part of the Kebra Negast (the Glory of Kings), a medieval history of the kings of Ethiopia; I have used several versions: the translation of Miguel F. Brooks, A Modern Translation of the Kebra Nagast (Lawrenceville, Kan.: Red Sea Press, 1995), pp. 19–45, and two versions in Harold Courlander, A Treasury of African Folklore, pp. 524–37 (one from the oral tradition, another from the scholarship of Enno Littmann). The Separation of the Darassa and the Jam-Jamo, retold from A. Jensen, Im Lande des Gada (Stuttgart: Strecker und Schröder, 1936), pp. 500–501. How Rule Passed from Women to Men, retold from Jensen, pp. 502–4 (two versions).
CHAPTER 22. THE OROMO OF SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA
The First Humans, retold from A. Jensen, Im Lande des Gada (Stuttgart: Strecker und Schröder, 1936), pp. 491–2. The Adamites of the Kingdom of Guma, retold from Enrico Cerulli, Folk Literature of the Galla, Harvard African Studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1922), pp. 152–5. The Story of Mohammed Gragn, retold from Jensen, pp. 10–11, and from Hans Jannasch, Im Schatten des Negus (Berlin: Die Brüder, 1930), pp. 9–28.
For Oromo history, see Mohammed Hassen, The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), but this is only one of many studies on specific aspects of Oromo history. Ernesta Cerulli provides ethnography of the region covered by the stories in Peoples of Southwest Ethiopia and its Borderland (London: International African Institute, 1956), and Asmarom Legesse offers analysis and evaluation in Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society (New York: Free Press, 1973). On religion, and particularly for discussion of the figure of Waqa, see Lambert Bartels, Oromo Religion: Myths and Rites of the Western Oromo of Ethiopia (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1983).
CHAPTER 23. THE SHILLUK OF SOUTHERN SUDAN
Several sources are combined in this account of the career of Nyikang and his sons. The starting point is Diedrich Westermann, The Shilluk People: Their Language and Folklore (1912; Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, n.d.), pp. 155 ff. The Revd D. S. Oyler adds some material in his essays, ‘Nikawng and the Shilluk Migration’, Sudan Notes and Records, 1 (1918), pp. 107–15, and ‘Nikawng’s Place in the Shilluk Religion’, ibid., pp. 283–92, and the stories are summarized by Godfrey Lienhardt in The Shilluk of the Upper Nile’, in C. Darryl Forde (ed.), African Worlds (London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute, 1954), pp. 138–63. Many of the stories are also given in J. P. Crazzolara, The Lwoo, 3 vols. (Verona: Missioni africane, 1950), vol. i, pp. 35 ff.
CHAPTER 24. THE LUO OF SUDAN AND UGANDA
The Origin of Death, retold from B. Onyango-Ogutu and A. A. Roscoe, Keep My Words (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1974), pp. 43–4. The Spear and the Bead, retold from Otok P’Bitek, R
eligion of the Central Luo (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1971), p. 20; Onyango-Ogutu and Roscoe, pp. 133–8; J. P. Crazzolara, The Lwoo, 3 vols. (Verona: Missioni africane, 1950), pp. 62–6. A Shrine of Baka and Alela, retold from P’Bitek, pp. 60–63.
The most impressive compilation of sources on Luo traditions of origin is that of Crazzolara, which provides an extensive collection of clan traditions of origin for most of the Luo sub-groups. The poet Otok P’Bitek identifies the principal traditions of origin in his Religion; B. A. Ogot provides historical background in his History of the Southern Luo (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1967). Onyango-Ogutu and Roscoe also provide a version of the ‘Bead’ story, pp. 133 ff.
CHAPTER 25. THE GIKUYU OF KENYA
The story is retold from Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya (1938; New York: Vintage Books, n.d.), pp. 5–10. See J. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People: The Akikuyu of British East Africa (London: Edward Arnold, 1910), pp. 283–4 (a slightly different version); Leonard J. Beecher, The Stories of the Kikuyu’, Africa, 11 (1938), pp. 80–87; and Louis Leakey’s 3–volume work, The Southern Kikuyu before 1903 (New York: Academic Press, 1977), vol. i, pp. 48–9, whose publication was delayed in deference to Kenyatta’s book. A modern discussion of Gikuyu oral literature is Wanjiku Mukabi Kabira and Karega wa Mutahi, Gikuyu Oral Literature (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1988), and for Gikuyu history, see Godfrey Muriuki, A History of the Kikuyu, 1500–1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974).
CHAPTER 26. THE SWAHILI OF THE COAST
Liyongo Fumo of Shaha, retold from several versions: Alice Werner, Africa: Myths and Legends, pp. 145–54; Jan Knappert, Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983), pp. 142–68; Lyndon Harries (ed.), Swahili Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), pp. 48–71. Knappert also gives a selection of the poems attributed to Liyongo, with some suggestions on historical or narrative context, in his Four Centuries of Swahili Verse (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 66–101. The Foundation of Kilwa, retold from two versions in G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville (ed. and trans.), The East African Coast: Select Documents from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), pp. 35–7 and 221–3.
A useful study on the background and history of Swahili language and culture is Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear, The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), which discusses the Shirazi legends, pp. 70–79. A more general study is John Middle-ton, The World of the Swahili (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
CHAPTER 27. THE KINGDOM OF BUNYORO
All the stories are retold from Ruth Fisher, Twilight Tales of the Black Baganda (2nd edn., London: Frank Cass, 1970), pp. 69–98.
The introductory essay by Merrick Posnansky in Fisher (pp. xi-xxxvii) is very useful; it offers a comparative synthesis of the stories and excellent background information. John Beattie’s Bunyoro: An African Kingdom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960) offers a basic ethnography. An early account of the kingdom, relevant for Bunyoro and Buganda, is John Roscoe, The Bakitara or Banyoro: The First Part of the Report of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923) and The Banyankole: The Second Part of the Report of the Mackie Ethnological Expedition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923). David William Cohen offers a historiographic analysis of the Kintu legends in The Historical Tradition of Busoga: Mukama and Kintu (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1972), while Benjamin Ray looks at the stories for the region in terms of mythology and royal rituals in Myth, Ritual and Kingship in Buganda (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
CHAPTER 28. THE KINGDOM OF BUGANDA
The most authoritative source for Buganda is the account prepared by a member of the royal house, Sir Apolo Kaggwa, The Kings of Buganda, ed. and trans. M. S. M. Kiwanuka (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1971), written around 1900. The stories are retold from pp. 1–15.
See also John Roscoe, The Baganda: An Account of their Native Customs and Beliefs (London: Macmillan, 1911), and R. R. Atkinson, ‘The Traditions of the Early Kings of Buganda: Myth, History, and Structural Analysis’, History in Africa, 2 (1975), pp. 17–57. See also the additional references given for Bunyoro in the notes to Chapter 27, and the books by Luc de Heusch given in the notes to Chapter 29.
CHAPTER 29. THE KINGDOM OF RWANDA
A Royal Version of the Origin of the Kingdom, retold from A. Coupez and Th. Kamanze, Récits historiques Rwanda (Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, 1962), pp. 61–71. A Popular Version, retold from Fr. Loupias, Tradition et légende des Batutsi sur la Création du monde et leur établissement au Ruanda’, Anthropos, 3 (1908), pp. 1–13.
The kingdom of Rwanda has been very extensively documented, although not all documents have been published. The historical narratives have a great deal of stability from one version to another. Jan Vansina offers a new history of the kingdom, Le Rwanda ancien (1980; repr. Paris: Karthala, 2001). For studies of the mythology, see the works of Luc de Heusch: The Drunken King, and its sequel, Rois nés d’un cœur de vache (Paris: Gallimard, 1982); these two volumes summarize and discuss traditions from all the major kingdoms of the central Bantu-language area (Buganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kuba, Luba, Kongo, and others), and provide valuable retellings of inaccessible versions. For an introductory ethnography of the kingdom of Rwanda, see J. J. Maquet, The Kingdom of Ruanda’, in C. Daryll Forde (ed.), African Worlds (London: Oxford University Press, for International African Institute, 1954), pp. 164–89.
CHAPTER 30. THE KINGDOM OF BURUNDI
The story is retold from different versions given in Claude Guillet and Pascal Ndayishinguje, Légendes historiques du Burundi (Paris: Karthala, and Centre de civilisation burundaise, 1987), pp. 49–103 (different stories).
CHAPTER 31. NSONG’A LIANJA, HERO OF THE MONGO
All episodes are retold from multiple versions. There are more than forty versions of the epic of Lianja available in print. The two principal collections are: E. Boelaert, Nsong’a Lianja: L’Épopée nationale des Nkundo (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1949; Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1973), which presents a lengthy composite version, and A. de Rop, Versions et fragments de l’épopée Mongo (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, Classe des Sciences Morales et Politiques, NS XLV-1, 1978). For additional textual references, see Stephen Belcher, Epic Traditions of Africa, pp. 31–8. Two versions not listed there are by Jan Knappert, Myths and Legends of the Congo (Nairobi and London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1971), pp. 75–135, and Mubima Maneniang, The Lianja Epic (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1999). Many Lianja tales are included in Mabel H. Ross and Barbara K. Walker, ‘On another day…’: Tales Told among the Nkundo (Hamden, Conn.; Archon Books, 1979); the authors apparently were unaware of the connections of their material with the Lianja tradition.
CHAPTER 32. THE KUBA KINGDOM OF THE BUSHOONG: MBOOM AND WOOT
The story is retold from multiple versions: Luc de Heusch, The Drunken King, pp. 88–139, summarizes many narratives; Jan Vansina, The Children of Woot (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), pp. 47–68; id., ‘Initiation Rituals of the Bushong’, Africa, 25 (1955), pp. 118–53; id., ‘Les Croyances religieuses des Kuba’, Zaire, 12 (1958), pp. 725–8; Emil Torday, On the Trail of the Bushongo (1925; repr. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), pp. 124–30.
Jan Vansina’s classic study, Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), is a valuable guide to the general history of this and the neighbouring kingdoms and peoples (especially Kongo, Chapter 40, below), and the same author gives us a general ethnography of the Kuba kingdom in Le Royaume Kuba (Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, 1964).
CHAPTER 33. THE FIRST KINGS OF THE LUBA
The story is retold from multiple versions. The principal source is Harold Womersley, Legends and History of the Luba
(Los Angeles: Crossroads Press, 1984). Luc de Heusch provides summaries of the variant versions collected in The Drunken King, pp. 11–29; Thomas Q. Reefe, in The Rainbow and the Kings (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 23–40, also summarizes the story and compares the contents of the different versions.
CHAPTER 34. THE KINGDOMS OF THE LUNDA
The Kingdom of Mwata Yamvu, retold from Mwata Kazembe XIV, My Ancestors and my People, Rhodes Livingstone Communication, 23: Central Bantu Historical Texts II: Historical Traditions of the Eastern Lunda, trans. Ian Cunnison (Lusaka 1961; repr. 1968), pp. 1–17, and E. Labrèque, ‘Histoire des Mwata Kazembe, chefs Lunda du Luapula’, Lovania: Tendances du temps, 16 (1949), pp. 9–23. Peoples of the Luapula River, retold from Ian Cunnison, The Luapula Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), pp. 34–40. The Kingdom of Mwata Kazembe, retold from Mwata Kazembe XIV, pp. 18–60, and E. Labrèque, ‘Histoire des Mwata Kazembe’, part 2, Lovania: Tendances du temps, 17 (1949), pp. 21–48.
CHAPTER 35. THE BEMBA OF ZAMBIA
The story is retold principally from E. Labrèque, ‘La Tribu des Babemba I: Les origines des Babemba’, Anthropos, 28 (1933), pp. 633–48. Andrew D. Roberts, A History of the Bemba (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), provides a good summary and discussion of the legends of origin of the Bemba kingdom; Luc de Heusch also summarizes and discusses the traditions in terms of comparative mythology in The Drunken King, pp. 228 ff.
CHAPTER 36. THE SHONA OF ZIMBABWE
Creation: the Cult of Mwari and Chaminuka, retold from Michael Gelfand, Shona Ritual (Capetown: Juta, 1962), pp. 31–9. How Muskwere Became Chief of the Wahungwe, retold from F. W. T. Posselt, A Survey of the Native Tribes of Southern Rhodesia (Salisbury: Govt. of Southern Rhodesia, 1927), pp. 14–15. The Source of the Sabi River, retold from Posselt, p. 19. The Power of the Mbira, retold from several versions given in Leo Frobenius, Erythräa (Berlin: Atlantis Verlag, 1931), pp. 150–52 and 358–60.
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