African Myths of Origin (Penguin Classics)

by Stephen Belcher

  The men then waited for six or seven months, to see the results of their first efforts, and they were not disappointed: most of the women were pregnant, immobilized by the advanced stage of their condition. And so the men revolted, and the women could not resist. The men became the heads of families, and polyandry gave way to the new system of polygamy in which one husband had several wives.

  The men also tried to change the names: they renamed the Mbari ya Mumbi and called themselves the Mbari ya Gikuyu. But when they wished also to change the names of the descent groups taken from the nine daughters of Mumbi, the women refused. The women told the men that if the names of the first mothers were removed, they would refuse to bear any more children. Cowed by the protest, the men agreed. So the nine clan names perpetuate the memory of the daughters of Mumbi.

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  THE SWAHILI OF THE COAST

  Some fifteen hundred years ago the Swahili were a small group of agriculturalists and fishermen living on the northern end of Kenya’s coast, at the mouth of the Tana river and on islands not too far from the shore. They proceeded to become the dominant group of traders along the coast, settling islands and coastal towns as far south as Mozambique: Mombasa, Kilwa, Pemba, Zanzibar, Malindi, Sofala. They began converting to Islam six or seven hundred years ago, and are now wholly Muslim. Little remains of their pre-Islamic traditions or beliefs. The name ‘Swahili’ is itself Arabic, meaning ‘people of the shore’ (sahel, in Arabic), but is rarely used by the people themselves, who instead refer to their place of origin. In the last two centuries their language, Ki-Swahili, has become the principal lingua franca of eastern Africa. They began using Arabic script to record documents in Swahili as they converted, and there is now a sizeable corpus of Swahili literature, some of it translated from Arabic and other languages and some of it of local composition. The two stories given here mark their double heritage: the story of the poet-prince Liyongo is the principal surviving example of the pre-Islamic culture of the Swahili, while the story of the foundation of the town (and kingdom) of Kilwa shows how they incorporated Islamic elements into their traditions.

  LIYONGO FUMO OF SHAHA

  Liyongo was the son of a king, and extraordinarily talented. His strength was legendary, his skill with the bow was great, and he was a gifted poet. But he did not become king. His mother was a secondary wife, and so his brother Mringwari, born of the principal wife, became the ruler of Shaha instead. The two brothers eventually quarrelled, and Liyongo went into exile.

  It was most probably before this period of exile that emissaries from the Oromo peoples along the Somali coast came to visit the Sultan of Pate. While they were waiting for their audience they heard people speak of the prowess of Liyongo. They asked the Sultan about Liyongo, and the Sultan sent for him. Liyongo said he would come immediately, and he packed a bag with those items he considered necessary. He also hung three great horns about him. Then he set off. The trip that had taken the messengers two days he made in half a day, and he arrived at the edge of the town in mid-afternoon. He took one of his three horns and blew such a mighty blast that the horn split in half. In the Sultan’s court, the Oromo visitors were startled and asked what the sound had been. The Sultan told them that no doubt Liyongo was on the outskirts of the town. Soon, a second blast from a horn (and again, the horn broke in two) told them that Liyongo had come to the city gates, and a third announced that he had arrived at the Sultan’s palace.

  He was quickly admitted and brought before the Sultan and his guests. There, he emptied the bag he had brought from his home: a mortar, a pestle, a large sack of grain to pound, a large iron pot, the three stones upon which to rest the pot, and for good measure a small millstone. The Oromo visitors were amazed at the proof of his strength, and said to themselves that they must form an alliance with such a man, for his strength and his appearance convinced them that he was also a great warrior. So they asked the Sultan to serve as their intermediary, and he negotiated a marriage settlement. When the Oromo returned to their home, Liyongo accompanied them, and there he married the woman they had chosen for him. She quickly became pregnant, and in due time she gave birth to a son. As the boy grew, everyone agreed that he resembled his father in appearance and in strength.

  But Liyongo returned to his home before the boy was grown, and his return caused trouble. His brother Mringwari was very popular as a ruler – people admired Liyongo for his skills, but did not trust his judgement – but he found so extraordinary a brother a challenge. Liyongo also may have shown signs of ambition, since he counted the Sultan of Pate and the clans of the Oromo as his allies. At any rate, Liyongo left his home. But he could not go to Pate – he had managed to make an enemy of the Sultan as well, somehow. So he took refuge on the mainland, living with groups of hunters in the bush. Word came to the hunters that there was a price on Liyongo’s head, and they were tempted by the thought of wealth. But they did not dare to attack Liyongo openly, because they knew that he would kill them all without a second thought. So they devised a trick. On the pretext of a meal during which each guest took it in turn to climb a palm tree that had an edible nut, they planned to have him climb the tree and to kill him while he was unarmed and relatively helpless at the top of the trunk. But Liyongo avoided the trap. When it was his turn to bring down the nuts for the meal, he took his bow and arrows and simply shot the nuts down from the tree.

  He understood that he was not safe with the hunters any more, and so he returned in hiding to live with his mother on the island of Pate. There the Sultan’s men caught him and put him in prison. He was held for a time, and his mother learned where he was jailed. She prepared food and sent it to him with her slave-girl. Little of the food reached him – the guards would take the choice portions and leave him the coarse bread and perhaps some gruel.

  The Sultan then announced that Liyongo was to be killed, and asked him if he had a last request. Liyongo asked that they provide the music for a marriage ceremony at the time of his execution, for he had composed several well-known marriage songs. Then Liyongo taught his mother’s slave-girl a new song: the song told his mother to prepare food for him, and to place a metal file into the loaf of coarse bread. The message reached his mother, and the file reached Liyongo. The night before his execution, the town began the wedding celebration he had requested, with lots of drumming and loud singing. The noise masked the sounds that Liyongo made as he cut through the iron bars of the window with the file. In this way, he escaped.

  Other attempts to kill him failed, and the Sultan became convinced that Liyongo had magical protection. He remembered the son Liyongo had fathered among the Oromo, and had the lad brought to Pate. There the Sultan won the boy over with the promise of wealth and a good marriage, if only the boy could help him get rid of his father, who had become an outlaw troubling the kingdom. The boy was convinced.

  The youth left Pate and went to the town on the mainland where his father was living in exile. He explained who he was, and Liyongo was delighted that his son had come to join him. Over time, the youth won his father’s confidence, and discovered that the Sultan had indeed been correct: Liyongo was protected by magic, and ordinary weapons would not harm him. But he was vulnerable. Eventually, Liyongo revealed that a copper spike could pierce his navel and kill him. Even as he revealed this information to his son, Liyongo showed his suspicion: he told the boy that the information would not do him any good, and that if he attempted to betray his father he would have a bitter reward.

  The son acquired a copper spike, and one day, summoning all his resolution, approached his father, who was sleeping soundly after the noonday meal. He drove the spike into Liyongo’s belly and then fled. Liyongo felt the wound, and rose to his feet. He took his weapons and strode towards the town nearby. When he reached the well at the edge of town, where the women used to come and fetch the drinking and cooking water, he knelt down on one knee and drew his bow until the arrow’s head touched the bow. There he remained, ready to shoot but motionless, for he ha
d died.

  Later in the afternoon, the women came from the town to get their water for evening use. They saw Liyongo, his bow drawn, an arrow ready to shoot, and they quickly turned back. They told the townspeople that Liyongo had set himself up by the well, and that he was ready to kill the first person to approach it. For two days no one dared go near the well, and the entire town began to suffer from thirst. Finally, Liyongo’s mother determined to approach her son and to learn the reason why he was keeping the people of the town from their water. When she got close to him, she realized he was dead. He is buried in Kipini.

  As Liyongo had foretold, his son did not profit from the treason. The Sultan of Pate turned him out, since he had betrayed his father. He returned to his mother’s people, but they were disgusted by his deed and refused to welcome him back. He died in misery.

  THE FOUNDATION OF KILWA

  Kilwa lies to the south of the Swahili coast, in modern Tanzania. This retelling combines two accounts of the town’s history. Both are nineteenth-century manuscripts, but their editor believes that one text may have been composed around 1520; the second is late nineteenth century, collected when the region had just come under German control. The stories given are very similar; the earlier text includes details on the motive for the departure from Shiraz which are absent from the later text (and which closely resemble the Islamic tradition of the fall of the city of Saba in southern Arabia). Historians do not entirely credit the claim to a Shirazi (Persian) origin, but note that the claim marks the eldest and best-established Swahili families along the coast.

  The first ruler of Kilwa Kisiwani, the island, was Mrimba. He was a hunter, and he discovered that at low tide it was possible to walk from the mainland to the island. He led his people there and they settled on the island, leaving it to hunt on the mainland as the tides allowed.

  Husain ibn Ali, the ruler of Shiraz, dreamed that destruction was coming to his city: he dreamed of a rat with an iron snout digging holes in the city walls and weakening them so much that they collapsed. He determined to leave Shiraz, but did not want to reveal his premonitions. So he staged a confrontation with his oldest son: at a public banquet the two of them began to argue more and more heatedly. Eventually the son began to revile his father in the foulest terms, and then stormed out of the hall. The ruler turned away from his people and withdrew into his apartments. Later, he announced that his shame was so great that he would leave the country. The people offered to bring him the head of the son who had insulted him, but he refused: such was his bitterness that the sight of the land made him ill. So he equipped ships and sailed down the coast of Africa. It is said there were seven ships, and each ship founded a town along the coast.

  The ruler came to Kilwa Kisiwani, and reached an agreement with Mrimba that allowed him to settle there with his people. He gave Mrimba rich gifts of beads and other trade-goods, and Mrimba gave him his daughter as a wife. The settlement prospered, but Husain was uneasy at the coexistence of the two peoples, each under a different ruler. So through his wife he suggested that his father-in-law should withdraw to the mainland, because it was not good for him to meet daily with the father of his wife. Mrimba agreed, but asked for compensation. One account says he wanted enough cloth to circle the island, the other that the cloth stretched from the island to his new habitation. Husain provided the cloth, and Mrimba led his people to the mainland.

  But Mrimba planned to come back. Husain and his people suspected this, and so at low tide they dug at the coral and the sands that formed the bridge to the island, until there was a channel deep enough to stop an army. When Mrimba did decide to attack the newcomers, his force was stopped by the waters. Later, Muhammad, the son of Husain and Mrimba’s daughter, became ruler of both communities.

  KINGDOMS OF THE GREAT LAKES

  The region lying west of Lake Victoria is a fertile and densely populated highland running between the lake and the mountains. It is also the crossroads of a number of cultural strains: hunters and gatherers (including the fishermen of the lake), pastoralists, and agriculturalists who benefited from early advances in iron technology. Archaeology has revealed peoples with advanced knowledge of iron-working some 2,000 years ago in this region. Speakers of Bantu-family languages entered the region some 1,500 years ago from the west. Bananas were introduced from the Indies in the eighth or ninth century, and now form a staple crop. There have been many kingdoms in the area, founded through conquest, migration and fission. Many of the smaller kingdoms seem to have been formed by princes from the royal houses of the larger kingdoms, although it is also possible that ruling dynasties claim such a family tie as a form of legitimation. In many cases, the ruling dynasty represents a foreign clan, usually associated with cattle-herding, and cattle remain the symbol of wealth and prestige. In the early twentieth century, outsiders interpreted this pattern as evidence for invasion and conquest by ‘Hamitic’ peoples from the north and also as evidence for the superiority of lighter-over darker-skinned peoples; this biblically inspired theory of racial identity has been abandoned.

  The kingdoms of the great lakes area were prosperous and complex; their oral traditions were rich and well preserved, and were also written down in many cases soon after contact with missionaries and colonizers (although the missionaries brought their own bias to the material). Bunyoro, Buganda, Busoga, Ankole, Kitara, the BaHaya kingdoms of Kiziba and Kyamitwara, Rwanda, Burundi – the list could be extended. The traditions of these kingdoms overlap in numerous ways; the kingdoms of Uganda share a recognition of different eras of rulers: the Tembuzi, the Ba-Cwezi and later dynasties. The Ba-Cwezi in particular appear as demi-gods, responsible for the establishment of human culture and institutions, whose influence is perpetuated through spirit-mediumship, and certain figures of the Ba-Cwezi such as Kintu and Wamara recur from one area to another. The following narratives are only a sampling of the wonderful material available.

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  THE KINGDOM OF BUNYORO

  The kingdom of Bunyoro is a Buganda kingdom, founded relatively early (fourteenth to fifteenth century) on the highlands lying north-west of Lake Victoria. Following the rule of the Ba-Cwezi, of which part of the story is narrated below, the Ba-Bito dynasty, recognized to be of Luo origin (see Chapter 24), established itself, and through them royalty became associated with cattle-ownership. In the eighteenth century Bunyoro declined as the kingdom of Buganda, lying closer to the lake, expanded. The following episodes are retold from an account made by a missionary at the start of the twentieth century.

  RUHANGA

  At the beginning, there were Ruhanga the creator and his brother Nkya. Nkya complained that it was dull, and Ruhanga had done nothing of what he promised. So Ruhanga separated heaven and earth. Then he made the sun from a stone. When Nkya was frightened by the sun’s brightness and feared burning, Ruhanga made the clouds to cover the sun. Then he made the moon to lighten the darkness. And the two of them lived on the earth. Earth and heaven were close in those days; heaven was held up by a tree, a pole and an iron bar.

  Nkya complained to his brother that the sun was too hot, and so Ruhanga made plants and trees for shade. Then Ruhanga went up to heaven to see how things were; when he washed himself and threw out the water, it fell on the earth and caused rain. Nkya complained that the rain made him cold, and so Ruhanga devised a shelter for him, and then made him tools with which to cut branches and do the other work for building homes. Ruhanga then filled the world with animals and other living things, and he gave his brother Nkya domestic animals to live with him. Later he gave Nkya cattle to provide milk, and when Nkya asked for more solid food Ruhanga supplied gourds and other fruits and showed him how to cook them. But Ruhanga warned his brother that the stomach would rule humans.

  Nkya had four sons, of whom the first was Kantu (little thing) but the others had no names. Ruhanga said he should send the three nameless sons across the valley to visit him, and he would give them names. They came to his house and he let them sit while he prepared c
ertain items which he took to a crossroads that they would pass on the return journey. Then he gave each of the boys a pot of milk and told them to take it home. They left, and at the crossroads found baskets containing cooked food, tools, strips of oxhide and the ox’s head. The eldest immediately began to eat, but the two brothers rebuked him, and so he took the tools that were farming implements. The second brother took the strips of oxhide, and the third took the ox head.

  They came home and told their father what they had done, and he, too, rebuked the eldest for eating other people’s food. Ruhanga then appeared, and told the boys to guard their milk pots during the night, and not to drink it as they had eaten his food. So they settled down with their pots. In the middle of the night the youngest jostled his pot slightly and some spilled out; he begged his brothers and they replaced most of it. Before dawn the eldest turned in his sleep and spilled his pot and all the milk ran out. Although he entreated his brothers, they refused to help him, because he would need much too much milk.

  At daybreak Ruhanga came to the three sons and examined their pots. He asked what had happened to the milk, and they explained why the first was empty, why there was some milk missing from the second pot, and why the third was almost full. And then Ruhanga told Nkya that he had found names for the three boys. The first he named ‘Servant’, because he had taken food and eaten it on the open road, and because he could not keep the milk he had been given. So he should have a master to watch him. The second he named ‘Herdsman’, because he had taken the tools of the cattle-herder and had spilled no milk. The third he named ‘King’, because he had taken the ox head and he had the most milk.