LITERATURE OF THE AFRICAN NEGROES. 241 

 LITERATUKE OF THE AFRICAN U^EGROES.* 



By M. MURET. 



THE researclies of students of folklore in Africa have been 

 directed to all branches of popular literature, and a rich col- 

 lection has already been accumulated of proverbs, enigmas, songs, 

 national legends, religious traditions, stories, animal fables, and 

 other works. The literary merit of all this production is not very 

 great, but it is. interesting in that it exhibits certain peculiarities in 

 character. Proverbs are especially noteworthy in this respect. 

 They express general and simple ideas in concise form, under famil- 

 iar figures, and truly represent the first instinctive effort of man in 

 search of a literary language. The thoughts revealed in these 

 proverbs indicate a state of mind in the blacks quite similar to ours, 

 while the greater part of them find their counterparts in the proverbs 

 of other races. For example, there is a saying of a tribe of the 

 Bantu, " He who goes into a strange country will not sing a solo but 

 a chorus," which corresponds with the European, " He who goes 

 with the wolf will learn to howl," or, " When you are in Rome, do 

 as the Romans do," and nearly with the Mussulman Arabian, "If you 

 find yourself in a country where they worship a calf, pull grass and 

 feed it." The English and French say, " God tempers the wind to 

 the shorn lamb"; and the people of ISTupe, where the ox has no 

 tail, " God keeps the flies away from it." We say, " Don't sell the 

 skin of the bear before you have killed it " ; the Suaheli, " Don't 

 cut the gown before the child is born." While speaking of the 

 Suaheli we may mention one of their adages that is full of sadness 

 and resignation : " The poor man's hen lays no eggs ; if she lays 

 them, she does not sit on them; if she sits on them, they do not 

 hatch; and if chickens are hatched, the hawk catches them." 



It is sometimes said that slavery, polygamy, and the custom of 

 purchasing the wife have destroyed the family feeling among the 

 negroes. The following proverbs of the Suaheli prove that this 

 affirmation is too absolute: " Thy mother is thy second God "; "A 

 son, even if he be deformed, is the joy of his parents"; "Who is 

 not willing to hear his son cry will cry himself." The enigmas or 

 riddles of the negroes are simple, like these, among many, which 

 have been collected by the German missionaries at Hohenfriedberg, 

 in Usambara: " There! there it is! catch it! What is it? " (answer, 

 " The shadow ") ; " What house has no door? " (answer, " An egg "). 

 Sometimes, however, riddles are presented in such an allegorical form 

 as to become fables, like the following, which an English writer 



* From an article in the Bibliothfeque Universelle et Revue Suisse. 

 VOL. LIU. — 18 



