SOME CENTRAL AFRICAN FOLKLORE TALES. 



By Rev. John Robert Lewis Kingon, M.A., F.R.S.E., F.L.S. 



There are so many languages and dialects in the Bantu group 

 that no one man can expect to be master of them all. Some strange 

 chance, or opportunity, may put material into the hands of a 

 collector who is himself unable to make full use of it, and con- 

 sequently there may be danger of losing that material for ail time. 

 On the other hand, the mere fact of publication may be the means 

 of placing that material before someone who is qualified to complete 

 the work. It was with this thought uppermost in my mind that I 

 have been induced to place on record a number of Central African 

 Folklore Tales which recently came into my possession. As any 

 experience and opportunities which I have had hitherto have been 

 confined to the southern parts of the African Continent, and re- 

 membering that the Bantu group (as the Rev. W. A. Norton told 

 us at the Maritzburg meeting in 1916) comprises 182 languages and 

 119 dialects, no one will be surprised if I disclaim knowledge of 

 the Central African language in which the following tales are 

 written. This, then, will account for possible errors of grammar, 

 spelling, and punctuation, which may be detected by the expert 

 eye. The main thought in thus recording the tales was to save 

 them from being forever lost, so that, however imperfect they may 

 be in grammatical details, some later worker may be enabled to 

 correct them and translate them. 



The tremendous upheaval caused by the campaign in German 

 East Africa, with all that it has meant of disturbance to the native 

 tribes in those regions, the dispersal of tribes, the mixing up of 

 tribes, the change of locality, the flood of new ideas concerning the 

 white man and his ways as exemplified by the British, South 

 African, Belgian, Portuguese, and German troops, with their vary- 

 ing standards of morality and everything else; not to mention the 

 strange men from India, the motor cars, and big guns, and maxims, 

 and aeroplanes, and all the paraphernalia of war — all these things 

 are calculated to create the profoundest disturbance to the native 

 mind, and so lend cogency to the argument in favour of recording 

 these tales ere they are lost, or hopelessly corrupted with the impact 

 of more modern events. 



I am indebted to Mr. A. C. Scott, of Port Elizabeth, from whom 

 I have received these stories. It appears that so long ago as 1896 

 he was a missionary of the Scottish Church, and being stationed at 

 Bandawe, or thereabouts, was able to secure them. They are 

 therefore quite uncorrupted by the recent events connected with the 

 German East Campaign, and may be relied upon. I have already 

 made several efforts to get the tales translated, but thus far without 

 success. However, I am hoping tliat when once they are in printed 

 form it will be more possible to induce some friend who has the 

 knowledge to complete the work. In the meanwhile they are at 

 least recorded in a safe place. 



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