Often called ‘The Cradle of Mankind’, many believe that
Africa, my home continent, is the birthplace of mankind. Whether or not this is
true, Africa is the source of myriad legends, folklore tales and unbelievable –
to most Western minds – beliefs. African folklore includes everything from the origins
of the universe and life after death to ancestral spirits, magic and celestial
and other beings.
In some African cultures, the Earth is believed
to be a goddess who created all living creatures, while other African tribes
believe their ancestors live inside the Earth, in homes similar to the ones
they lived in before their deaths.
Elephants appear in many African folktales and
fables, the latter usually portraying them as wise chiefs who settle disagreements
between forest creatures. Elephants are usually depicted as noble, kind and
wise. Ghana’s Ashanti people believe that elephants are the spirits of their
ancestral chiefs and give dead elephants chiefs’ burials, and Tanzania’s
Wachaga folklore says that the first elephant was once a human who was deceived
into losing all his limbs other than his right arm, which is now his trunk.
A Southern African tale tells of a girl who
became so fat that no man would marry her. Accused of witchcraft, she was
exiled. While wandering in the wilderness, she came across an elephant that
spoke to her in Zulu. She agreed to stay with him, and he helped her to find
food. The girl birthed four human sons, who were the Indhlovu clan’s ancestors.
The Kamba people of Kenya have a tale about how
elephants originated. A poor man heard about Ivonya-Ngia, who reportedly fed
the poor, and made the long journey to find his mansion. Ivonya-Ngia told his
men to give the poor man a hundred cows and a hundred sheep, but the poor man
replied that he did not want charity. Instead, he said, he wanted to know the
secret to being rich. Ivonya-Ngia gave the poor man a flask of ointment and
told him to rub it on his wife’s canine teeth in her upper jaw, wait for them
to grow and then sell them. After a few weeks, the teeth started to grow,
eventually becoming arm-length tusks. The poor man pulled out his wife’s huge
teeth – after some persuasion – and sold them at the market. A few weeks later,
his wife’s canine teeth were even bigger than before, but she refused to let
her husband pull them out. Her entire body began to grow bigger, and her skin
grew thicker and turned grey. Eventually, she went to live in the forest, where
she gave birth to a son, who was born an elephant. She went on to have more
children, all healthy – and all elephants. According to the story, this is why
elephants possess almost human intelligence.
An interesting Yoruba
belief that sounds quite New Age to me is that a person’s success depends on what
choices he or she made in Heaven before his/her human birth. According to this
belief, poor people should be patient, because, if they chose the right life
when in Heaven, it will still manifest as earthly wealth.
Many Africans believe
that every large tree has at least one spirit, whose voice one can hear if one
listens carefully with a knowledge of the spirits’ language. Hence, trees are
often revered. When cutting down trees to make boats or drums, for example, drum-
and boat-makers try to preserve the tree spirit so that it can protect or bless
the object/s made from its wood. A tree in Namibia is reported to eat people,
and it’s believed that only a woodpecker can rescue them.
In Central Zaire, dwarf-like
beings called Biloko are believed to reside in rainforests, protecting the
forest and its inhabitants. Biloko are restless ancestral spirits who have
grudges against the living, and are known to bewitch and eat humans.
Then there’s the West African
trickster god, Anansi, who is usually depicted as a spider, human or
spider-human who tricks humans into performing immoral acts that he gains
something from. These tricks usually fail, thus teaching valuable life lessons.
For example, one story says that Anansi wanted all the knowledge in the world
for himself. He eventually got the knowledge in a pot, which he tried to hide
in a tree. When he tried to climb the tree, he kept slipping, so his son
eventually asked him why he didn’t tie the pot to his back rather than his
front, as that would make climbing easier. Just then, the pot became untied and
fell, causing the world’s wisdom to fall out. A flash rainstorm washed the
wisdom into a river that fed into the ocean; hence, everyone in the world now
has some knowledge. Some stories also depict Anansi as the messenger between the
‘supreme god’, the sky god Nyame, and this world.
Perhaps the East
African good spirit called the Malaika is where the ‘devil and angel on your
shoulder’ originated – at least, in Africa. Folklore says the Malaika were sent
from Heaven to help humans, and they sit on a human’s right shoulder and
whisper to them what they should or shouldn’t do.
According to the Akan people of Ghana and Ivory Coast, humans once lived
deep inside the Earth. One day, five women, seven men, a dog and a leopard
crawled out of a massive hole made by a large worm. They became frantic with
terror, but the first man to set foot on the surface, Adu Ogyinae, calmed them
and took charge of co-ordination the construction of their first shelters.
I hope you enjoyed this post. I’d love to hear about
myths in your home country!
