If you were raised Christian like me, your head probably threatens to explode at the thought of there being more than one version of a creation myth. In the Christian worldview, the Genesis account is it. However, even the Christian biblical canon as we know it was compiled and legitimized over almost a thousand years and after a great many meetings or councils as they were known. Similarly, in just about all spiritual traditions with documented accounts of cosmological events, there are variations both legitimate and illegitimate. Some are canon. Some are relegated to the arena of folklore. Some are actively erased from the record, especially if they contradict or threaten whatever the orthodoxy of the time has decided is the truth.
In this episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we take a break from stories to put some context around variations in mythological and folkloric accounts.
References
Brown, John Tom. Among the Bantu Nomads: A record of forty years spent among the Bechuana, a numerous & famous branch of the Central South African Bantu, with the first full description of their ancient customs, manners & beliefs. Seeley, Service & Company, 1926, pp. 162-167
Boeyens, Jan CA. “A tale of two Tswana towns: in quest of Tswenyane and the twin capital of the Hurutshe in the Marico.” Southern African Humanities 28.1 (2016):13.
Ellenberger, Vivian. “History and Pre-history in Botswana.” Botswana Notes & Records 4.1 (1972): 135-136.
Finnegan, Ruth. Oral literature in Africa. Open Book Publishers, 2012.
Ouzman, Sven. “Spiritual and political uses of a rock engraving site and its imagery by San and Tswana-speakers.” The South African Archaeological Bulletin (1995):60.
Scheub, Harold. A dictionary of African mythology: the mythmaker as storyteller. Oxford University Press, 2000, p140, 151.
Van Der Ryst, Maria, et al. “Rocks of Potency: Engravings and Cupules from the Dovedale Ward, Southern Tuli Block, Botswana [with Comment].” The South African Archaeological Bulletin (2004): 1-11.
Walker, Nick. “In the footsteps of the ancestors: the Matsieng creation site in Botswana.” The South African Archaeological Bulletin (1997): 95-104.
Wilman, Maria. “The engraved rock of Kopong and Loe, Bechuanaland Protectorate.” South African Journal of Science 16.5 (1919): 443-446.
Can’t Get Enough?!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
Creation myths and foundation legends
Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
