Around 9:30 pm on the night of Thursday August 21st 1986, a roaring sound, muted like an approaching storm, arose near the area surrounding Lake Nyos in Cameroon’s North West region. In its aftermath there was a strange eerie silence.
When dawn came, no cocks crowed to welcome the rising sun.
No birds sang their pleasure at the steadily brightening day.
No goats bleated their impatience to leave their pens.
No cows lowed their anticipation for wide open fields.
No dogs barked their excitement to greet their human companions.
Roads, normally filled with people headed to farms, to the market, to check traps for game or raffia stands for palm wine, were empty.
No motor bikes roared across the hills, carrying people from one village to another.
The few people who could be seen walked slowly, eyes glazed, mouths hanging open in breathless agony at the horror of the scene around them.
And what a scene it was. Almost every living creature in the area lay on the ground.
Dead.
What happened? In this episode of the Mythological Africans, we’ll discover how a tragic myth from the Kom people of Cameroon’s Northwestern region might have recorded an earlier occurrence of such an incident.
References
Shanklin, Eugenia. "Exploding lakes and maleficent water in Grassfields legends and myth." Journal of volcanology and geothermal research 39.2-3 (1989): 233-246.
Freeth, Samuel J., Charles O. Ofoegbu, and K. Mosto Onuoha, eds. Natural Hazards in West and Central Africa. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013. p 59 - 64
Natural Disasters, Sustainability and the Legacy of the African Geomyth by Aramide Moronfoye
Can’t Get Enough?
Meanwhile…
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!
Share this post