The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore

Hello Friends!

This week’s episode is a bit experimental. We tell a story. Not a folktale, legend or myth. Just a story about a Malinke boy who has a very interesting dream. Then, we talk about the dream and tease out some archetypal images, patterns and symbols which, in the context of West Africa’s Mande-speaking people, might allude to the rulership archetype.

I hope you like it!

Bamako Boy (Image Credit: "Ngolonina Portrait" by Mark Fischer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)

References

• Jung on Dreams: Part I - Definitions, Components, Functions and Features

• Sundiata : an epic of old Mali by Djibril Tamsir Niane

• The Epic of Son Jara by John W. Johnson

• The Collected Works of Carl Jung

• Dreams as Portals to the Soul: Dreamwork and Analysis Across Freudian, Jungian, Indigenous, and African Perspectives

• McCall, Daniel F. “The Prevalence of Lions: Kings, Deities and Feline Symbolism in Africa and Elsewhere.” Paideuma, vol. 19/20, 1973, pp. 130–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40341534. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.

• Manzon, Agnes Kedzierska. "Humans and Things: Mande" Fetishes" as Subjects." Anthropological Quarterly 86.4 (2013): 1119-1151.

• Chidester, David. “Dreaming in the Contact Zone: Zulu Dreams, Visions, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century South Africa.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 76, no. 1, 2008, pp. 27–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40006024. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.

• Four Characteristics of Archetypes: Autonomy, Affect, Activation, Agency

• Jung and the Individuation Process

• The Persona

• The Shadow

• The Anima and Animus

• Our Inner Partner: The Anima and Animus

• 12 Jungian Archetypes: The Foundation of Personality

Need a book of African Mythology and Folklore?

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 (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)

• 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!