Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/496

 THE BANTU ELEMENT IN SWAHILI FOLKLORE.

BY MISS A. WERNER.

{Read at Meeting, May i^ih, 1909.)

" It must be remembered," says the late Bishop Steere, in the Preface to his Swahili Tales (p. vi.), "that as a Swahili is by definition a man of mixed Negro and Arab descent, he has an equal right to tell tales of Arab and Negro origin."

The Arab element is so predominant in the collection just mentioned, and also in some others to which I shall have occasion to refer, that it would seem as if they would yield few items of interest bearing on genuine African culture.

The same impression is produced at first sight by the valuable compilation published in Germany under the title of Desturi sa VVaswahili (Customs of the Swahili). The constant intervention of the mwallimu, — with his chapter of the Koran to be read for every conceivable occurrence in life, — the formulas for charms and amulets, the marriage and funeral ceremonies, the rules of etiquette, and the chapters on education and law, are apt to suggest, on a casual survey, that the student of genuine Bantu custom will find little, if anything, to reward his study. However, on closer examination, we find the two elements persisting side by side, and, in many cases, — as has happened, mutatis mutandis, in other