Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/503

 The Bantu Element in Swahili Folklore. 439

Father V. d. Mohl,^ where the Hare, left in charge of the Lion's cubs, wrestles with one after another, making the condition that whoever falls shall be eaten. In "The Hare and the Lion " the first part of the story is not very close to its analogies elsewhere, but the Hare's request to be swung round by the tail, and the Tortoise's to be thrown into the mud, are recognisable in Uncle Remus ; so is the Hare's stratagem for ascertaining whether any one is in his house, which is very like the trick by which Brer Rabbit tests the reality of Brer Fox's death.'^

Since the publication of Swahili Tales, four other col- lections of Swahili stories have appeared, — Kibaraka (U.M.C.A., Zanzibar, 1885, 1896); Buttner's Anthologie der Suaheli Litteratiir (Berlin, 1894), a German translation bound up with it being also issued separately as Lieder uiid Geschichten der Suaheli); Velten's Suahali Mdrchen (&er\\x\, 1898); and Prosa und Poesie der Suaheli (1907). A German edition of the Mdrchen was issued simultaneously; but of the Prosa und Poesie, so far as I know, no translation exists, though it is annotated in German. Some of the stories in Kibaraka have been issued separately, with an English translation as SivaJiili Stories from Arab Sources, which need not detain us. The rest of the stories badly need annotating, there being no indication whence, or from whom, they are derived, with the exception of two, pub- lished long ago in the South African Folk-Lore fournat, which are stated to have been told by a girl belonging to the Chipeta tribe, the A-Chipeta being identical with the Achewa, S.W. of Lake Nyasa, who are a branch of the Anyanja. (This points to another fact which must be borne in mind in considering Swahili folklore, viz. the number of slaves from different tribes who have been brought down to the coast in past generations, many of

^ Transactions of the Berlin Oriental Seminary, 1902, Part ii., Afrikanische Studien. ''See also P. C. Smith, Annancy Stories, " Annancy and Chim-Chim," p. 9.