Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/504

 440 The Banttc Element in Swahili Folklore.

them being children, separated from their relatives, who, unless, as sometimes happens, they come in contact with a group of their own tribesmen, would speedily forget or confuse what they knew of their own traditions. This confusion would be increased in the island of Zanzibar, not only by Indian and other immigration, but by the settle- ment of contingents of freed slaves, mostly young, whom it was found impossible to return to their homes.) It would take us too long to discuss these stories in detail, but I have no doubt of the rain-making one being genuine Chewa, though I have not hitherto come across it ; it is not altogether clear as it stands, which points to its being imperfectly remembered. About the other, I am not so sure. It sounds like a reminiscence of the Ephesian Widow with the cynicism left out, and there are other stories which resemble it, without the highly satisfactory conclusion. Biittner has one of these, which is clearly of Mohammedan origin.

We will now briefly glance at the Hare stories in these four collections. It is well known what a prominent part the Hare plays in the folk-tales of Bantu Africa, which are so largely made up of animal stories. Bleek thought that the animal fables of the Hottentots and the mdrcJien of the Zulus indicated a distinct and unalterable difference of culture and capacity ; but the advance of research has placed this matter in a very different light. Not only are the stories whence " Brer Rabbit" is derived current amiong the undoubted Bantu tribes of the interior, but they exhibit a tendency to shade off imperceptibly into mdrchen with human actors. Hlakanyana is human, though abnormally human, yet it seems to me that the following sentences point to a transition stage, in which it was not quite clear whether he was looked on as an animal or a man : —

" Ucaijana (another name for Hlakanyana) is like the weasel ; it is as though he was really of that genus ; for, since he is called by the name of the weasel, it is as though he was of the same