Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/476

 442 Traditions of the Baganda and Bitsliongo.

realms were shaped, and how much of them can be said to have any foundation in fact. At present we shall do well to be cautious.

In the realm of the Bushongo between the Kasai river and its tributary the Sankuru, special measures are, as we have seen, taken to preserve the remembrance of the past. Large claims have been made by Mr. Torday, who headed the scientific expedition that visited it, on behalf of the historical character of the traditions related by the Moaridi and his coadjutors. We will put some of them to the test.

More liberal than the Baganda, the Bushongo admit a list of no fewer than 12 1 monarchs, beginning with Loko Yima, who was appointed chief of all men and God on Earth by the Creator himself on the completion of the work of making the world. The earlier reigns are un- questionably mythical : the only problem is to ascertain when the myths end and history in any sense commences. Mr. Torday works backwards. He found an old woman, the daughter of Mikope Mbula, the one hundred and ninth king, or the one hundred and tenth if we include (as he does, presumably following the native practice) the Creator. Starting from a calculation of her age, he obtains a pre- liminary estimate of the average length of a reign, which he fixes at nine years, remarking, however, that this includes seven kings who only reigned a few months each, all dying in an epidemic. The next step is to identify a noonday eclipse of the sun, stated to have occurred in the reign of the ninety-eighth king. On the calculation just mentioned, this should have occurred at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In fact, astronomical investigation shows that a total eclipse answering the requirements occurred on the 30th March, 1680. The only alternative would be an eclipse in 1701 ; but then the line of totality did not extend north of the tenth parallel of south latitude, whereas the Bushongo country is on the fourth and fifth. He accord- ingly places the accession of the ninety-eighth monarch at