Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/483

 Traditions of the Bagauda and Busliongo. 449

submitted; they became, and still remain, faithful subjects to the N\-imi.-^ If the hero's sole weapon was the knife to which Shamba had restricted his warriors, he could not have wielded it to more effect had it been the jawbone of an ass.

Hitherto we have followed the tradition of the Bambala, the dominant tribe of the nation. Let us turn to the legends of the Bangongo, one of the other divisions in the great migration under Alinga Bengela. As in the case of the Bambala, the earlier part of the narrative is admitted to be mythical. It is kept very secret, and was only con- fided to the members of the expedition under the greatest precautions, and in return for a "considerable indemnity." The scene is first of all laid somewhere in the north, at a distance of several months' march, beyond a river much greater than the Sankuru. There an aged but childless couple dwelt all alone. To them one day an albino appeared from heaven, announcing himself as Jambi (Nzambi, a common appellation in the Congo basin, usually rendered by God), and foretold the birth of a child. Like Sarah, they laughed incredulously ; they were both so old and grey. But the prophecy came true. A daughter was born, whom Jambi made his wife, and had by her five sons, the two eldest, Moelo and Woto, being twins. Each of the sons became the chief of a people. They married, of course ; though whence they got their wives we are not told, any more than whence the sons of Adam were provided. The scattering of the human race through the world was caused by incest; but the Bangongo tell it in a manner widely divergent from the Bambala. Here Woto was not the sinner, but the aggrieved husband. He had three wives, with each of whom successively he found his nephew the son of Moelo. In consequence of these repeated offences he disappeared in the forest and never returned. He went away alone ; but as he was an able magician, he,

"^Ibid., 30.