Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/488

 454 Tradilions of the Baganda and Bushongo.

These latter (the Bangongo and Bangendi) are often called by the Bambala Basongo Meno, though they them- selves implicitly repudiate that name, speaking of the Basongo Meno as the enemies from whose irruptions they had fled under Nyimi. It is probable, however, that there is an infusion of blood of the Basongo Meno among them. Their tradition of quarrels arising from differences of dialect may point to this. There are small differences of civiliza- tion too between the Bangongo and the Bambala ; the cicatrices, for example, with which the Bambala adorn their persons differ from the concentric circles common to the Bangongo and the Basongo Meno. Mr. Torday supposes that the Bangongo and Bangendi are descended of the mixture of the liasongo Meno with the Bushongo con- querors, who met them first on the north bank of the Sankuru and incorporated them in the empire they then founded. But this is quite contrary to the Bangongo story ; and the Bambala tradition is silent (unless Mr. Torday has omitted the statement) as to conquest of the Basongo Meno. It should, however, be added that the fact that the Bangongo are governed by a viceroy of the Bushongo king does seem to point to a conquest. The discrepancies between the Bambala and Bangongo legends he explains by suggesting that the Bambala stories have found their way to the Bangongo, and that the Bangongo cosmogony is simply a travesty of that of the Bambala.-^ Had the Bangongo then no myths of their own }

It is needless to examine the arguments to prove that the story of the origin of the Bashilele from Lele, the illegitimate son of Woto, is true. It is obviously aetiological. Such tales to account for the relationship of adjacent peoples are well known elsewhere. It is an awkward fact that there is no trace among them of the Lumbila language, as the ancient tongue of the Bushongo is alleged to have been called. Mr. Torday avers that it is not a serious objection, because ^* Torda}- and Joyce, 37-46.