Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/501

 So?)ie Notes on Bast African Folklore. 467

marriage to a man without property. He wantonly dis- regarded all three : he sought for an illegitimate child and brought him up as his own, married the daughter of a " nobody," and gave his sister to a poor man. His wife proved unable to keep a secret, his adopted son betrayed him for a reward and his brother-in-law could not help him in time of need.

My cook, Idi bin Selemani, of Malindi, and his wife Zuhura, told me the following story, which I do not remember having come across elsewhere.

A childless couple made a vow that, if a child was born to them, they would give four dollars to a spirit {shetani or inzuka — both words were used indifferently). Some time passed, and the woman had a child, whereupon she reminded her husband of the vow, saying, " Go and look for the spirit, and give him his money." He went, but could not find him, so consulted a " learned man," who advised him to go out after midnight. He did so, and soon saw a gigantic being, to whom he explained matters. The spirit said, " You must not give me the money — give it to my son." " Who is your son 1 " " When you are sitting in the verandah, if you see a man pass by in silence, without saluting you, that is he." The point of the story seems to be that everyone to whom the man offered the money refused it, declining to be considered the son of a s/ieiani, till at last a woman of proved bad character, by accepting it, certified her parentage.

Local Legends. — At Mambrui there is a pillar some 40 feet high, made up of lumps of the local coral-rock, embedded in some hard cement, roughly dodecagonal and having twelve bowls or saucers of blue china cemented in round the top. Probably it is of no great antiquity, though older than one at least of the graves near it, that of a Sherif, Seyyid Bakari, whose son is still living. There was formerly, it is said, a white bowl or vase (bakuli) on the top of this pillar; it glittered in the sun and was visible at