Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/257

Rh who hears their music for the first time is annoyed, but as he becomes accustomed to it he enjoys it. Bishop Steere says that the music of a very popular song among the Suahelis resembles that of the Gregorian chants.

While the proverbs and the riddles are generally too truthful in expression to let the personality of the authors be seen in them, in the songs, on the other hand, the man appears behind his work; he relates by preference adventures in which he has been the hero—victories over his enemies or great successes in hunting.

Sometimes the author gives a pompous eulogy of himself; and even when he sings the praises of the lady of his heart he begins with proclaiming that he is no less a brave champion than an excellent poet, and declares himself ready to defend his double reputation in single combat. He takes the part of one or another of the personages he puts in the scene, and makes personal observations of his own concerning their conduct—as, for example, in mentioning some horrible crime, he says, "So it is told, but it is hard to believe that the story of such a crime can be true."

The higher classes of the blacks, as the caste of the Magi, or of the doctors and noble families from whom the members of the government are chosen, are jealous custodians of the history of the tribe and its cosmological traditions. These cosmological myths, in which are unfolded the origin of the universe, the creation of man, the entrance of death into the world, the alternations of the seasons, and other natural phenomena, undoubtedly date from a very remote antiquity; it is not certain that they have always existed in the same form they have now, but it is probable, from the veneration with which they are regarded, that they have been preserved substantially intact. They confirm the opinion that primitive mankind had a common fund of ideas which varied very little in different places; and, indeed, the mythological representations of the negroes may often lead us back to a prototype which is also that of similar representations among the Aryan peoples.

The Timmi, for example, have a giant who resembles the Atlas of our mythology. He has to sustain the earth, which is disk-shaped. In the long course of the bearing of this burden the head of the giant and the earth have become one body; the grass which we tread upon and the trees that cover us with their shade are the hair of the giant; and the animals of every kind are the unwelcome guests of his hair. When the giant, tired of standing all the time in the same position, turns quickly, there is an earthquake. The traditions of the Timmi, like those of the Judæo-Christians, teach that evil and death came into the world in consequence of the sin of one man, while there was nothing terrible in the matter at first.