Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/10

 community. An unintended concession to the claims of some Evolutionists!

The most distinctive feature of these Tales is that, while the actors are Beasts, they are speaking and living as Human Beings, acting as a beast in human environment; and, instantly, in the same sentence, acting as a human being in a beast's environment. This must constantly be borne in mind, or the action of the story will become not only unreasonable but utterly inexplicable.

The characters in the stories relieve themselves from difficult or dangerous situations by invoking the aid of a powerful personal fetish-charm known as "Ngalo"; a fetish almost as valuable as Aladdin's Lamp of the Arabian Nights. And yet, with inconsistency, notwithstanding this aid, the actors are often suffering from many small evils of daily human life. These inconsistencies are another feature of the Ekano that the listeners enjoy as the spice of the story.

From internal evidences, I think that the local sources of these Tales were Arabian, or at least under Arabic, and perhaps even Egyptian, influences. (Observe the prefix, Ra, a contraction of Rera equals father, a title of honor, as "Lord," or "Sir," or "Master," in names of dignitaries; e. g. Ra-Marânge, Ra-Mborakinda, Ra-Meses.)

This is consistent with the fact that there is Arabic blood in the Bantu Negro. The invariable direction to which the southwest coast tribes point, as the source of their ancestors, is northeast. Such an ethnologist as Sir H. H. Johnston traces the Bantu stream southward on the east coast to the Cape of Good Hope, and then turns it northward on the west coast to the equator and as far as the fourth degree of north latitude, the very region from which I gathered these stories.

Only a few men, and still fewer women, in any community, are noted as skilled narrators. They are the literati.

The public never weary of hearing the same Tales repeated; like our own civilized audiences at a play running for a hundred or more nights. They are made attractive by the dramatic use of gesture, tones, and startling exclamations.

The occasions selected for the renditions are nights, after the day's works are done, especially if there be visitors to be entertained. The places chosen are the open village street,