Of late years a great deal of interest has been taken in the folklore
of uncivilized tribes by those who have made it their business to study
mankind. It has been found that a knowledge of the traditionary tales
of a people is a key to their ideas and a standard of their powers of
thought. These stories display their imaginative faculties; they are
guides to the nature of the religious belief, of the form of
government, of the marriage customs, in short, of much that relates to
both the inner and the outer life of those by whom they are told.
These tales also show the relationship between tribes and peoples of
different countries and even of different languages. They are evidences
that the same ideas are common to every branch of the human family at
the same stage of progress. On this account, it is now generally
recognised that in order to obtain correct information concerning an
uncivilized race, a knowledge of their folklore is necessary. Without
this a survey is no more complete than, for instance, a description of
the English people would be if no notice of English literature were
taken.
It is with a view of letting the people we have chosen to call Kaffirs
describe themselves in their own words, that these stories have been
collected and printed. They form only a small portion of the folklore
that is extant among them, but it is believed that they have been so
selected as to leave no distinguishing feature unrepresented.
Though these traditionary tales are very generally known, there are of
course some persons who can relate them much better than others. The
best narrators are almost invariably ancient dames, and the time chosen
for story telling is always the evening. This is perhaps not so much on
account of the evening being the most convenient time, as because such
tales as these have most effect when told to an assemblage gathered
round a fire circle, when night has spread her mantle over the earth,
and when the belief in the supernatural is stronger than it is by day.
Hence it may easily happen that persons may mix much with Kaffirs
without even suspecting that they have in their possession a rich fund
of legendary lore.
There is a peculiarity in many of these stories which makes them
capable of almost indefinite expansion. They are so constructed that
parts of one can be made to fit into parts of another, so as to form a
new tale. In this respect they are like the blocks of wood in the form
of cubes with which European children amuse themselves. Combined in one
way they present the picture of a lion, another combination shows a map
of Europe, another still, a view of St Paul’s, and so on. So with many
of these tales. They are made up of fragments which are capable of a
variety of combinations.
It will surprise no one to learn that these tales are already
undergoing great changes among a very large section of the natives on
the border. Tens of thousands of Kaffirs have adopted the religion of
the Europeans, and the facility with which such changes can be made as
were alluded to in the last paragraph has encouraged them to introduce
ideas borrowed from their teachers. Thus with them Satan—of whom they
had no conception before the advent of Europeans—is now the prompter to
evil, and morals are drawn that never could have entered their heads in
days of old. Their tales are thus a counterpart of the narrators, in
possessing an adaptability to growth and a power of conformation to
altered circumstances.
It is necessary to say a few words concerning the care that has been
taken to give absolutely not a single sentence in any of these tales
that has not come from native sources. Most of them have been obtained
from at least ten or twelve individuals residing in different parts of
the country, and they have all undergone a thorough revision by a
circle of natives. They were not only told by natives, but were copied
down by natives. The notes only are my own. I have directed the work of
others, but have myself done nothing more than was necessary to explain
the text. For this I can claim to be qualified by an intimate knowledge
of the Kaffir people, gained through intercourse with them during a
period of twenty years, and while filling positions among them varying
from a mission teacher to a border magistrate.
Most of the tales collected in this book have already appeared in
various South African papers and magazines, some as far back as 1874.
They were arranged for publication in a volume which was to have been
issued from the press of the Lovedale Missionary Institution, and the
first sheet was already printed, when the disturbances of 1877 took
place. I was then called away to perform work of a very different kind,
and the publication was necessarily suspended. The book is now issued,
in the hope that it may be found useful, as throwing light upon the
mode of life of a people who differ from ourselves in many respects
besides degree of civilization.
Geo. M. Theal.
Jan. 1882.