Myths ​and Legends of the Bantu 1 csillagozás

Though the ghost survives the body for an indefinite period it is not necessarily thought of as living on for ever. Some people distinctly state … that after the lapse of several generations they simply go back to nothingness, except in the case of outstanding personalities, remembered beyond the circle of their immediate descendants, such as ancient chiefs and tribal benefactors. In other words, the ghosts last only as long as they are remembered by the living: the parents and grandparents are always commemorated and sacrificed to; the three preceding generations maintain a precarious existence, fighting for a share in the offerings and occasionally forcing attention by terrifying apparitions; any older than these are said to „ go to pieces.” Where reincarnation is definitely believed in, as seems to be the case to a great extent, life lasts as long as there is a child of the line to carry it on, and only comes to an end if the family dies out.

Some say that the vinyamkela (singular kinyamkela) are the ghosts of children, the majini those of adults, while others hold that the former were in their lifetime kindly, inoffensive people, the majini men of violence. This last name is of comparatively recent introduction, being borrowed from the Arabic jinn; the earlier name for such a ghost was dzedzeta, or, according to some, mwene mbago, which means „lord (or lady) of the forest.” This being is invisible, except to the 'doctors,' whose business is to exorcize him, and has his abode in hollow trees. The kinyamkela is also, as a rule, invisible, but when he (or she) appears it is as half a human body, „with one leg, one hand, one eye, and one ear.”

Another very general belief is that the dead are apt to reappear in animal forms, most usually those of snakes or lizards, though, apparently, almost any animal may be chosen. The Atonga of Lake Nyasa say that by taking certain medicines a person can ensure his changing after death into whichever animal he may fancy. Some say that their great chiefs come back as lions. Wizards of a specially noisome kind can turn themselves at will, while living, into hyenas or leopards-it is not so clear whether they assume the forms of these animals after death.

In these groves the spirits sometimes hold their revels: people in distant villages have heard their drums. There are places deep in the woods where the earth has been swept clean, as if for a dancing-floor, and here they assemble. Passers-by may hear faint music, but see no one; the sounds seem to be in front, but when they have gone on a little way they are heard behind them.

In Nyasaland there are ghosts which haunt particular hills, probably those where old chiefs have been buried, and there are strange accounts given of „the spirits' hill” – piri la mizimu – where women passing by carrying pots on their heads have had the pots taken from them by baboons. One is left to infer that the baboons are shapes assumed by the ghosts, though this is not expressly stated, and elsewhere one finds baboons mentioned only as wizards' familiars, not as reincarnated ancestors. There are bananas grown on the spirits' hill – you can cut a bunch and eat some; but if you carry any away they will have disappeared before you reach your village.

Let the big drum roll! Let the big drum roll!
The land Where-I-wash-the-wrongs,
It is far from this place to which you have brought me,
Me who have no feet. Let the big drum roll!

This is explained by Torrend as referring to Bantu notions of a future life, and his note may fitly close this chapter.

The souls, though „having no feet,” are supposed to go to a deep river of God, far away, not a simple mulonga „river,” but a rironga, „big, deep river,” where God washes the wrongs clean and where birds with beaks all white-that is, innocent souls-cry vengeance against the spilling of blood.

The Ambundu of Angola speak of Kalunga, a word which may mean either Death, the King of the Netherworld (usually called, why I do not know, Kalunga-ngombe, "Kalunga of the cattle"), or the sea. … The Ndonga and Kwanyama, to the south of Angola, use this name for their High God, whom the Hereros too call Njambi Karunga.

It seems quite clear from all these legends that the African does not, when he thinks about the matter at all, look upon death as an essential fact in nature. It appears to be accepted that, but for some unforeseen accident, or perhaps some piece of carelessness or wilful disobedience, people need never have died at all. To the same set of ideas belongs the prevalent belief that any death whose cause is not understood (and the number of such deaths is now steadily decreasing) must be due to witchcraft. Kalunga, if we are to think of him as the High God, is exceptional for living underground. Leza, Mulungu, Iruwa, and so on, if they have a local habitation at all, are placed in the sky.

It comes… from Angola, and relates to „the son of Kimanaweze.” Kimanaweze seems to be a mythical personage, perhaps originally identical with the first man, as, according to Héli Chatelain, „ much of what the natives say of him corresponds with what the Amazulu tell of their Unkulunkulu.” He figures in more than one folk-tale. The one I am about to give is further remarkable, not merely for personifying the Sun (which, to a certain extent, is done by the Wachaga), but for giving him the Moon as a wife.

The Bantu in general speak of the Moon as a man, and say that he has two wives, the Evening Star and the Morning Star, which they do not realize to be one and the same.

The people of the Lower Congo have a story about the spider fetching fire from heaven at the request of Nzambi, who is here regarded as the Earth-mother and the daughter … of Nzambi Mpungu, the „first father,” or the personified sky.