Gcina Mhlophe
There are eight stories in the African Tales book, and they come from different regions of Africa, but what I want to focus on this week are two "classic" stories from southern Africa which can be found in many different versions, which means we can appreciate the really distinctive features of the versions that Mhlophe tells in her book.
The first of these two classic stories is "Masilo and Masilonyana" ("Masilo and Little-Masilo"), which is a story about the deadly dangers of jealousy. Mhlophe uses a version from Lesotho, formerly Basutoland, and I'll say something here tomorrow about other sources for Basuto versions of the legend. In this version, the two brothers go hunting and one of them, Masilonyana, finds three mysterious pots, and in one of those pots he awakens a strange sleeping woman. Here is the illustration of the woman in the pot:
The woman gets angry, and the hunting dogs attack and kill her. Then, after she is dead, her fingernails grow and grow and grow (see her fingernails there in the illustration?), and then out of the fingernails emerge tiny cattle and sheep and goats and chickens, along with a tiny woman, and tiny children. Then they all grow, returning to their normal size. How cool is that? The strange old woman was a "swallowing monster," a kind of ogre who devours people and animals, and Masilonyana has set the people and animals that she devoured free. The woman and children thank Masilonyana for setting them free; the woman says that she will become Masilonyana's wife, and all the cattle and animals are now his too.
If you want to read another swallowing-monster story, there's a wonderful Zulu story in another book by Gcina Mhlophe, Stories from Africa, which we read back in June for Anansi Book Club; the story is Nanana Bo Sele Sele. The swallowing monster in that story is a seriously dangerous elephant, and the heroine is Nanana bo Sele Sele, who enters the elephant and fights her way out in order to rescue her children and all the animals that the montser elephant has swallowed. There's also a version of that story in Henry Callaway's Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, published in 1868 with both the Zulu text and an English translation: Unanana-Bosele.
So, back to our two brothers: when Masilo saw his brother's beautiful wife and children and all his cattle and other possessions, he was jealous and plotted to kill his Masilonyana. After Masilo trapped Masilonyana in a hole and left him for dead, Masilo reported that Masilonyana had been attacked and killed by a wild animal, and he took the woman, children, and cattle back to his village.
But Masilonyana was not dead! Instead, he was rescued by a mysterious black snake that swallowed Masilonyana and carried him back to the village, disgorging him, much to everyone's delight and surprise. Here is Masilonyana in the snake:
Everyone is happy, except for Masilo, of course, who runs away and is never seen again, while Masilonyana and his new-found wife and children live happily ever after.
The story of Masilo and Masilonyana is told in many versions, including several versions recorded and published in the 19th century, so we can compare Mhlophe's version with other versions of the story. The earliest recorded version comes from Eugène Casalis, a French Protestant missionary in what was then Basutoland (now Lesotho); his book Les Bassoutos was published in 1859 and translated into English in 1861: The Murder of Maciloniane. In this story, Macilonyana awakens a strange man (not a woman) in the pot, and the man has a gigantic leg. "Big Leg" says he was grinding ochre (more about ochre in Africa), and then he makes Macilonyana carry him, but then the hunting dogs attack and kill him, and when Macilonyana chops open his leg (not his fingernail), a herd of cattle emerge, including one especially beautiful white cow (no people). Macilonyana shares the cattle with his brother, but keeps the white cow for himself, which makes Macilo angry. He kills his brother (he really does kill him!) and buries the corpse, but then a little white bird begins to follow him, denouncing him as a murderer. He kills the bird but it keeps coming back to life; finally, Macilo burns the bird's corpse. He comes to the village and says Macilonyana died in an accident, but then the bird appears and denounces him again. The bird then flies to Macilonyana's sister and says, "I am the heart of Maciloniane; Macilo has murdered me," and then the bird tells her where to find his (human) corpse. That's the end of the story. No snake. No happy ending for Macilonyana.
Henry Callaway's collection of Zulu stories published in 1868 (see above) also contains a version of the story under the title The Two Brothers. Here's how that version begins (click the image for a larger view):
In this version, the woman who comes out of the pot is not a swallowing-monster. Instead, she leads Macilonyana to a tree, and when he chops a hole in the tree, cattle emerge, along with sheep and goats. The greedy Macilo wants all the livestock for himself, so he leaves Macilonyana for dead at the bottom of a precipice and returns to the village, saying his brother died in an accident. But then a bird appears and denounces Macilo; the people follow the bird and find Macilonyana alive. They haul him back up the precipice and bring him back to the village. Macilo runs away and is never seen again.
The earliest published version with a Sesuto (Sotho) text is in Jacottet's Treasury of Basuto Lore, published in 1908: Macilo and Macilonyane. He provides this helpful note about the versions of the stories known to him at that time (and there are other very useful comparative footnotes throughout the story too):
It is again a woman in the pot (as in Casalis), and she is grinding ochre (as in Callaway). This time she has a gigantic toe. She makes Masilonyana carry her, but he escapes and the dogs kill her. When he chops open her toe, cattle emerge, including one cow that is especially beautiful. Masilo wants the beautiful cow, but Masilonyana refuses to give it to him. Masilo kills his brother, and then his brother's heart takes the form of a bird that pursues Masilo and denounces him to the villagers.
So, those are some 19th-century and early 20th-century versions, with the bird, rather than the snake, as the distinctive animal in the plot of the story, and the conflict is over cattle; there is no rescue of a woman and her children as in Mhlophe's version. But I did find a version from Botswana recorded in the early 20th century which features a snake, and in which the younger brother wins a bride; we even get the name of the bride in this story; is Kammetla. This version of "Masilo and Masilonyane" comes from J. Tom Brown's Among the Bantu Nomads, published in 1926. The song portions of the story are in Tswana and English:
Finally, I also want to mention the version of the story in Minnie Postma's Tales from the Basotho, first published in 1964, which has some amazing ostriches (!) who play the role of the hunting dogs in the story. Here is that story: Masilo, Masilonyane, and the Old Woman.
I hope you've enjoyed these different versions of a traditional southern African folktale, and there's another "classic" folktale in Mhlophe's book: the story of the magical horns. The version she tells is from Malawi: Makhosi and the Magic Horns. In this version, a young boy named Makhosi must go find his uncle, who is a healer, in order to get medicine needed to cure his parents and other people in his village who have fallen ill. Along the way, Makhosi's white bull must do battle with a buffalo; Makhosi hides in a tree and watches:
As you can see, the artwork is lovely! I don't want to give away too many spoilers, so I'll just say that it's a very dramatic story and, yes, the magic horns come from this white bull. I'll update this blog post tomorrow with some information about other versions of this story, and how the version in Mhlophe's book is distinctively different from those other versions, where the hero is more of a "Cinderella" character. Rather than completing a mission of healing for his family, he runs away or is driven out of his village and then, with the help of the magical horns, he is able to live happily ever after after all.
The oldest recorded version that I know of is the English story in George McCall Theal's Kaffir Folklore (the insulting term "kaffir" was first used for the Xhosa people, as here in Theal's book, and then later came to be a term of disrespect for any Black person in South Africa): The Story of the Wonderful Horns.
Theal's version was the inspiration for Ashley Bryan's version of the story, The Ox of the Wonderful Horns, which you can also read at the Internet Archive!
Here is the young man with his bride at the end of the story:
Wrapping up this exploration of some classic folktales in Mhlophe's book, I wanted to share one more version of the story of the "magical horns," this time in a Khoekhoe (Hottentot) version that appears in When Lion Could Fly by Nick Greaves. The focus in Greaves's books is on the animals and the ecology of the story, and the version of the story he tells does not have a domestic cow as the source of the magical horns, but instead the kudu, a long-horned antelope (the word "kudu" itself comes from the Khoekhoe language): Kudu's Wonderful Horns. The illustrations are by Rod Clement.
As in most versions of the story, the hero of this story is an outcast who overcomes the obstacles that he faces thanks to the magical horns that the kudu gives him. Mhlophe's version is very different, where the boy is not an outcast but instead on a mission of healing. One thing I wish this book included was some commentary from Mhlophe because it would be fascinating to learn just how and why she chose the versions of the stories foudn in this book.
And don't forget: there's another book of Mhlophe's stories that you can read at the Internet Archive (we read this one back in June for the book club): Stories of Africa. Enjoy them both!
by Gcina Mhlophe
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