Tricksters. On the Trail of the Bushongo

I'm finishing up this week of African stories about the tiny antelope trickster with a book that contains just one of these stories, but it is a long and elaborate story, and I also wanted to make sure to include it as an example of a tiny antelope trickster from the Congo: Torday. On the Trail of the Bushongo by Emil Torday.

The story is The Jackal and the Antelope, and it was told to the author by a Luba storyteller. You will see that the story features familiar trickster motifs, with the tiny antelope playing the role that can also be played the by trickster spider or rabbit or tortoise, depending on the specific culture. Torday makes the specific comparison to the African American Brer Rabbit:

You can find out more about Torday's ethnographic work in Africa at Wikipedia.

In addition to the anthropological books and articles that I've shared this week, I also wanted to make sure to share this resource that I found at the TVTropes website of all places: the trickster antelope shows up there on the page dedicated to Mende mythology. How great that someone created this page, bringing an African storytelling tradition into the TVTropes project!

I hope you have enjoyed learning about the tiny antelope trickster of Africa this week, and next week I'll feature stories about the tiny antelope trickster of southeast Asia!

On the Trail of the Bushongo

by Emil Torday