Mythology and Folklore

Congo River, jbdodane. source . At the edge of a rainforest, there lived a man who made his hut a little further away from the village by the river. Every morning, a wild boar would visit the riverbank and make a splendid mess rummaging through the villagers' waste in search of scraps to eat. Day by day, the man saw the pig visit the riverbank and get more and more plump. A particular morning when the man's stomach was a bit hungrier than usual, he decided to go out and kill the boar and eat it. When the boar saw the man coming, it cried out in alarm, "My brother! I beg you please do not attack me!" Surprised at such an exclamation, the man lowered his arm and the boar took this chance to disappear back into lush safety of the greenery. Scowling to himself, the man returned to his hut. "How can I be a brother to such a creature? She lives her life in a cave or under a bush, I live on land in a dry home. She rummages through my waste for h...

Yet another gruesome adventure in the Congo with this reading. Part B of this unit had many more animals in it, but they acted like humans so nothing was too different. I was really suprised that none of the animals acted like they were supposed to. Herbivores would eat other herbivores, a turtle and a man built a city together, in which the turtle tricked everyone and ate an antelope. It seemed like the storytellers just picked random animals because they were tired of humans. Once again, it is often hard to tell who the protagonist is. Sometimes, the one you should be rooting for ends up the worst off in the end, and sometimes the person who does bad actions gets forgiven and well treated in the end. There doesn't seem to be much love between mother and children in this; familial ties don't seem very strong in the Congo tales. The fetishes play a much bigger role, and they can be granted to animals as well. As in Part A, I think the writing style was a bit too dry for me....

I was really suprised by how gruesome some of the stories from the Congo were. I found that most of them involved the relationship between a husband and wife, but always with a male at the center of it and making the big decisions. These people are not very affectionate; there were so many instances of brutal murder over petty things. This made the whole thing quite interesting to read (but only if you have a strong stomach!) Things I really noted were how some characters were born special. They were born with a fetish or a charm that protected them, even brought them back to life! Also, justice is not black and white. In these stories, what is fair or not is a spectrum. For example, someone may have had a pitiful birth, gotten wealth from a spirit, but if he was ungrateful and deceitful, he would lose it again. The reader is left a bit ambiguous who the protagonist is. Often times, it is simply a storytelling of different characters, where the plot is more interesting than the actor...