Kaffir folk-lore

KAFFIR FOLK-LORE.
KAFFIR FOLK-LORE:
A Selection from the Traditional Tales
CURRENT AMONG THE PEOPLE LIVING ON THE EASTERN BORDER OF THE CAPE COLONY
WITH COPIOUS EXPLANATORY NOTES.
BY GEO. M c CALL THEAL, AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF THE COLONIES AND STATES OF SOUTH AFRICA.”
SECOND EDITION. LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, Le BAS & LOWREY, PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1886.
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.
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.