A line from some of the stories was often used as a proverb, or to call up the situation described in the story as a warning to a person not to overreach another, or he himself may fall. No European elements were to be found in them, as they were procured before we could talk freely with the natives, and certainly before our teaching had in any way influenced their thoughts and modes of expression.
Many of the stories were recited for amusement, but most of them were told as true, even the amusing ones; and they undoubtedly embody the wit, wisdom, and philosophy of life. Some are only remarkable for the way in which they account for the present state of affairs in the physical and moral worlds; others give a clear insight into the mind of the native, and his view of the spirit-world; and these stories were at times narrated in their “palavers” to enforce a point and drive home a moral.
I did not meet, among the Boloki, with any stories or legends regarding the origin of man, of the sun, of a deluge, or of the destruction of the world. There were stories of folk with tails, but not of animal ancestors; of dwarfs and frightful monstrosities—all heads and no body—but not of giants. When the end of a rainbow touches a town a death is sure to occur there, and the bright red after-glow occasionally seen at sunset indicates the death of a chief. I have already given the legend about the moon having once been a python.
The following are a few typical stories,[[23]] and in translating them I have kept as near the original as possible. No ideas have been added, and no plot has been altered, but the translator has tried to give in easy English a true representation of the stories.
[23]. The stories given are of course Boloki stories; but the writer has published some forty Lower Congo stories in Congo Life and Folk-Lore, R.T.S. 5s. net.
It must be remembered that the morals appended to the stories were put there by the natives when they wrote them down for me; and when I was sitting with them around their fires and hearing them relate the stories I noticed that the moral was always given, and frequently formed the subject of comment, and of angry curses being called down on the one who was credited with starting such bad customs.
Photo by: Rev. C. J. Dodds
Boloki Boys with Wine Jar
This well illustrates the methods of wearing a cloth by the male folk. Either a string is tied round the waist and the cloth hung—back and front—over it, or the corners are tied at the side. The wine jar has a capacity of several gallons. There are not more than two or three in a large village; but they are freely lent.
Story I
The Adventures of Libanza; or, a Boloki version of