"[Sea-Mahmy]" introduces several different elements. The mermaid herself is probably of European extraction,[30] and the device by which Blackbird brings Annancy to the feeding-tree might be a far-off echo of the Daedalus and Icarus myth. But Annancy's trick for conveying Trapong to his house and eating him recalls one of the stock incidents of Bantu folk-lore—the one where Hlakanyana, or the Hare, or some other creature, induces his dupe to get burnt or boiled by pretending to undergo the process himself and to escape with impunity. The Suto Hare[31] commends this as a device for attaining immortality—in which there is a faint suggestion of Medea's caldron. I was at first disposed to refer this episode to the "Big Klaas and Little Klaas" (or the "Getting-to-Heaven-in-a-Sack") group; but the inducement to enter the sack, which is so great a point in these, is here wanting. It is found in a Zanzibar story ("Abu Nuwasi na waziri na Sultani") in Dr. Velten's collection,[32] where Abu Nuwas is sewn up into a sack to be thrown into the sea, and induces another man to take his place by saying that he is to be drowned for refusing to marry the Sultan's daughter. This is evidently an Arab tale, though I do not remember it in the Arabian Nights.
The exotic tales to be found in Bantu Africa come mainly from two sources—Arab and Portuguese. The former is exemplified at Zanzibar and all down the Mozambique coast; the latter in Angola and Mozambique. We have already referred to an example obtained at Delagoa Bay by M. Junod; but "Bonaouaci" (Chants et Contes, p. 292), though the names are Portuguese, and the local colouring goes so far as to introduce the Governor of Mozambique in person, is in substance identical with one of the "Abu Nuwas" stories given by Dr. Velten, the incident of the egg-production being nearly the same in both, as well as the two other impossible tasks set the hero—sewing a stone and building a house in the air. I fancy the same is the case with "Djiwao," though the incidents have been a good deal remodelled, and the concluding episode—the boiling of the chief Gwanazi in the pot he had intended for Djiwao, is the purely Bantu one alluded to in the last paragraph—in a somewhat unusual setting. "Les trois vaisseaux,"[33] again, is an Arabian Nights story, of which a curious version has been obtained at Domasi, probably brought from the coast by some member of a Yao trading caravan. Mr. Dennett's No. III., "How the wives restored their husband to life," looks like a much altered and localized form of this. If so it might have reached the Congo through the Portuguese. We also find it on the Ivory Coast[34] where it might have come from an Arab source through Mandingoes or Hausas.
The stories of "Fenda Maria" and "Fenda Maria and her elder brother Nga Nzuá"[35] ("The Three Citrons" and "Cinderella"), are good examples of transplanted stories invested with local colour by successive generations of narrators, till, as Mr. Chatelain says, "the fundamental idea of exotic origin has been so perfectly covered with Angola foliage and blossoms, that science alone can detect the imported elements, and no native would believe that [these tales] are not entirely Angolan."
A curious stage in the migration of stories is exemplified by the "Taal" (or Cape Dutch) versions of Oriental stories imported into South Africa by the Malays, and existing in a purely traditional form among the coloured people. One of these was printed by Mr. H.N. Müller in De Gids for Jan., 1900, but I think hardly any attempt has been made to collect them. And here I may mention that Herr Seidel's Lieder und Geschichten der Afrikaner[36] contains a Nama version of the Lear story, taken down and translated by Herr Olpp, of the Rhenish Mission, who seems quite unaware of its real origin, in spite of the very obvious parallel in Grimm's Hausmärchen. He says in a note: "Diese Begebenheit kann sich nur in der Kap-Kolonie ereignet haben zu einer Zeit in welcher Kolonisten sich schon angesiedelt hatten und unter den Eingeborenen wohnten. Der Name der Tochter spricht dafür und enstammt dem Holländischen." Now the youngest daughter's name is "Katje Leiro"—surely, all things considered, not such a very far cry from Cordelia.
It is interesting to trace the African elements in these imported tales as distinct from those which are merely derived from West Indian surroundings. Thus Mr. Bluebeard's three-legged horse (compare also the three-legged horse in "[Devil and the Princess]") is, as explained in the footnote, a "duppy"; and the duppy, whatever the derivation of his name, seems to be West African in origin. Duppies are the souls of the dead, "capable of assuming various forms of men and other animals."[37] Some of these forms are monstrous, as the "three-foot horse" already alluded to, the "long-bubby Susan," and the "rolling calf." The informant who is responsible for these statements also says that "the duppy in human form generally moves along by spinning or walking backwards." Perhaps this may explain the mysterious "[Wheeler]" (LI.) who has his habitation in a hollow tree, and seizes the hand of any unwary person who puts it into the hole. What he would have done if not requested to "Wheel me mile an' distant," remains obscure; but apparently the persons making the request are whirled through the air and then dropped at the place where Annancy (who has previously passed through the experience unscathed) has prepared a trap for them. The story suggests—though the resemblance is not very close—the episode of "The Stone that wore a Beard" in Cunnie Rabbit (p. 167), where the Spider, having had a narrow escape from the magic powers of the bearded stone (a transformed "devil") utilises them for the destruction of his acquaintances. Those who remark on the peculiarity of the stone are struck down unconscious, and Spider exercises all his ingenuity in inducing his victims to say, "Dah stone get plenty bear'-bear'!" Cunnie Rabbit will not say the words till Spider has himself done so, and has suffered the consequences; both are afterwards rescued by Trorkey (Tortoise). Somewhat similar to "[Wheeler]" is the magic jar in [XLV.]—which might, however, be due to a distorted reminiscence of "[Bluebeard]." Spirits are often believed on the Gold Coast to take up their abode in trees, as well as to assume the form of animals. The usual Tshi name for them appears to be bonsum or bossum: the word "duppy" I have been unable to trace.
The method of divination in "[Mr. Bluebeard]" is one I do not remember to have met with, though it may be akin to the "magic mirror of ink." The magic drum by which Calcutta Monkey ([XXXVIII.]) finds out Annancy's whereabouts is African. I do not recall any parallel story, but drums are much used by witch-doctors and in ceremonial dances, and in some cases auguries are drawn from their sound. But Monkey first discovers Annancy to be the thief by cutting the cards, which of course is European.
Two stories, "[Annancy and the Old Lady's Field]" (XVI.) and "[Devil's Honeydram]," introduce the incident of a woman compelled to dance against her will—in one case to dance herself to death. In both cases the music seems to be the compelling power; but it is not clear whether, in "Devil's Honeydram," the knowledge (and use in the song) of the woman's name has anything to do with the spell. If so, the idea is so universal that one can scarcely refer to it as specially African. It is interesting, though perhaps scarcely pertinent to the matter in hand, to note that the Akikuyu believe their images (of which Mr. Scoresby Routledge has brought home specimens) to have the power, if held up before people, of compelling them to dance.
The folk-lore of Jamaica, as given in the interesting papers published in Folk-Lore, 1904-5, is decidedly of a composite character. The negroes have, as there pointed out (1904, p. 87), "adopted many of the most trivial of English superstitions," while at the same time preserving some reminiscences of their African beliefs. These are especially seen in the notions respecting "duppies," which again are perceptibly influenced by Christian ideas, cf. the efficacy of the name of Christ (p. 90) and the statement that the "rolling calf" is the spirit of a person not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell, or the recipe of "sitting on a Bible" to get rid of a duppy. The directions for "killing a thief" (p. 92) belong to the system (universal throughout Negro and Bantu Africa) of guarding crops by means of "medicine," or "fetish," or whatever one likes to call it: the technical name in Chinyanja is chiwindo. I do not remember any of the particular forms of chiwindo here enumerated; and the silver threepence to be planted with the "guinea yam" is a civilized addition, but the principle is the same. The methods of "finding out the thief," on the other hand, which follow on p. 93, are certainly English—the Bible and key, and the gold ring, hair and tumbler of water. There is a third alternative:—"A curious kind of smoke, which, when it rises, goes to the house of the thief, etc."—but it is too vaguely stated to enable us to pronounce upon it.
Among funeral customs we find the following (p. 88): "If a person dies where there are little children, after the body is put into the coffin, they will lift up each little child, and calling him by name, pass him over the dead body." According to a Sierra Leone paper this custom is observed there; but it is not stated by which of the tribes who make up the extremely mixed population. It may even be found on investigation that some of the freed slaves brought the notion back from the New World. The same authority states that it is considered unlucky to whistle, and adds the rationalizing explanation that whistling attracts snakes, lizards, and other undesirable creatures into the house. In Jamaica, you must not "whistle in the nights, for duppies will catch your voice."
The proportion of native and acquired, or African and European ideas in these superstitions can only be determined by a much more detailed examination than I can make here, and one based on fuller materials than are yet accessible.