Reynard the fox in South Africa

by W. H. I. Bleek

But we may well ask why it is that, so far as we know, the Kafir imagination seems not at all inclined to the formation of this class of fictitious tales, though they have otherwise a prolific Native literature of a more or less historic and legendary character. This contrast to what we find among the Hottentots appears not to be accidental, but merely a natural consequence of that difference of structure which distinguishes these two classes of languages, embracing respectively the dialects of the Hottentots on the one [[21]]hand, and those of the Kafirs and their kindred nations on the other; in the former (the Hottentot), as in all other really Sexdenoting Languages, the grammatical divisions of the nouns into genders, which do not tally exactly with any distinction observed in nature, has been brought into a certain reference to the difference of sex; and on that account this distinction of sex seems in some way to extend even to inanimate beings, whereby a tendency to the personification of impersonal objects is produced, which in itself is likely to lead the mind towards ascribing reason and other human attributes to irrational beings. This is the real origin of almost all those poetical conceptions which we call Fables and Myths. Both are based on the personification of impersonal beings—the former by ascribing speech and reason to the lower animals, whilst the latter substitute human-like agencies in explanation of celestial and other elementary phenomena in place of their real cause.

Mythology is, in its origin, most generally either a mere figure of speech or a poetical explanation suggested by the grammatical form or etymological meaning of words, indicating certain striking natural phenomena. In the primary stage of their production, [[22]]Myths may be supposed to have been always understood in their true original character; and it is only when in the course of generations their real origin has been obscured, and they have become merely the petrified excrescences of a traditionary creed, that their apparent absurdity makes them at first sight almost inexplicable, particularly when found among nations of a high intelligence.

The humbler sisters of the Myths, the Fables based on the natural propensities of animals, are not obscured in their real character so easily as the former, and have, on that account, more generally retained their simple usefulness as moral teachers; so, though they may have preceded even Myths as to the date of their first conception, they yet outlive them as real and salutary elements of the best national literatures: not that Myths had not their own beneficial sphere in the education of mankind, as leading them on to higher abstract ideas, and even deeper religious thoughts, but their very power of exerting a much deeper influence on the destinies of our race, made it essential that they should have a more transitory existence in the civilizing process of the Sexdenoting nations—who have to give up mythologies so soon as through them they have gained higher religious ideas—while [[23]]Fables, which never claim so high a place among the elements of furthering the eliminating process of our species, remain always welcome to most classes of readers at certain periods of their intellectual development.

Children, and also simple-minded grown-up people, whose taste has not been spoiled by the poison of over-exciting reading, will always be amused by the quaintly expressed moral lessons which they receive through every good Fable; and the more thorough student of literature will also regard with pleasure these first innocent plays of awakening human imagination. To all these the Hottentot Fables offered here may not be unwelcome as a fresh store of original compositions, or even as old acquaintances who gain a new interest in different clothing and scenery.

To make these Hottentot Fables readable for the general public, a few slight omissions and alterations of what would otherwise have been too naked for the English eye were necessary, but they do not in any essential way affect the spirit of the Fables. Otherwise, the translation is faithful to the original, though not exactly literal.

It would of course be presumptuous to believe that [[24]]we could here discuss fully the originality or date of composition of these Fables, and all the many questions involved therein.

The modern origin of some of the Fables, as, for instance, that of The Cock (12), Fish-Stealing (8), The Judgment of the Baboon (17), and The Curse of the Horse (30), is very evident; others, e.g., The White Man and the Snake (5 & 6), indicate clearly a European origin. Others, however, have strong claims to be regarded not merely as genuine products of the Hottentot mind, but even as portions of a traditionary Native literature, anterior in its origin to the advent of Europeans.

That the latter is a true view of the subject becomes perhaps the more conclusive by the intimate relations in which, among the Hottentots, Myths still stand to Fables; in fact, a true mythology can hardly be said to exist among them; for Myths (as that of The Origin of Death) are in reality as much Fables as Myths; but we may consider these as analogous to the first germs whence sprung those splendid mythologies which have filled with deep devotional feelings the hearts of many millions among the most intelligent races of the earth. [[25]]

This higher flight of the imaginative faculty which the Sexdenoting nations possess (through the stimulus of this personification of impersonal things, consequent upon the grammatical structure of their languages), and what it had been to them, becomes the more evident if we compare their literature with that of the Kafirs and other black tribes of South Africa.

As the grammatical structure of languages spoken by the latter does not in itself suggest personification, these nations are almost, as a matter of course, destitute of Myths as well as Fables. Their literary efforts are, as a general rule, restricted to narrating the doings of men in a more or less historical manner—whence we have a number of household tales, and portions of a fabulous history of these tribes and nations; or their ancestor worship and belief in the supernatural give rise to horrible ghost stories and tales of witchcraft, which would be exciting if they were not generally told in such a long-winded, prosy manner, as must make the best story lose its interest.