Avsnitt
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Hello to all new subscribers and followers! Welcome! Please read this.
Meanwhile, life is life-ing so this week’s episode features a short story reading and a light-hearted discussion of the magician archetype. Hope you enjoy!
Can’t Get Enough? Miracles of Another Kind!
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
It’s April, friends, and we’ll spend the month focused on the Jungian archetype of the Magician. We’ll go over what Jung (and Jungian scholars in general) have to say about the Magician, set it in the African context, and then examine specific examples of the patterns of behavior, circumstances, images and ideas which allude to the Magician archetype as they show up in African myth, folklore and legend. We will necessarily touch on the topic of witchcraft in the African context but only peripherally and as relevant to the topic.
In today’s episode, we’ll see how Nuer (Sudan) prophet, Ngundeng Bong, embodied the Magician archetype to catalyze change.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
- Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, English science fiction writer, science writer, futurist, and inventor.
References
* The Collected Works of Carl Jung.
* The Fate of Ngungdeng’s Dang.
* Kelsey, Darren. "The Archetypal Magician." Storytelling and Collective Psychology: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Life and the Work of Derren Brown. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. 21-40.
* Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan. The Nuer:: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford University Press. 1940. p185.
Can’t Get Enough?
* Tenets of Kikuyu Witchcraft and Religion
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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Hello Friends!
We close the series with a short reflection on what this might all mean for us as people living in today’s world of chaos and contradictions.
Virtually everything depends on the human psyche and its functions. It should be worthy of all the attention we can give it, especially today, when everyone admits that the weal or woe of the future will be decided neither by the threat of wild animals, nor by natural catastrophes, nor by the danger of world-wide epidemics, but simply and solely by the psychic changes in (hu)man(s). It needs only an almost imperceptible disturbance of equilibrium in a few of our rulers’ heads to plunge the world into blood, fire, and radioactivity. - Carl Jung, God, the Devil, and the Human Soul.
Hope you enjoy and see you next week!
Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hello Friends!
New to Mythological Africans? Welcome! Read this.
Meanwhile, we’re still talking about the images, symbols, and patterns of behavior or circumstances associated with rulership in African myth, folklore, legend, and history. This week, we linger in that sliver of space where the perception of “good” or “bad” rulership bends to the will of the beholder.
Arraweelo of Somalia is a particularly contradictory ruler in African legend. In some accounts of her story, she is maligned as an exceptionally evil ruler who despised men. Yet other accounts present her as a ruler who fought for the good of her people, especially the women. We’ll hear two versions of her story and reflect on how their contradiction is a both a manifestation of the bipolarity of archetypes and an expression of wholeness.
References
* The Somali Queen: Queen Arraweelo by Farah Mohamed.
* British Somaliland by Ralph E Drake-Brockman (pages 169 - 171).
* Arraweelo: A Role Model For Somali Women by Ladan Affi.
* A Tree for poverty : Somali Poetry and Prose by Margaret Lawrence (pages 126 - 131)
Can’t Get Enough
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hello Friends,
In this week’s episode, we examine the archetypal symbols, patterns and motifs from the story of Chief Shemwindo, a case of bad rulership from the legends of the Nyanga of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I also reflect on how this ties to the persistence of bad rulership on the continent in current times. The way I see it, bad rulership is not new to the African continent. What has been disrupted is the ability of the people to organize against it and when they succeed, to move on from it.
References
* Biebuyck, Daniel, and Kahombo C. Mateene, editors. “The Mwindo Epic.” The Mwindo Epic from the Banyanga, 1st ed., University of California Press, 2021, pp. 39–142. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1hm8jb6.5. Accessed 16 Mar. 2026.
* Mysterioum Coniunctionis by C.G. Jung
Can’t Get Enough?
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hey Friends
We’re on the fourth episode of the MA deep dive into Jungian archetypes in African myths, legend and folklore. We’re remaining focused on the rulership archetype for the month of March and the plan is to look at it from different angles. In this week’s episode (and to honor Women’s Day!) we’re going to talk about rulership in African mythology and folklore from the perspective of women.
References
* Franz, Marie-Luise von. The Feminine in Fairy Tales. United Kingdom, Shambhala, 1993.
* Lewis, Jerome. Forest hunter-gatherers and their world: a study of the Mbendjele Yaka pygmies of Congo-Brazzaville and their secular and religious activities and representations. Diss. University of London, 2002, 175 - 176.
* Schipper, Mineke. Source of all evil : African proverbs and sayings on women. Chicago, Bloomsbury Academic, 1991.
* Korsah, Chantal. Yaa Asantewaa: Queen Mother of the Ashanti Confederacy
* Ogwu, Matthew Chidozie, Moses Edwin Osawaru, and Rosemary Noredia Iroh. “Ethnobotany and collection of west African okra [Abelmoschus caillei (a. Chev.) Stevels] germplasm in some communities in Edo and Delta states, southern Nigeria.” Borneo Journal of Resource Science and Technology 6.1 (2016): 25-36.
* Fraser, Douglas, and Herbert M. Cole, eds. African art and leadership. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1972.
* Fisher, Angela. Africa Adorned. United Kingdom, Harvill Press, 1996.
Can’t Get Enough?
* Read this reflection on archetypes as living territory for transformation:
* Read this X/Twitter Thread for some exceptional heroines from African myth, legend and history.
* Check out the project page for The Runaway Princess and Other Stories (and references for Yennenga’s story)
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hello Friends!
This week’s episode is a bit experimental. We tell a story. Not a folktale, legend or myth. Just a story about a Malinke boy who has a very interesting dream. Then, we talk about the dream and tease out some archetypal images, patterns and symbols which, in the context of West Africa’s Mande-speaking people, might allude to the rulership archetype.
I hope you like it!
References
* Jung on Dreams: Part I - Definitions, Components, Functions and Features
* Sundiata : an epic of old Mali by Djibril Tamsir Niane
* The Epic of Son Jara by John W. Johnson
* The Collected Works of Carl Jung
* Dreams as Portals to the Soul: Dreamwork and Analysis Across Freudian, Jungian, Indigenous, and African Perspectives
* McCall, Daniel F. “The Prevalence of Lions: Kings, Deities and Feline Symbolism in Africa and Elsewhere.” Paideuma, vol. 19/20, 1973, pp. 130–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40341534. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
* Manzon, Agnes Kedzierska. "Humans and Things: Mande" Fetishes" as Subjects." Anthropological Quarterly 86.4 (2013): 1119-1151.
* Chidester, David. “Dreaming in the Contact Zone: Zulu Dreams, Visions, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century South Africa.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 76, no. 1, 2008, pp. 27–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40006024. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.
* Four Characteristics of Archetypes: Autonomy, Affect, Activation, Agency
* Jung and the Individuation Process
* The Persona
* The Shadow
* The Anima and Animus
* Our Inner Partner: The Anima and Animus
* 12 Jungian Archetypes: The Foundation of Personality
Need a book of African Mythology and Folklore?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hi Friends!
In week three of our Jungian archetypes meets African myth and folklore series, we start on the story of Sundiata (AKA Son Jara) Keita, arguably one of the major figures from African legends about good and courageous rulership.
Sundiata is to the Manding people what Arthur of Camelot is to the British.
We preface things with a bit more contextualization of rulership as an archetype and then take a quick look at Sundiata’s life to lay the foundation for our discussion.
This is a big topic and I feel the weight of my own limited knowledge as I poke and prod at it. I ask for your understanding as we go along. I will try to be as thorough as I can be.
I hope you enjoy!
References
* The Epic of Son Jara by John W. Johnson
* The Collected Works of Carl Jung
* Jung and the Individuation Process
* The Persona
* The Shadow
* The Anima and Animus
* Our Inner Partner: The Anima and Animus
* 12 Jungian Archetypes: The Foundation of Personality
Can’t Get Enough?
Need a book of African Mythology and Folklore?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
We are still at the very beginning of our year-long exploration of Jungian archetypes as expressed in African mythology and folklore. In the first episode from last week, we defined some foundational concepts we will encounter over and over as we move along. These include the collective unconscious as well as archetypes and stereotypes. We also talked a bit about why we are looking at African myths and folklore through this lens and then laid out a tentative plan for the year.
We have a lot of ground to cover, friends, and it is important that we properly learn the contours of the psychic terrain we will be traveling. So, in this episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we will focus on Jung’s four main archetypes (the Self, the Persona, the Shadow and the Anima/Animus complex), probe (lightly) at personhood in some African contexts, and then outline a few more concepts that will help us along the way.
References:
* The Collected Works of Carl Jung
* Pearson, Carol . Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World (p. 182). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
* Oyeshile, Olatunji A. “Towards an African concept of a person: Person in Yoruba, Akan and Igbo thoughts.” Fiorita: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 34 (2002): 1-2.
* Ndlovu, Sanelisiwe Primrose. “A critical exploration of the ideas of person and community in traditional Zulu thought.” (2021).
* Brooke, Roger. “Ubuntu and the individuation process: Toward a multicultural analytical psychology.” Psychological Perspectives 51.1 (2008): 36-53.
* Jung and the Individuation Process
* The Persona
* The Shadow
* The Anima and Animus
* Our Inner Partner: The Anima and Animus
Need a book of African Mythology and Folklore?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Black/African people spend an incredible amount of energy, time and resources on countering negative stereotypes. Stereotypes are oversimplified, rigid, and, too often, biased perceptions people have of others. Black/African people have been locked in an all-out war against negative stereotypes for longer than is reasonable. The culture wars that perennially rage on social media could be called the Battles of the Stereotypes. But there is another framework which is similar to yet offers so much more than stereotypes: archetypes.
The word “archetype” comes from the Greek word “archetypos” which means “original pattern”. It was initially used by philosophers from antiquity to describe the role of God or the Divine as the primordial pattern from which existence emerges. Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung was the first person to systematically apply the concept of archetypes to human psychology . In Jung’s theories, archetypes are patterns of behavior, circumstances, images and ideas which occur repeatedly in the unconscious thoughts of a given collective of people and so are expressed in oral traditions, literature, art, ritual, philosophy, and other domains of human communication and relationship. Jung proposed that an observer might arrive at some insight into what motivates and animates a given group of people by observing the expression and evolution of the archetypes in their cultural expressions.
In 2026, the MA podcast will focus on applying Jung’s theory of archetypes to African mythology and folklore to see what emerges. In this introductory episode, we’ll define the term, explain some of its features, and explore why it is a more suitable framework for understanding a given group of people than stereotypes. We’ll also lay out the year’s plan with a focus on the specific archetypes we will encounter each month.
References (including two of Jung’s books you want to keep close by for the rest of the year!)
* Carl G. Jung. “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.” Routledge, 1968.
* Jung, Carl G. “Man and his symbols.” Anchor Press, 1964.
* Hogenson, George B. “The controversy around the concept of archetypes.” Journal of Analytical Psychology 64.5 (2019): 682-700.
* Jungian Archetypes and the Hidden Architecture of the Psyche
* 12 Jungian Archetypes: The Foundation of Personality
Need a book of African Mythology and Folklore?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
The average human in the modern context is largely cut off from deep and transformative encounters with the natural world. The reasons are manifold. Some people live in places where access is nonexistent or limited. Others have access but no time, buffeted as they are by their obligations and efforts to earn a living and take care of their families. Even when access and time are present, awareness and inclination might be lacking. Many people live within walking distance of great rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, deserts, plains, mountains, hills and forests, and yet, these land forms have faded to the background scenery of their lives.
It might be hard for many of us, then, to imagine what it would be like to adopt a lifestyle whose maintenance, talk less of success, requires keen attention to and relationship with a land form. Yet, this is the lifestyle traditionally chosen by the Tuareg and other north African desert dwellers like the Sahrawis of Western Sahara. These people don’t only live in the Sahara desert, they actively claim it as theirs. But what does it mean to claim a land form as one’s own? And what could this mean for us present-day Africans?
In the last Mythological Africans podcast episode of 2025, we probe at this question with insight drawn from Tuareg-Libyan Author Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone” and reflections on the experiences of the Sahrawi of Western Sahara.
… perhaps one way Africans can repair and reaffirm the bonds that tie us together is by looking again at the land forms that connect us. The mountains ranges that spread from country to country. The rivers that thread their ways from homeland to homeland. The forests in whose depths generation upon generation have lived. The deserts whose winds and waters have chiseled countless lineages. The seas and oceans that surround us. The hills, valleys, lakes, and plains whose siblings across the continent attest to the common stock from which we emerge. Maybe, just maybe, our future lies in our ability to look at them again and see more than land or resources. Maybe our future lies in remembering that they are a shared inheritance to be understood and stewarded.
References
* “The Bleeding of the Stone” by Ibrahim al-Koni. Interlink Publishing Group Inc.
* Ellison, Mahan. “La amada Tiris, tierra de nuestros abuelos: The Affective Space of the Sahara in Hispano-Sahrawi Literature.” Review of the Center for the Studies of the Literature and Arts of North Africa 15.2–3 (2018): 73.
* Benjaminsen, Tor A. “Does supply-induced scarcity drive violent conflicts in the African Sahel? The case of the Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali.” Journal of Peace Research 45.6 (2008): 819-836.
* Mattingly, David, et al. “Desert Migrations: people, environment and culture in the Libyan Sahara.” Libyan Studies 38 (2007): 115-156.
* Deubel, Tara Flynn. “Between homeland and exile: Poetry, memory, and identity in Sahrawi communities.” (2010). Diss. The University of Arizona.
* Voices of a lost homeland: The poetry of Western Sahara
Can’t Get Enough?
* Tishuash by Badi
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Last week, we started our analysis of Libyan writer Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone.” We met Asouf, the young Tuareg man who is the book’s main character. We also encountered one of the major conflicts that drive the book’s plot: the sun’s eternal vendetta against the desert and the unfortunate creatures, humans among them, that call the desert home. That episode includes a reading and discussion of a folktale told by Asouf’s father. In that story, we heard how the people captured and preserved knowledge of the desert’s shifting patterns and the delicate balance of relationships it supports. Finally, we got some foreshadowing of events to unfold in the book. The Sun’s endless fury is not the only (or even the main) conflict in the story. That honor goes to the human conflicts.
In this episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we will explore some of the human relationships in Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone”. We also examine how these relationships are influenced by their encounter with the desert environment and expressed in oral traditions.
[Note: Episode contains spoilers!]
References
* “The Bleeding of the Stone” by Ibrahim al-Koni. Interlink Publishing Group Inc.
Can’t Get Enough?
* Tuareg Camel Music
* Tales from the Plateau of Rivers: Folklore of the Tassili n’Ajjer and Ahaggar Mountain Ranges
* Tuareg Tea-time: Sweet tea in a golden cup
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
You meet three of the main protagonists and hear a central conflict in Libyan writer Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone” in the first sentence of the book.
“Evening was coming,” he writes, “the flaming disk of the sun sinking slowly down from the depths of the sky as it bade farewell, with the threat to return next morning and finish burning what it hadn’t burned today, and Asouf plunged his arms into the sands of the wadi to begin his ablutions, in readiness for his afternoon prayers.”
Sun, desert sand, and humans. It is an age old conflict. The Sun’s beef with the land which constitutes the Sahara desert is millions of years old, playing out in 20,000 year cycles of harsh intimacy and soothing distance, depending on which way the planet tilts. Humankind entered the picture less than 50,000 years ago and quickly sided with the desert against the Sun. But the desert is a fickle ally and, as al Koni documents in intimate detail in his stories, no one knows this better than the humans, plants and animals who call it home.
In this episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we introduce the Sahara as a geographical land form and reflect on some of the stories that have emerged from its long history.
References
* The Thetys Sea
* Sahara climate cycle reveals desert turns green every 20000 years
* The Sahara Is Millions of Years Older Than Thought
* The Sahara Desert flooded for the first time in decades. Here’s what it looks like
* A Wetter, Greener Sahara Could Reshape Global Weather — Especially Hurricane Season
* The Bleeding of the Stone by Ibrahim al-Koni. Interlink Publishing Group Inc.
Can’t Get Enough?
* Read: The latest edition of the MA Newsletter
* Listen: The fascinating world of Tuareg Camel Folk Music
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends (Including the Tuareg Foundation Legend)
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
It‘s hard to believe its December already, but here we are! We’ve spent the bulk of the year talking about land form myths from across the continent so I figured we could zoom in and look at things from another perspective: how these myths influence daily life. However, I don’t live on the African continent and the MA annual budget cannot support travel at this time, so my best bet is to do another kind of traveling: through books.
Now, if one wants to travel by book across the African continent in a way that allows for close contact with the land, where does one go to, quite literally, book this trip? I don’t know about other parts of the continent but I do know that if you want to travel the Sahara region by book, you will find no better map and travel guide than the work of Libyan writer, Ibrahim al Koni.
I was going to do a fresh episode on the Sahara desert before we start talking about Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone.” But as I thought about what to say, I realized we already have several episodes in which we introduce the Sahara. And so, instead of reinventing the wheel this week, we’re going to revisit a snippet from one of those episodes. How about we save the fun for later this month and sprinkle more fun facts about this foremost of all African geographical landforms in upcoming episodes?
(I’ve also had a long work week. I need a hot soak in a bath with some Samara Joy playing, and then cuddles with my cats. Thanks for understanding!)
PS: I experimented with sound effects when I produced this episode. That was fun, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that again!
Don’t forget to tune in next week as we start discussing Ibrahim al-Koni’s “Bleeding of the Stone.”
References
* al-Majus or through the Labyrnith by Ismail Fayed
* Rawafed: Documentary Interview with Ibrahim Kuni
Can’t Get Enough?
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
I ran into a bit of a problem while doing the research for the first section of my book: “The Watkins Book of African Folklore”. That section is titled “Creation Myths and Foundations Legends” but it was originally supposed to be titled just “Creation Myths.” The problem I ran into was that many stories classed as creation myths in the African context are actually foundation legends. They are not stories about the creation of the world per se, with the expected metaphysical connotations. They are accounts of how the couple recognized as the first ancestors of the people in question came to be in the geographical location they claim as home.
In this week’s episode of the MA podcast, we round up the conversation about African creation myths with a comment on African foundation legends.
If you recall from the first episode of the year, the plan for 2025 is to focus on myths and folklore related to land forms and the natural world, with detours into the realms of psychology and history. Having come so far, I look back at all the episodes and what I find is that the thread running through them is a reminder that what makes us African is our connection to the continent, no matter where we may find ourselves in the world. What makes us African is our remembrance of the land, the waters, the plants, the animals and the lineages, both great and small, known and unknown, whose collective existence is inextricably bound to ours, and whose destruction would be ours as well. What makes us African, is our commitment to honoring this truth in all ways we possibly can.
References
* Belcher, Stephen. African Myths of Origin (Penguin Classics) Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. p. 143
* Frobenius, Leo, and Douglas C. Fox. “African Genesis (1937).” New York: B. Blom (1966), pp 49 - 57
* Mudimbé, Vumbi Yoka. Parables and Fables: exegesis, textuality, and politics in Central Africa. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1991. p86-87
Can’t Get Enough?
Refresh your memory on Ibrahim al Koni since we’ll be spending time with his work in December.
* The Desert in Ibrahim al Koni's “Al Majus”
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
We are still looking at African creation myths this month. This week, we examine a version of the creation myth of West Africa’s Mande-speaking people. I’m very excited to spend time on this story because it is one of the best documented and analyzed myths from the African continent. It is also rich in symbolism and communicates so much about how the people who claim it as theirs understand their arrival to and situation on earth.
References
* Dieterlen, Germaine. “The Mande Creation Myth.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 27, no. 2, 1957, pp. 124–38. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1156806. Accessed 23 Nov. 2025.
* Dieterlen, Germaine. “Mythe et organisation sociale au Soudan français.” Journal des Africanistes 25.1 (1955): 39-76.
* Jansen, Jan. “The Mande Magical Mystery Tour-the Mission Griaule in Kangaba (Mali).” Mande Studies 2.1 (2000): 97-114. (A Criticism of the Griaule Missions)
* Djenne-Djenno
* Scheub, Harold. A dictionary of African mythology: the mythmaker as storyteller. Oxford University Press, 2000. p51
Can’t Get Enough?
* Septennial re-roofing ceremony of the Kamablon, sacred house of Kangaba
* Niger Valley Civilizations
* Jeffreys, M. D. W. “Maize and the Mande Myth.” Current Anthropology, vol. 12, no. 3, 1971, pp. 291–320. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2741046. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
* Jansen, Jan, and James R. Fairhead. “The Mande Creation Myth, by Germaine Dieterlen, as a Historical Source for the Mali Empire.” Journal of West African History 6.2 (2020): 93-114.
* Engeström, Tor. “Some aspects of the Mandé myth problem.” Ethnos 26.4 (1961): 219-226.
Still Can’t Get Enough?
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
If you were raised Christian like me, your head probably threatens to explode at the thought of there being more than one version of a creation myth. In the Christian worldview, the Genesis account is it. However, even the Christian biblical canon as we know it was compiled and legitimized over almost a thousand years and after a great many meetings or councils as they were known. Similarly, in just about all spiritual traditions with documented accounts of cosmological events, there are variations both legitimate and illegitimate. Some are canon. Some are relegated to the arena of folklore. Some are actively erased from the record, especially if they contradict or threaten whatever the orthodoxy of the time has decided is the truth.
In this episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we take a break from stories to put some context around variations in mythological and folkloric accounts.
(Listen to Part 1 & Part 2)
References
* Brown, John Tom. Among the Bantu Nomads: A record of forty years spent among the Bechuana, a numerous & famous branch of the Central South African Bantu, with the first full description of their ancient customs, manners & beliefs. Seeley, Service & Company, 1926, pp. 162-167
* Boeyens, Jan CA. “A tale of two Tswana towns: in quest of Tswenyane and the twin capital of the Hurutshe in the Marico.” Southern African Humanities 28.1 (2016):13.
* Ellenberger, Vivian. “History and Pre-history in Botswana.” Botswana Notes & Records 4.1 (1972): 135-136.
* Finnegan, Ruth. Oral literature in Africa. Open Book Publishers, 2012.
* Ouzman, Sven. “Spiritual and political uses of a rock engraving site and its imagery by San and Tswana-speakers.” The South African Archaeological Bulletin (1995):60.
* Scheub, Harold. A dictionary of African mythology: the mythmaker as storyteller. Oxford University Press, 2000, p140, 151.
* Van Der Ryst, Maria, et al. “Rocks of Potency: Engravings and Cupules from the Dovedale Ward, Southern Tuli Block, Botswana [with Comment].” The South African Archaeological Bulletin (2004): 1-11.
* Walker, Nick. “In the footsteps of the ancestors: the Matsieng creation site in Botswana.” The South African Archaeological Bulletin (1997): 95-104.
* Wilman, Maria. “The engraved rock of Kopong and Loe, Bechuanaland Protectorate.” South African Journal of Science 16.5 (1919): 443-446.
Can’t Get Enough?!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hi Friends!
We’re looking at African creation myths this month on the Mythological Africans podcast (Listen to part 1 here). In this episode, we examine stories of creation by emergence from underground. In these accounts, all that exists seems to emerge from under the earth or a body of water. Emergence accounts sometimes intersect with Ex nihilo accounts where an all powerful being makes creatures and puts them underground or in a cave. This occurs in two of the stories we discuss in this episode. We start with a version of the Mende (Sierra Leone) origin myth, and then explore similar myths from the Kabyle people of Algeria, the Tswana of southern Africa, the Akan of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, as well as the Babungo and Bamougong of Cameroon. We also examine the way European missionaries and scholars distorted or neglected some of these accounts leading to misconstructions which persist till today.
Come for the analyses, stay for the drama!
References
* Brown, John Tom. Among the Bantu Nomads: A record of forty years spent among the Bechuana, a numerous & famous branch of the Central South African Bantu, with the first full description of their ancient customs, manners & beliefs. Seeley, Service & Company, 1926, pp. 162-167
* Boeyens, Jan CA. “A tale of two Tswana towns: in quest of Tswenyane and the twin capital of the Hurutshe in the Marico.” Southern African Humanities 28.1 (2016):13.
* Divine Che Neba, Julius Angwah, “Entry on: Myth of the Origin of the Babungo People by Eleanor Zofoa”, peer-reviewed by Daniel Nkemleke, Eleanor A. Dasi and Elizabeth Hale. Our Mythical Childhood Survey (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2019). Link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/myth-survey/item/613. Accessed 10 Jan. 2021.
* Divine Che Neba, “Entry on: Bamougong Creation Myth by Pierre Keubou”, peer-reviewed by Eleanor Anneh Dasi, Susan Deacy and Karolina Anna Kulpa. Our Mythical Childhood Survey (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2019). Link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/myth-survey/item/876. Accessed 10 Jan. 2021.
* Frobenius, Leo, and Douglas C. Fox. “African Genesis (1937).” New York: B. Blom (1966), pp 49 - 57
* Masoga, Mogomme Alpheus. “Gabriel Molehe Setiloane: His intellectual legacy.” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 40 (2014): 33-52.
* Parrinder, Edward Geoffrey. African Ideas of God. United Kingdom, Edinburgh House Press, 1950. p287
* Setiloane, Gabriel M. “The image of God among the Sotho-Tswana.” Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema, 1976, p 82.
Can’t Get Enough?
* How Mokran Fetta Restored Indigenous Kabyle Folk Narratives
Also
* Listen to the episode about Cameroon’s exploding lakes.
Still Can’t Get Enough?!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Creation myths are the first geological myths in the true sense of the word, even when the accounts speak of eggs rather than rock. Creation myths address the most fundamental question of human existence: how did we get here? And as they answer this question, creation myths also provide reason for the other fundamental question of human experience: why we are here? This way, they structure the experience of living. There are hundreds of creation myths and yet, if you ask most Africans, you will most likely hear the biblical or qur’anic version. That was certainly the case for me before I started curating Mythological Africans.
And so for the month of November on the Mythological Africans podcast, we will take a closer look at African creation myths. We’ll also probe, lightly as always, at what they reveal about what the people who believe in them understand about the forces and processes that move and organize their world. We start with two of my favorite Cameroonian creation myths.
References
* Types of Cosmogenic Myths
* Eleanor A. Dasi, “Entry on: The Bali Creation Myth by Robert Ba Ndangho Fomunyang “, peer-reviewed by Daniel Nkemleke, Divine Che Neba and Susan Deacy. Our Mythical Childhood Survey (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2018). Link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/myth-survey/item/443. Accessed 10 Jan. 2021.
* Eleanor Anneh Dasi, “Entry on: How the Earth (Land) Came to Be by Nson Ngambi”, peer-reviewed by Divine Che Neba and Elizabeth Hale. Our Mythical Childhood Survey (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2019). Link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/myth-survey/item/877. Accessed 10 Jan. 2021
MA Posts About Cameroonian Myths, Folklore and Culture
Meanwhile…
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe -
Hello Friends!
We’re at the end of our month-long examination of how different African peoples have fought back against extractive and exploitative industrial and commercial practices, often at the hands of multinational companies.
In the first episode, we discussed Kenya’s Chonyi people’s successful bid to preserve their land and the caves to which they go to commune with their ancestors. In the second episode, we examined how industrial fishing practices like bottom trawling complicates the relationships and practices of artisanal fishing communities on Ghana’s Atlantic coast. For the third and final episode this week, we turn to the Maasai of East Africa and examine what their folklore reveals about their relationships with the land they call home.
Tanzania’s Maasai people are currently locked in a fight to retain control of their ancestral land in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It is the standard issue story of foreign investors working with national governments to implement initiatives that will benefit indigenous people only marginally, while taking over land and stripping away much of what holds the people and their communities together. What is interesting about this case is that this has led to some Maasai elders seeking to remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. This is quite unprecedented. I look at the land through the eyes of the Maasai people themselves to see what they believe they are losing.
“We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.” - Wangari Mathai, Kenyan Environmental Activist and Nobel Laureate
References
* Maasai Cattle Songs
* Inkishu : Myths and Legends of the Maasai by Kioi wa Mbugua
* Hey, that’s our stuff: Maasai tribespeople tackle Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum
* Mount Oldoinyo Lengai
* Can UNESCO Accommodate Both Preservation and Human Rights?
Meanwhile…
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe - Visa fler
