The African continent is often referred to as the birthplace of the human race and the oldest inhabited landmass on the planet, a land steeped in ancestral memory. It's no surprise, then, that mythology and folklore from Africa represent some of the world's oldest stories. While much of this rich tradition has been orally transmitted, numerous books offer a glimpse into the diverse and captivating world of African myths and legends. This article explores some notable books that delve into the heart of African mythology and folklore.
Understanding African Folklore and Mythology
Folklore and folktales are frequently confused. Folktales are stories passed down from generation to generation, particularly those that are part of a culture’s tradition. Folklore on the other hand is the unwritten literature of a people, their cultural canon passed down orally across the generations. It encompasses the tales, legends, or superstitions held by the people. Our continent is divided by the Sahara desert into two regions, the northern African region above the desert and Sub-Saharan Africa below the desert.
It has been estimated that there are over seven thousand African myths, legends, and folktales. Despite the vastness of the continent, the many clans, and languages, African myths and folktales have much in common. Their rich cultures were orally passed down from generation to generation in the forms of stories, songs, epics, myths, etc. For some tribes, these were told by storytellers called the griots or jeli. In other cultures, these are passed down among the people, from an older generation to a younger generation.
The majority of the tribes in Africa have a creation story as part of their mythology, their take on how the world was created. For the Yoruba and the Igbo, he is called in their languages, the Maker and Owner of Life. The people of Akan call him the Excavator who created all things; the Akamba call him the Maker of All Things; the Banyarwanda know him as the Potter of Life; the Tiv refer to him as the Great Carpenter; the Kiga call him the fashioner. Then the deities are lesser gods. Unlike the principal Creator God, they are often more involved in human lives. The Lovedu people have Mujaji, a rain goddess.
Spirits in African mythology are mostly tied to geographical locations such as lakes, rivers, oceans, mountains, forests, or even trees. Ancestors are believed in African traditional society to be the spirits of loved ones and family members who have passed on. They are mostly seen as good, helpful, and protective. Legends are men and women who have performed feats that immortalized them before their people. An example is the Epic of Sundiata, which is an epic poem of the Malinke people. Then the Trickster is an orchestrator of mischief in African folklore, usually taking the form of an animal, god, or human. The most popular animal tricksters are Anansi the spider and Tortoise.
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Essential Books on African Mythology and Folklore
Myth in Africa by Isidore Okpewho
If I was to recommend one book and one book only, it would be Isidore Okpewho’s Myth in Africa. I was incredibly fortunate to have found this book early in my exploration of mythology and folklore from the continent. Isidore Okpewho was an Urhobo/Igbo (Nigeria), classical scholar who used his deep understanding of western literary traditions to highlight the latent dynamism of African mythology and folklore. What I love and find most helpful about Myth in Africa is how it skillfully establishes the myths and folklore of African people as more than the “dreamlike mumbo jumbo of some red-eyed witch doctor of the Congo” as Campbell blithely put it.
Oral Literature in Africa by Ruth Finnegan
Irish linguistic anthropologist Ruth Finnegan’s six-hundred-page text Oral Literature in Africa is perhaps the most comprehensive reference available for scholars of African orature. What I loved the most about Oral Literature in Africa is the sheer fact of its range. It is a thoroughly researched book with examples from Cape to Cairo, Dakar to Dar es Salaam.
Al Majus by Ibrahim al Koni
Ibrahim al Koni is of the Tuareg people who claim nationality mainly from Libya, Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. The Tuareg lifestyle is a vivid demonstration of how humans, with a clear understanding of their environment, can survive even the harshest of conditions. Traditionally, they build no permanent settlements. By doing this, they preserve the fragile ecological balance of their unforgiving desert home, taking just as much as they need, and moving on quickly to give the land a chance to recover. Ibrahim al-Koni was born in the Fezzan region of southwestern Libya. Al Majus is a massive book-over five hundred pages broken down into two volumes, and four parts. But only a book of this size could possibly contain everything al-Koni put into it in the way he does.
Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art by Sylvia Ardyn Boone
Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art is another book I read early in my exploration of African mythology and folklore. Much has been written about African women in the traditional or modern context. Traditional (and to a large extent modern) Mende women’s self-concept is deeply influenced by their induction and participation in Sande, the powerful centuries old women’s secret society. Boone’s complimentary writing about Sande’s rules, lore, activities and artefacts highlights the many ways in which the organization elevates and empowers Mende women. As an African woman who attended girl’s only boarding schools founded by Christian missionaries, Radiance from the Waters presented me with an alternate and critically important vision of what was possible for my self-concept.
Specimens of Bushman Folklore by Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek and Lucy Lloyd
This poem, titled “The Broken String,” comes from German and Welsh linguists Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek and Lucy Lloyd’s Specimens of Bushman Folklore published in 1911. Xaa-ttin might as well have been singing for his people. The San, one the African continent’s longest surviving indigenes, have steadily been dispossessed of their land, lifestyle and language, first by incursions of Bantu populations moving southwards, then by the European colonial machine and its aftermath. Bleek and Llyod, however, are immortalized as two of the best known scholars of African languages of their time.
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Contemporary Fiction Inspired by African Mythology
While speculative fiction has been around for a long time, black authors in this genre have been scarce. In the SFF genre, finding books with African themes and characters has historically been difficult and required networks of interested readers to share them with new audiences. Even more moving is finding books fashioned from Africa’s rich and diverse cultures.
Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okoroafor’s debut novel gracefully melds African folklore with a coming-of-age tale inZahrah the Windseeker, is a young adult fantasy novel. The novel is based in the fictional world of the Ooni Kingdom, where a 13-year-old Zahrah lives. Zahrah considers herself a normal girl, but others around her don’t see her that way. She has dada locks, rumored to come with unusual powers. Dari is put at risk when Zahrah begins to come into her powers and weird things start happening.
In the book, dreadlocks are called dadalocks, a wordplay on the Igbo word for dreadlocks: dada. People born with dada are believed by the Igbo to have spiritual power. Touching a dada’s hair without consent is a big no-no as it is believed to make the child sick. If you did so, you had to give the child cowries - a kind of currency and means of exchange. Cutting their hair without their consent is believed to cause dire consequences. Nnedi uses the story to address the stigma attached to dada in the real world. I love that she uses the story to point out that the way others see you doesn’t define you.
David Mogo, Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s debut novel is a fantasy novel set on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. David Mogo, the protagonist, is a demigod and a godhunter. A crater has fallen in the middle of the city and with it fell gods and spirits, leading to clashes between humans and the fallen gods. This book had its readers split in two; those who didn’t understand the world-building, deities, or his use of pidgin English and authentic Yoruba terms. The readers that got it, gasped at his fantastic world-building and how seamless and easy the book was to read.
Aziza is a creature from the mythology of the West Dahomey people. They are nature spirits, whose description fits that of the fairy. They are very beautiful little creatures with African features, possess wings, and glow with magical light. The gods Olokun, Sango, Ogun, Oya, and Oba are some of the Yoruba gods used in this book. In ode to this, the author uses a non-binary pronoun to represent the sea god. His use of African traditional religious ritual practices like warding ritual and charm casting was as accurate as possible.
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Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Freshwater is an autobiographical fiction novel. The story is narrated by the protagonist, Ada, an Ogbanje, and the selves that inhabit her body. The story follows the different timelines of her life. She has a dysfunctional Nigerian upbringing and as she comes of age, the selves start striving to dominate her. She attends college in America where she encounters even more trauma. In the book, Akwaeke explores the theme of Ogbanje.
In Igbo Folklore, Ogbanje is believed to be a malevolent spirit that comes in the form of a child, destined to die and reincarnate over and again to torment the mother and family. It is believed that they like to come to families where they will be pampered. Usually, one where a child is desperately wanted, just like Ada’s parents in the book. When they don’t get their way, Ogbanjes threaten to die and are believed to make themselves sick as a result. In more modern times, some have argued that Ogbanje was a form of sickle cell anemia, as this accounts for the short life span and the mothers losing multiple children. Others believe it to be schizophrenia, which accounts for the mental disorder, or even a combination of the two.
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Akata Witch is a young adult fantasy novel. The story is about Sunny, a 12-year-old girl who’s an albino. Her parents brought her back from America and enrolled her in a school in Aba, Nigeria. She makes friends with other children, Chichi and Orlu. She soon finds out who she is, where her powers come from, and what her mission is. Nnedi as usual pulls from Igbo folklore and mythology in her book. She weaves Nsibidi scripts into her story, where it is used as a writing form by the Leopard people.
Other figures from mythology in the book are Mami Wata, a beautiful water spirit that can take on human form. It’s said to have long hair and fair skin and is often a jealous, seductive and dangerous spirit. Her use of the concept of the masquerade in the story was also from Igbo mythology. In Igbo folklore, masquerades are believed to emerge into the human world from ant-holes. This is because the spirit world is believed to be under the earth. Just like in the novel, masquerade summoning is dangerous and reserved for those that have the knowledge and power.
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Nigerian-born Helen Oyeyemi tells a horror story borne of Nigerian and Greek mythology. Jess is an 8-year-old girl of mixed racial parents. Her mother is Nigerian and her father is British. She struggles with anxiety and other social issues and has difficulty making friends while living in England. When her parents take her to Nigeria she makes her first friend, a girl named Tilly Tilly.
The story explores the theme of Abiku. Abiku is a Yoruba word that means ‘born to die’. Abiku children in Yoruba mythology usually die before the age of twelve. They are believed to come from a community of demons living in the forests and are usually found around and within large Iroko trees and huge silk trees. They leave their “Ẹgbé” - a gathering of lost children who live within the Iroko tree - to become human children with a sworn promise to return to the fold at a specific time.
Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora
Dominion is a collection of magical stories by black authors of the speculative fiction genre. It’s the first anthology written exclusively by Africans and the African Diaspora. It contains short stories from fantasy to horror and science fiction. A fascinating scope of scenes and worlds is showcased: some are set in ancient African worlds, and others are set in the future. In some of the stories, the writers use deities from different African mythologies within their stories.
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
Set in the rural Ghanaian village of Sonokrom, where traditional ways still exist and thrive. The girlfriend of a government minister finds her way into the village whilst following a strange blue bird. The police call in Kwadwo Okai Odammten called Kayo, who studied forensic pathology in England and worked several years as a crime scenes officer in the Midlands. The character who narrates the story, Yaw Poku, is a very traditional character who lends the story an otherworldly and archaic tone. This explains the use of the traditional language of Twi - a dialect of the Akan people. Folk tales are used by Yaw Poku to help them find answers to questions asked in the book. This is in line with one of the purposes of folktales, to guide and to teach.
The Deep by Rivers Solomon
This novel tells the story of merpeople, descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown into the ocean by slave owners. They live idyllic lives in the deep of the sea, ignorant of their traumatic past, too much for everyone to think of. She carries the memories for everyone else, painful but extraordinary, awful and incredible memories that are destroying her. She escapes to the surface, running away from the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities.
African folklore is not devoid of its share of the merpeople lore. Yemaya or Yemója is a Yoruba goddess. She is said to be the mother of all orishá, the gods and goddesses. She is the goddess of rivers and oceans and is usually depicted as a mermaid. Yemaya was one of the gods that made it across the seas with the slaves. Mami Wata, or Mother Water, appears here again. She is another African mythological figure in the pantheon of water spirits. She is also usually depicted as a mermaid, beautiful with long, flowing, black hair.
There’s nothing more magical than hearing a story that has traveled thousands of years. The Dogon people have an origin story involving fish creatures called nommos.
| Figure | Tribe/Culture | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Olokun | Yoruba | Patron god of the sea, seen as androgynous. |
| Yemaya | Yoruba | Goddess of rivers and oceans, often depicted as a mermaid. |
| Mami Wata | Various | Water spirit, often depicted as a mermaid, known for beauty and danger. |
| Anansi | Akan | A spider, a popular trickster figure. |
| Mujaji | Lovedu | Rain goddess. |
| Ala | Igbo | Mother earth figure, ruler of the underworld and goddess of fertility. |
| Ogbanje | Igbo | Malevolent spirit that reincarnates as a child, causing torment to the family. |
