Essay Week 7: Congo Folklore and Family Relationships

This week I read folktales from the Congo Unit. A very common theme across the twenty or so stories was family, with most stories containing siblings and having a characters mother in the story as well. The parents were not a very integral part of the story, but there always seemed to be a mother present. At the very least, the stories would at least start by saying the main character or characters were the son or daughter of whatever the parent’s name happened to be. The most common family interaction was between siblings, especially brothers. In The Vanishing Wife and The Twin Brothers, the main characters are a set of brothers who do not get along. A number of stories were based on a brotherly quarrel that causes them to split and head separate directions.

On a side note, something interesting that I noticed is not all of the siblings or characters were in human form. There were leopards, antelopes, crocodiles, and numerous other animals that were given very human-like characteristics. They could think, talk, and interact like humans and seemed to be interchangeable with them in the stories I read. These animals would have arguments and quarrels just like some of the brothers did in each story.

Another important family relationship in the folktales was marriage. From what I can remember, pretty much each story involved male characters that had a wife (or wives) or went searching for a wife. Marriage was so important that a few characters were even gifted beautiful wives by some form of magic.

There weren’t a lot of common themes that seemed either promoted or discouraged as far as families go, but there were lots of men who had multiple wives. Other than polygamy, there didn’t seem to be any other common themes though, except quarrels between brothers that ended in fighting!

Animals found in Africa.

Bibliography:

Image Info: African Animals from The New Student's Reference Work (2006). Web Source: Wikipedia.