Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T05:26:02.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ambiguous animals: Two theriomorphic metaphors in Kaguru folklore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

T. O. Beidelman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper deals with certain metaphorical uses of animals in the folklore of the Kaguru, a Bantu language speaking people of east-central Tanzania, East Africa. I have published elsewhere on Kaguru social structure (Beidelman, 1971b) and discuss this here only as it bears directly on the problems at hand. I have published many Kaguru folk-tales as well as various legends, riddles, and other texts (cf. bibliographies, Beidelman, 1967a, 1969, 1974c); it is difficult to publish textual material so that much of my data is still unavailable. In this paper I use published and unpublished texts.

Résumé

ANIMAUX AMBIGUS

Cet article traite de certaines utilisations d'animaux à des fins métaphoriques dans le folklore des Kaguru du centre-ouest de la Tanzanie.

Les contes de hyènes et de lièvres sont populaires chez les Kaguru; la conduite des deux protagonistes présente une étroite ressemblance; pourtant, les conteurs kaguru en opposent les implications morales. Le lièvre connote généralement un comportement social positif alors que la hyène infère un comportement asocial. Ces conflits induisent généralement des dénouements, qui définissent la portée et la qualité des obligations sociales réciproques, parfois entre consanguins, parfois entre parents par alliance, parfois encore entre amis et voisins. Différents mobiles et situations sont opposés de telle sorte que ceux qui sont tenus pour socialement acceptables dans une situation sont rejetés dans une autre. L'étude des différents aspects des relations hyène-lièvre fournit des points de repère pour la compréhension des notions de moralité chez les Kaguru en matière de relations sociales. Un de ces contes kaguru est rapporté ici. L'opposition entre la hyène et le lièvre est vu sous plusieurs angles, en termes de taille, de nourriture, de différence dans les habitudes. Ce faisant, on trouve que leurs attributs respectifs semblent similaires. Il est possible de relier les métaphores sexuelles et alimentaires — apparaissant dans les contes kaguru — à la socialisation vécue par tous les Kaguru et aux problèmes récurrents que pose la subordination des besoins et désirs individuels aux obligations que les relations sociales supposent.

Ces thèmes métaphoriques, évidemment chargés de qualités liminaires, ambivalentes ou ambiguës, sont associés, dans les intrigues de ces contes, à des situations et des positions sociales problématiques pour les Kaguru eux-mêmes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 183 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anonymous. 1971a. ‘Mating a Zoo Hyena Proves No Easy Job’, New York Times (2 July: 28).Google Scholar
Anonymous. 1971A. Hyénes tachetées et chacals; famille: les hyénidés', La Fame, xiv. 265–73, 79.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1961a. ‘Hyena and Rabbit: a Kaguru Representation of Matrilineal Relations’, Africa, xxxi. 61–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1961b. ‘Right and Left Hand among the Kaguru: a Note on Symbolic Classification’, Ibid. 250–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1963a. ‘Further Adventures of Hyena and Rabbit: the Folktale as a Sociological Model’, Ibid, xxxiii. 54–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1963b. ‘Witchcraft in Ukaguru’, pp. 57–98, in Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa (eds. Middleton, J. and Winter, E. H.). London: Routledge, Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1963c. ‘Kaguru Omens: an East African People's Concepts of the Unusual, Unnatural, and Super-normal’, Anthropological Quarterly, xxxvi. 43–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1967a. The Matrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania. International African Institute, London.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1967A. ‘Kaguru Folklore and the Concept of Reciprocity’, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, xcii. 74–88.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1969. ‘Addenda to the Bibliography of The Matrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania’, Africa, xxxix. 186–8.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1971a The Kaguru: a Matrilineal People of East Africa. Holt-Rinehart-Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1971A. ‘Some Kaguru Notions about Incest and Other Sexual Prohibitions’, pp. 181–201, in Kinship and Marriage (ed. Needham, R.). Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1972. ‘The Filth of Incest: a Kaguru Text on Sexuality, Alimentation and Aggression’, Cahiers d'itudes africaines, xxi. 164–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1973 ‘Dual Symbolic Classification among the Kaguru’, pp. 128–66, in Right and Left (ed. Needham, R.). University of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1974a. ‘Kaguru Texts: the Ambiguity of the Hate in Kaguru Folklore’, Baessler-Archip xxii. 247–63.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1974b. ‘The Bird Motif in Kaguru Folklore’, Anthropos, lxix. 162–90.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1974c. ‘Further Addenda to the Bibliography of The Matrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania’, Africa, xliv. 297–9.Google Scholar
Boyle, John A. 1973. ‘The Hare in Myth and Reality’, a Review Article, Folklore, lxxxiv. 313–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorson, Richard M. 1972. African Folklore. Anchor Paperback, New York.Google Scholar
Dorst, J., and Dandelot, P. 1969. ‘Hyenas’, pp. 129–30, 134, in A Fieldguide to the Larger Mammals of Africa, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Evans, George, and Thomson, David. 1972. The leaping Hare. Faber, London.Google Scholar
Guggisberg, C. A. W. 1968. Game Animals of Eastern Africa. Patwa, Nairobi.Google Scholar
Jeannin, Albert. 1951. La Faune africaine. Payot, Paris.Google Scholar
Kambe, A. K. 1971. ‘Hyaena Mythology’, Uganda Journal, xxxv. 209–10.Google Scholar
Kruuk, Hans. 1972. The Spotted Hyena. University of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmund R. 1962. ‘Beasts and Triangles’, New Society, i (October), 21–3.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmund R. 1964. ‘Some Anthropological Aspects of Language’, pp. 23–63, in New Directions in the Study of Language (ed. Lenneberg, Eric), M.I.T., Cambridge (Mass.).Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1964. Le Cru et le cuit. Plon, Paris.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1966. The Savage Mind (La Penseé sauvage, 1962). Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.Google Scholar
Lets, W. 1968. The Dawn of Zoology. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.).Google Scholar
Maberly, C. T. A. 1960. Animals of East Africa. Timmins, Capetown.Google Scholar
Shortridge, G. C. 1934. Mammals of South West Africa, vol. i. Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Werner, Alice. 1933. Myths and Legends of the Bantu, Harrap, London.Google Scholar