The Mythology Book

M. A. Murray’s

Ancient Egyptian

Legends details 11

mythological tales

from ancient Egypt.

British anthropologists

conduct field studies

in Africa, continuing

work informally begun by

missionaries and explorers.

Paul Radin presents

a wide array of

myths in African

Folktales and

Sculpture.

Nigerian linguist

Wande Abimbola

collects poetry from

the Ifá system

of divination.

Pierre Fatumbi

Verger’s Yor u bá

Gods in Africa and

in the New World

is published.

Marcel Griaule’s

Conversations with

Ogotemmêli

transcribes Dogon

oral traditions.

In Oral Literature

of the Maasai, Naomi

Kipury elaborates on

the traditions of the

Kenyan people.

Stephen Belcher

collects origin

myths from

throughout the

African continent.

Kingdom pyramids of the pharaohs

(Pyramid Texts) were adapted for

private use in the Middle Kingdom

(Coffin Texts), and by the New

Kingdom they had been codified

in the most famous Egyptian text

of all, the Book of the Dead. Most

Egyptian myths have to be pieced

together from mentions in such

spells, but a few were written

down in narrative form, notably The

Contendings of Horus and Seth—a

violent and comic tale of trickery

and rivalry between two gods.

Sub-Saharan tales

The Akan-Ashanti trickster

Ananse, who is both a man and a

spider, is a fountainhead of comic

and violent storytelling, and

Ananse stories have spread across

West Africa, to the Caribbean and

the US. Oral storytelling is fluid and

adaptable, and can easily transfer

across boundaries in this way.

Gods and traditions of West African

peoples such as the Yorùbá and the

Fon traveled with enslaved

Africans to the New World, where

they formed the basis of new

“voodoo” religions. Legba, the Fon

equivalent of the Yoruba god Eshu,

became the Vodou god Legba.

If the system of Ifá divination

presided over by Eshu—a god who

can assume 256 different forms—

seems complicated, it is nothing

when compared to the convoluted

metaphysics of the myths of the

Dogon in Mali. Their highly

complex belief system embodies

the fundamental idea that humanity

is the “seed” of the universe, and

the human form echoes both the

first moment of creation and the

entire created universe. Each

Dogon village is laid out in the

shape of a human body, and is

regarded as a living being.

Living religions

The impact of Sub-Saharan

mythologies on people’s daily lives

is still evident. The East African

myth of En-kai creating cattle

and giving them to the Maasai laid

the cultural foundations for that

people’s way of life. The poetic

myths of the San Bushmen of the

Kalahari desert in southern Africa

tell of the doings of the Early Race

of beings who are both human and

animal, such as the creator Kaang.

Both man and mantis, Kaang

dreamed the world into being.

Today, San shamans still enter a

similar dream state to exercise

powers such as rainmaking,

healing, or hunting magic. ■

ANCIENT EGYPT AND AFRICA

1913

CA. 1930 1953 1981 2005

1948 1977 1983

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