Fables Mongo
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Authors
Hulstaert, G.
Issue Date
1970
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
I have for a long time avoided this huge 671-page book. It combines three languages in offering and commenting upon the fables of the Mongo people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least that is what I think it does! If there were a competition among the 6700 books of this collection for the most recherché or academic or unexpected, this book would be in the running. After just a few pages of introductory material (in Flemish?), there are three major sections, as the T of C on 671 shows: Various Animals, The Turtle Cycle, and The Antelope Cycle. A bilingual T of C for the first part (308-13) lists some 125 fables. As will happen in the other two sections, that T of C is preceded by alphabetical lists of the animals involved in these fables. Juding from that T of C, I found no fables that seemed to have been imported from the usual fables, say, of La Fontaine. I tried one: #68: The Eagle and the Monkey. King Elephant once ordered all the animals to form two groups, up above and down below. The eagle urged the monkey to join the up above group, but he refused. Some time later, the eagle found the monkey eating the fruit in a tall tree, challenged him for eating the food of the up above animals, and -- receiving no answer -- killed him. Good fable! The T of C for the second part on 562-64 lists 63 fables. The same sort of check here discovered #44, The Tortoise and the Two Ducks, familiar from Kalila and Dimna. I notice a footnote that this fable is unusual because it presents the tortoise as stupid. People on the ground say Come, look at the king of tortoises! The tortoise opens his mouth to say Yes, I am the king of tortoises! The Antelope Cycle contains 24 fables; their T of C is on 668-69. I am very lucky to have come across this unusual book!
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Publisher
Académie royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer
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DOI
Identifier
7324 (Access ID)