Themes of African Mythology Africa did not develop one overall myth system, because Africa itself does not have one people, one history, or one language. African peoples speak more than 2,000 different languages. They have almost as many traditions of behavior and belief and mythologies. Still, common themes do exist. Linguists divide indigenous African languages into four distinct language families: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo- Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoisan. A fifth group includes Indo-European languages (Afrikaans, English, and Creole Portuguese) and Malayo-Polynesian. This slavery memorial in Zanzibar, Tanzania, commemorates the terrible toll European slave traders took on African communities. Millions of Africans were captured and sold as slaves to work on American- and European-owned plantations. (Malagasy, spoken on the island of Madagascar). A comparison of the mythologies of different groups within the same language family provides the following generalizations. Afro-Asiatic (North Africa, East Africa) This language family reflects the influence of ancient Egyptian mythology, with its theme of the soul’s journey after death. A related theme is the division of the world into three realms: the underworld, where the souls of the departed reside, the middle world of the living, and the upper world that is the home of the deities. Nilo-Saharan (Central Africa) The predominant mythological theme in this language family is a recurring creation account in which heaven and Earth were originally close together and connected by a link (chain, leather strip, rope, spider web) that permitted humans and the divine beings to reach one another. Then something occurred that caused a separation—in various myths it was disobedience, violence, or a misunderstanding—and the link between heaven and Earth was broken. The supreme being receded from humanity, and death came into the world.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 13:19:27 +0000
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