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Tracing the “Matlangu-wa-libala”: The Trajectory of a Ronga Tale

Andreas Schmid
Traduction(s) :
Sur les traces du « Gambadeur-de-la-plaine ». Trajectoire d’un conte ronga [fr]

Résumés

Retraçant la trajectoire d’un conte ronga intitulé « Matlangu-wa-libala » (« Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine »), cet article montre comment recherche de provenance et critique philologique peuvent être conjuguées. Il existe de ce conte des versions très différentes : dans le roman de Simone Schwarz-Bart Ti Jean L’horizon (1979), dans des anthologies de contes populaires éditées entre autres par les écrivains d’avant-garde Carl Einstein (1925) et Blaise Cendrars (1921), ou encore par le linguiste Carl Meinhof (1917). La première version écrite du récit, qui figure dans les travaux du missionnaire Henri Junod (1898), mérite une attention particulière : elle nous renseigne sur Chiguyane, la conteuse dont le nom et l’identité, mais aussi la théorie littéraire, ont disparu dans les versions résultant des pratiques d’appropriation et de circulation qui se sont imposées.

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  • 1 It can be found in Guyana, Mauritius, North America, and Canada, while also showing similarities wi (...)

1Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Ti Jean L’horizon (1979) transfers Caribbean songs and folktales into the medium of the novel. Ti Jean is presented as a trickster-type figure. He connects different spheres between the divine, the terrestrial, and the underworld, changes his appearance, and receives different names in the places he travels. According to Véronique Corinus (2023, 161), the cycle of Ti Jean belongs to the most widespread pieces of Antillean folklore.1

  • 2 “You who gambol over the plains” (Schwarz-Bart 1981, 196).

2However, Schwarz-Bart did not limit her selection to the Antilles; she also referred to African orature. About halfway through the novel, Ti Jean arrives in Africa following a mythical journey from his home in Guadeloupe. Once his secret transformative powers are discovered, he is stoned to death for sorcery. Wandering among the dead, Ti Jean attempts to find a way back to Guadeloupe but remains unsuccessful for many years. Only the queen of the kingdom of the dead can show him the right path. During their encounter, she addresses him as “gambadeur des plaines”2 (Schwarz-Bart 1979, 209). One of her devilish servants is instructed to show him the way, and this servant begins to tease Ti Jean and sing:

Je te le dis.
Hé! gambadeur du Royaume
Tu t’en vas par l’obscurité profonde, profonde
Tu erres lamentablement dans la nuit
Hé! Hé! gambadeur
Hé! Hé! gambadeur du Royaume
(Schwarz-Bart 1979, 216)

I’m telling you
You, gamboler of the Kingdom
You’re heading for deepest darkness
You’re going woefully astray
You gamboler
Gamboler of the Kingdom!
(Schwarz-Bart 1981, 203)

3While I must always credit Simone Schwarz-Bart for the authorship of this song in this version, it has, in fact, a much longer history, as does the peculiar address “gambadeur des plaines.” Both can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, to a storyteller on a hill in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Throughout its journey from there to Guadeloupe, the song and the folktale it is associated with have appeared in various versions, places, and times. In a sense, the travels and transformations of Ti Jean in the novel mirror and also rely on the travels and transformations of folktales. This paper focuses on their trickster-like existence, using the gambadeur as an example.

  • 3 This approach was first proposed in Albers and Schmid 2023.

4I propose to combine philological textual criticism with provenance research to examine the trajectories of texts recorded in a colonial setting and then published in Europe.3 Moving away from an overemphasis on the search for the “original,” Bruno Latour and Adam Lowe compare the history of an artwork to the complex trajectory of a river: “A given work of art should be compared not to any isolated spring but to a catchment area, a river along with its estuaries, its tributaries, its rapids, its meanders, and, of course, its hidden sources” (Latour and Lowe 2011, 278). Following this idea, the original appears as a result of reproduction practices rather than the beginning of linear development. In many instances, there may not even be an original, but rather a variety of versions that define orature. Hence, the question is not whether one is dealing with a reproduction but how it is made. Philological provenance research investigates how texts were recorded, transcribed, rewritten, formatted, scaled, shortened, expanded, translated, printed, framed, and copied; in short, how orature was turned into literature (Schüttpelz 2005, 33–34). Thus, this approach provides a media theoretical and literary historical perspective on the study of entextualization in linguistic anthropology, which shares an interest in the “aesthetic of transposition, transduction, and translation” as well as in the often asymmetrical “architecture of social relations” involved in these processes (Silverstein and Urban 1996, 14).

5Anthologies are particularly interesting: editorial and publishing practices, including the selection, arrangement, and classification of content, book design, paratexts, and marketing, which aim to influence the trajectories of the texts while also impacting their meaning. If possible, the embedding of the oral text in performative, ritual, and material contexts should also be accounted for (Finnegan 2007, 5–6). Drawing lessons from postcolonial provenance research, this approach also pays greater attention to the specific, often violent situation of looting (Förster, Edenheiser, and Fründt 2018). This entails not only working closely with the textual material but also embedding it in the broader historical context of its making and publication. It is necessary to reconstruct the (colonial) infrastructures that made recording possible and the cultural contexts in which a republication can become a success.

6To illustrate the wealth of new insights this research offers, I will trace the provenance of “Matlangu-wa-libala,” a Ronga tale titled “Le Gambadeur-de-la-plaine” by the missionary Henri Junod. It tells the story of a young man who is unwilling to accept that his parents have arranged a marriage for him. He insists on choosing his wife despite warnings about the misfortune this decision may bring upon him. His wife also defies her parents’ wish for her to be accompanied by a girl for support, choosing instead her group’s buffalo, the gambadeur, thereby reducing a sacred animal to a mere servant. Unaware of this arrangement, the husband kills the buffalo one night when he catches it stealing food. The wife’s futile attempts to resurrect it are accompanied by a song, the only element of the story that Junod presents in both Ronga and French rather than just in French. As the wife’s people learn of the incident, they commit mass suicide, while the husband is chastised by his parents for not heeding their advice.

  • 4 For practical reasons, I have excluded versions of the tale in English, namely, “The Rover of the P (...)

7Tracing the tale’s trajectory encompasses its various appearances in avant-garde and popular anthologies, leading back to its first written record in Lourenço Marques (Maputo) in 1896.4 Initially, I will examine two anthologies by avant-garde authors, Carl Einstein’s Afrikanische Legenden (1925) and Blaise Cendrars’s Anthologie n**** (1921), which present the tale in strikingly different ways. Carl Meinhof’s Afrikanische Märchen (1917) features a German translation that varies considerably from Einstein’s and allows me to look more broadly at folklore publishing in the 1910s and 1920s. All three of them rely on a common source, the works of the missionary Henri Junod (1897/98). The final section will be dedicated to the storyteller, Chiguyane, who shared the tale with him.

Carl Einstein, 1925: Expressionist Africa

  • 5 For a concise overview of Einstein’s interest in Africa see Meffre 2015.

8Known to art historians for his illustrated books on African sculpture (1915 and 1921) and to literary scholars for his Expressionist prose text Bebuquin (1907/1912), it is less well known that Carl Einstein was also invested in African songs and myths. In 1916 and 1917, he published selections of them in avant-gardist periodicals: myths in Marsyas and songs in Die Aktion, one of the leading journals of German Expressionism. At the time, he was working at the Colonial Office in occupied Brussels, where he developed a serious interest in anthropology and deepened his enthusiasm for African art and culture.5 With the libraries in Brussels and at the Museum of Belgian Congo in Tervuren, Einstein was well equipped to advance his project of a “mythologie congolaise,” which he first mentioned in a letter to Paul Guillaume in 1919 (Einstein 2020, 100). Much later, in 1925, he published the fruits of his work in the anthology Afrikanische Legenden (African Legends).

  • 6 My doctoral thesis will include the complete list of sources.
  • 7 Translated literally: “The Jester of the Plain.”
  • 8 This is confirmed by Einstein researchers, who—if they addressed Afrikanische Legenden at all—typic (...)

9Einstein’s anthology is organized into geographic, ethnic, or linguistic groups. Almost half of the 74 texts were recorded in the Belgian Congo (36), while the others originate from what is now Togo (11), Gabon (10), Tanzania (5), Mozambique (5), Benin (4), and Burundi (3). Einstein typically selected several texts from a single publication, so of the 141 titles in his bibliography, only fifteen served as sources. Most of these were the works of missionaries.6 Ronga is featured as the final section. However, Einstein’s German translation of “Le Gambadeur” is mistakenly included as the last text in the preceding group, titled “Warundi (Uranda).” Presumably unaware of Carl Meinhof’s earlier German edition, Einstein translated the title as “Der Gaukler der Ebene.”7 It seems that this was catchy enough to feature as the main title on the cover of a later edition of his anthology: Der Gaukler der Ebene und andere afrikanische Legenden (The Jester of the Plain and Other African Legends, Fischer 1983), giving the impression that it was the most significant of the “legends.”8

  • 9 Translated literally: “This done, the wound was made smaller.” In Einstein’s source: “Cela fait, la (...)
  • 10 Translated literally: “Their back would break in astonishment.”

10Arguably, the term gambadeur is challenging to translate into German. However, other choices in Einstein’s translation help delineate his distinct approach. Marion Pape has identified various stylistic decisions in Einstein’s translation, such as the use of Biblical or antiquated language, omissions, and what she calls “Africanisms” and “Expressionisms” (Pape 1993, 133). Often, these result from a literal translation from the French. For example, he retained the syntax of his source, creating grammatical oddities: “Dies getan, war die Wunde verkleinert” (Einstein 1925, 238).9 Another instance illustrates the use of “Africanisms”: Junod includes the peculiar expression “leur dos ne se cassera pas de saisissement” and notes in a footnote that this refers to “l’étonnement extreme, la stupefaction” (Junod 1898a, 355), suggesting that this was a common phrase in Ronga. Einstein translated the French literally as “der Rücken bräche ihnen vor Erstaunen” (Einstein 1925, 235)10 but omitted the footnote, leaving it to the reader to interpret the expression. Thus, the French served Einstein as a medium to make the German text more “African” and more “Expressionist.”

11Pape has also argued that Einstein’s translation of the “Gambadeur” song (Einstein 1925, 239) is rhythmically closer to the Ronga version than to the French in his source. He indeed shortened the text by avoiding redundancies such as “Ils me l’ont bien dit, ils me l’ont bien dit” (Junod 1898a, 357) and by reducing information (“la jeune plante de ricin,” “the young ricin plant,” is translated as “die junge Pflanze,” “the young plant”). Yet, apart from the laconic brevity that Einstein often employed, usually without the influence of an African language text, the French once again dictated the German style.

12In other cases, Einstein chose to diverge from his French source, at least on the level of content. Most strikingly, he turned the gun the husband uses to shoot the buffalo into a lance. It appears that in his vision of Africa, firearms have no place. The most significant change, as previously noted (Pan 2001, 179–181; Simons 2004, 484), was the omission of the moralizing ending. A whole paragraph is absent in which the husband returns home and is admonished by his parents, emphasizing that one should always obey them when choosing a marital partner. Instead, Einstein’s text concludes with madness and slit throats. Rather than adding blood to the canvas, Einstein accentuated the violence of the narrative by removing its frame.

13I argue that Einstein applied a poetics of purification. He eliminated what he perceived as redundancies of style and content, as well as supposedly “modern” inventions like firearms and moral framing. Viewed this way, Afrikanische Legenden share a significant feature with the aesthetics developed in N****plastik (N**** Sculpture, 1915). Einstein credited African sculpture with achieving a totality of form that European artists only attempted to replicate. However, his theory was based on purified artefacts, from which nails had been removed, paint rubbed off, and surfaces treated with preservatives. Zoë Strother provides the example of a Congolese nkondi sculpture from the former Museum of Belgian Congo and compares it to the photograph of a similar object in Einstein’s N****plastik (Strother 2011, 34–35) (Fig. 1 and 2). As challenging as it is to align the theory with the photographs, his concepts of totality, radical form, frontality, etc. would have corresponded far less with the uncleansed artifacts. It was the collectors’ and art traders’ operations of purification that enabled Einstein to identify African sculpture as the radical art he sought.

Fig. 1. Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Nkisi nkondi (detail). Wood, pigment, tooth, vegetal fiber, glass, metals. 112 cm x 40 cm x 34 cm. EO.0.0.19845, collection Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium. Photo R. Asselberghs © MRAC Tervuren.

Fig. 1. Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Nkisi nkondi (detail). Wood, pigment, tooth, vegetal fiber, glass, metals. 112 cm x 40 cm x 34 cm. EO.0.0.19845, collection Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium. Photo R. Asselberghs © MRAC Tervuren.

Photo R. Asselberghs © MRAC Tervuren.

Fig. 2. Carl Einstein, N****plastik. Leipzig, Verlag der Weissen Bücher, 1915. Plate 19. Nkisi nkondi, Kongo.

Fig. 2. Carl Einstein, N****plastik. Leipzig, Verlag der Weissen Bücher, 1915. Plate 19. Nkisi nkondi, Kongo.

Photo Alberto Ricci.

14By contrast, the “legends” required him to carry out these operations himself. He reduced them to a form that suited not only stereotypes of African savagery but also modernist poetics. Did he believe that African folktales surpassed the European avant-garde’s efforts to find a new language and style in the wake of the First World War? This is at least what Yvan Goll thought one of the songs Einstein edited for Die Aktion accomplished. In his essay “Das Wort an sich” (“The word in itself”, 1921), Goll envisioned a hypermodern primitivism that surpassed old Expressionism. To illustrate his idea of a new, simplified poetic language, he quoted a Luba song that Einstein translated from the French, transforming it into an Expressionist piece by similar means as described above, and printed it in the style of a poem. Goll regarded Einstein’s Expressionist version of an African song as an example of simplified poetry transcending Expressionism.

Blaise Cendrars, 1921: Totemist Origins

15In the context of the avant-garde, another anthology of African orature was published, whose connection to Einstein’s has puzzled researchers: the Franco-Swiss author Blaise Cendrars’s Anthologie n**** (1921). Cendrars (1887–1961) established himself as a notable writer in the years preceding the First World War and is now regarded as a key figure in French modernist literature. However, it was not solely his prose and poetry that left a significant mark on the literary landscape of the time. Alain Locke, an American philosopher and one of the founding fathers of the Harlem Renaissance, observed that “what is a recognized school of modern French poetry professes the inspiration of African sources,—Apollinaire, Reverdy, Salmon, Fargue, and others. The bible of this school has been Cendrars’s Anthologie n****” (Locke 1924, 137).

  • 11 “J’ai fait mon Anthologie n**** en compulsant 11821 volumes à la Bibliothèque nationale et en m’aid (...)

16This “bible” was the product not of travels, but of library research—a very thorough research, as he boasted in a lecture in São Paulo in 1924, where he was invited as an expert on Africa (Denogent 2024, 113–115): “I created my Anthologie n**** by consulting 11,821 volumes at the Bibliothèque nationale, using grammars, dictionaries and tales written down by missionaries and brought back from Africa as early as 1815.”11 In reality, he had asked the young author Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923) to copy African texts (Fig. 3). Cendrars then organized the texts and added a brief preface and an extensive bibliography.

Fig. 3. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, manuscript of Raymond Radiguet, edited by Blaise Cendrars (detail).

Fig. 3. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, manuscript of Raymond Radiguet, edited by Blaise Cendrars (detail).

Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Archives littéraires suisses, fonds Cendrars O 23/I. Chap. IX, 35 © Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Photo Marco Stalder.

  • 12 “En effet, l’étude des langues et de la littérature des races primitives est une des connaissances (...)
  • 13 “Cendrars, en citant Gourmont, légitime le rôle de la littérature dans la connaissance d’une part d (...)

17Similar to the anthology of Einstein, Cendrars’s bibliography simulates diligent scholarship while, in reality, concealing the sources. Nearly one-third of the texts were taken from René Basset’s Contes populaires d’Afrique (1903). The preface likewise lists authoritative figures in African scholarship, but concludes with a curious reference to the French poet Remy de Gourmont: “In fact, the study of the languages and literature of primitive races provides one of the most indispensable insights into the history of the human mind, and the surest illustration of the law of intellectual constancy envisaged by Remy de Gourmont.”12 This “law of intellectual constancy” describes a creative capacity within the human mind that is uniformly distributed across various regions and eras. It enables individuals around the world to cultivate their lives and adapt to their respective environments. Gourmont posited that poetic genius belongs to this universal faculty. Thus, it could manifest in Western metropolises and colonial peripheries, in written poetry and oral traditions. Jehanne Denogent (2024, 108–110) has examined this reference in greater depth and concluded that “Cendrars, in citing Gourmont, legitimizes the role of literature in understanding a part of the human, an understanding to which anthropology cannot aspire.”13 While recognizing that anthropologists and linguists have revealed the richness of African languages, Cendrars nonetheless distinguished his perspective as a literary author from their work. Denogent contends that in doing so, Cendrars sought to elevate African orature from mere linguistic or ethnographic specimens into the domain of world literature (Denogent 2023, 44).

18However, upon examining the classifications he used to organize the selection of texts, it appears that he did not reject the anthropological approach as decisively as one might think. Rather than emphasizing literary qualities in the section titles, Cendrars began with the classic vocabulary of anthropology: the first thirty-six texts fall under either “fétichisme,” “divinités primitives,” or “totémisme.” Only then follow literary genres such as “légendes historiques,” “contes d’amour,” “contes humoristiques,” “fables,” and ultimately five “contes modernes.” While Einstein’s anthology follows a geographic journey from West Africa (Togo) through Central Africa (Congo) to Southeast Africa (Mozambique), Cendrars instead offers a temporal journey, chronicling an evolutionist history of African orature that commences with the “primitive” and concludes with the “modern.”

  • 14 “Ce ne sont pas toujours les versions les plus originales, ni les traductions les plus fidèles. Il (...)
  • 15 “qui devient ‘fétiche métonymique’ de sa personne.”
  • 16 “Cendrars s’approprie donc l’auctorialité de ces contes, par le biais de leur publication, en la su (...)

19This is not the only difference in their editorial practices. Cendrars adhered much more closely to the text of his sources and did not allow himself the liberties of rewriting that Einstein took. In his introduction, he apologizes for what might have been lost in the French translations he had to rely on: “These are not always the most original versions, nor the most faithful translations. It is regrettable that literary accuracy is not the exclusive concern of these distant travelers.”14 I presume that Einstein’s view on the quality of his sources might not have differed substantially from this; however, he believed it was his duty to correct their mistakes and reemphasize the literary through his more creative editorial approach. But even if Cendrars altered less about the texts, assembling and publishing them transformed him into the author of “his” anthology, “which becomes a ‘metonymic fetish’ of his person,”15 as Carole Maccotta (2011, 46) has critically remarked: “Cendrars thus appropriates the authorship of these tales, through their publication, by stealing it from their real authors, the African storytellers.”16

20And after all, Cendrars did make a few changes. In his rendition of “Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine,” he reduced punctuation and omitted the Ronga version of the song, which Radiguet included in his transcript (Fig. 4). More importantly, Cendrars counted it among the earlier pieces in his evolutionary sequence, adding it to the section “Le totémisme.” This decision aligned with the scholarly interest in the text. In the volume on Armenia and Africa (1925) of The Mythology of All Races (1916–1932), the British Africanist Alice Werner cited the story as an example of the vital dependency of a group on their totem, while also explaining that “Gambadeur de la Plaine” is the “shibongo or ‘praise-name’ of the totem” (Ananikian and Werner 1925, 278). In her preface to the 2005 edition of Anthologie n****, Christine Le Quellec Cottier (in Cendrars 2005, XVI) argued that Cendrars’s interest in the concepts of totemism and fetishism stemmed from the French missionary Henri Trilles’s Le Totémisme chez les Fân (1912), which he also exploited as a source of stories.

Fig. 4. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, manuscript of Raymond Radiguet, edited by Blaise Cendrars.

Fig. 4. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, manuscript of Raymond Radiguet, edited by Blaise Cendrars.

Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Archives littéraires suisses, fonds Cendrars O 23/I. Chap. IX, 35 © Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Photo Marco Stalder.

  • 17 “Ce conte, d’origine sans doute à demi européenne, rappelle l’histoire de la Belle et la Bête et ce (...)
  • 18 “Ce conte est curieux parce que c’est le seul où apparaît une croyance apparentée aux croyances tot (...)

21Notably, Cendrars did not consider all Ronga stories to be equally ancient. For instance, the tale “Grosse-tête” appears at the other end of the anthology, in the category of “contes modernes.” Earlier, Léon Marillier, a historian of religion, commented on “Grosse-tête”: “This tale, probably of semi-European origin, recalls the stories of Beauty and the Beast and Psyche.”17 Was Cendrars aware of these scholarly discussions concerning European influence? Might this have led him to consider “Grosse-tête” modern as opposed to “Le Gambadeur”? He would then again follow Marillier’s argument: “This tale is curious because it is the only one in which a belief related to totemic beliefs appears.”18 Since Thonga religion was otherwise deemed to be “atotemic” (Junod 1912, 336), the rare instances of totemist elements in “Le Gambadeur” seemed to suggest that it must have been an exceptionally old story, belonging to a long-gone belief system. Between totemism and modernity, Cendrars presented four additional Ronga stories in the sections “contes du merveilleux” and “fables.” Not only for African orature in general, but for Ronga in particular, the order of contents in Cendrars’s anthology exemplifies and illustrates the unfolding of Gourmont’s “intellectual constancy” (Cendrars 2005, 4). The reader witnesses the evolution from the spark of literary genius in their totemist origins to the heights of modern storytelling. Thus, even without altering much about the texts, Cendrars’s framing provides an entirely new interpretation; it is the context that determines the meaning.

Carl Meinhof, 1917: Serial Collecting

  • 19 “ist ein Spiegel der ewig lebenden Volksseele.” Leaflet, “Die Märchen der Völker in aller Welt,” Th (...)

22In 1912, on the occasion of the centenary of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales), the Jena-based publisher Eugen Diederichs followed in the two folklorists’ footsteps. He launched a series titled “Märchen der Weltliteratur” (Fairytales of World Literature) that promised to continue and complete the Grimms’ project. Johann Gottfried Herder inspired the publisher’s fundamental understanding of the folktale, which recurs through advertisements, leaflets, and introductions: the folktale “is a mirror of the eternal soul of the people.”19 In addition to extending the Grimms’ collection to the present day, Diederichs aimed to transcend German borders. This ambition became particularly appealing during and after the First World War, when the nationalist evocations of Volk (folk) were challenged by universalist ideas of Völker (peoples). Consequently, Diederichs’s focus on folktales, the principal subject of Volkskunde (folklore studies), was thus broadened to include Völkerkunde—the contemporary term for German anthropology. Between 1916 and 1928, Diederichs published a six-volume subseries on “Märchen der primitive Völker” (Fairytales of the Primitive Peoples), which renowned German anthropologists and linguists edited.

  • 20 According to the publisher. Material analysis would be required to fact-check these claims.

23The “Märchen der Weltliteratur” were renowned for their elaborate cover designs, which drew inspiration from or mimicked patterns typical of their respective regions. In the case of the “Märchen der primitiven Völker,” artefacts housed in the Hamburg Ethnological Museum served as a blueprint for designer Elisabeth Weber. For example, compare the ivory arm cuff from the Kingdom of Benin (Fig. 5) with the cover of Afrikanische Märchen (African Fairy Tales, 1917) (Fig. 6). It appears almost as though the arm cuff has been flattened and rolled out like wrapping paper. Yet this is not the only occasion where colonial loot became a selling point for the series. In two rare collector’s editions of Südseemärchen (Fairy Tales of the South Sea, 1916) and Afrikanische Märchen (Fig. 7), colonial-origin fabrics were utilized for the binding: Samoan bark cloth and Madagascan matting.20 In this way, material and immaterial appropriation converge within a single book object. Simultaneously, the book turns into a precious collectible, encouraging the buyer to become a collector themselves.

Fig. 5. Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria). Ikoro (armcuff). Ivory, h. 14,6 cm, d. 9,4 cm.

Fig. 5. Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria). Ikoro (armcuff). Ivory, h. 14,6 cm, d. 9,4 cm.

MARKK Collection Africa / Benin: Inv. No. C 2406 © Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), Hamburg.

Fig. 6. Carl Meinhof (ed.), Afrikanische MärchenJena, Diederichs, 1917.

Fig. 6. Carl Meinhof (ed.), Afrikanische Märchen. Jena, Diederichs, 1917.

Private collection. Photo by Alberto Ricci.

  • 21 For a critical biography of Meinhof, see Gerhardt 2022.

24The first German version of “Matlangu-wa-libala” appeared in Afrikanische Märchen, edited by Carl Meinhof and published in 1917. Since then, it has been reprinted numerous times, including in a 2021 anthology titled Die schönsten Märchen aus Afrika (The Most Beautiful Fairy Tales of Africa) by the esteemed German publisher Reclam. Meinhof (1857–1944) was a Protestant pastor and linguist, later regarded as the founder of African studies in Germany. He held the first chair of Afrikanistik at the newly established University of Hamburg from 1919. Missionary societies inspired his interest in African languages, and he supported the mission throughout his career. He advocated for the German colonial project and called for the reclamation of the colonies after their loss during the First World War.21 Although he had previously traveled to Africa, his anthology of folktales was the product of an armchair anthropologist. He sourced the texts from ethnographic and missionary publications, which he meticulously listed in his bibliography. While also including translations from French and English, he expressed a preference for German works or texts taken from German colonies in the preface (Meinhof 1917, 3). Thus, the anthology also served as a means of promoting the German colonial enterprise.

Fig. 7. Collector’s editions of Afrikanische Märchen (1917), edited by Carl Meinhof, in raffia cloth from Madagascar, and Südseemärchen (1916), edited by Paul Hambruch, in barkcloth from Samoa.

Fig. 7. Collector’s editions of Afrikanische Märchen (1917), edited by Carl Meinhof, in raffia cloth from Madagascar, and Südseemärchen (1916), edited by Paul Hambruch, in barkcloth from Samoa.

Private collection. Photos Alberto Ricci.

  • 22 For Meinhof’s investment in the racist Hamitic hypothesis, see Gerhardt 2022, 144–57. For the hypot (...)

25The folktales were categorized by region and with the help of racially charged linguistic distinctions, such as Westafrikanische Sudanesen and Westafrikanische Hamiten. Building on the Hamitic hypothesis, which posits that the ancient Egyptians, as creators of a high culture, must have been light-skinned, Meinhof devised criteria to group seven only vaguely related languages as more highly developed Hamitic languages. The endnotes in Afrikanische Märchen reproduce Meinhof’s racist ideas: comments on the stories in the Hausa, Ful, and Amazigh languages reference skin color and race, effectively distinguishing folklore by lighter-skinned and Black origins.22

  • 23 Translated literally: “The Jack-of-all-trades of the Plain.”
  • 24 “Cela fait, la blessure était allégée” (Junod 1898a, 357).
  • 25 Translated literally: “That alleviated.”
  • 26 Translated literally: “and will not immediately collapse in shock.”

26However, no mention of race is made when he comments on his rendering of “Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine” as “Der Tausendkünstler der Ebene.”23 He explains that it originates from the Ronga, a Bantu group at Delagoa Bay, noting Henri Junod’s Les Ba-Ronga (1898) as his source. Accordingly, Meinhof categorizes the “Tausendkünstler” among the Southeast African texts. Six animal tales precede it, thus directing the reader’s attention to the buffalo as the key element of the text. The language varies significantly from Einstein’s translation. Recall the sentence from Afrikanische Legenden: “Dies getan, war die Wunde verkleinert” (Einstein 1925, 238).24 In Meinhof’s anthology, it reads simply: “Das linderte” (Meinhof 1917, 100).25 In his preface, he says he avoided “Africanisms” and polished the language to make the reading experience more fluent, while also lamenting the losses occurring when putting oral texts into writing, how it eliminates gestures and the vivid nature of storytelling (ibid., 3–4). The expression “leur dos ne se cassera pas de saisissement” (Junod 1898a, 355) can serve as another example. Einstein translated it literally, whereas Meinhof turned the “Africanism” into a common German expression: “und werden nicht gleich vor Schreck umfallen” (Meinhof 1917, 103).26 In his approach, the omission of the footnote is justified by replacing the unfamiliar expression with a familiar one, prioritizing meaning and legibility, whereas Einstein provoked difficulties in comprehension by prioritizing style.

Henri Junod, 1898: Matlangu-wa-libala

27Einstein, Cendrars, and Meinhof independently used the same source: the works of the Franco-Swiss missionary Henri-Alexandre Junod (1863–1934). He was the one who produced the first known written record of “Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine” on a hill in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo.

  • 27 See Jehanne Denogent’s essay on the Mission Romande in this issue.

28Junod received training in theology, English, and medicine before being sent to Mozambique by the Mission Suisse Romande in 1889.27 He was stationed in Rikatla, a village twenty-five kilometers north of Lourenço Marques, just outside the Portuguese-controlled area (Fig. 8). It had been the first site of the Presbyterian Church of Mozambique, founded by Yosefa Mhalamhala in 1882. Mhalamhala grew up and was ordained in South Africa but had family in Mozambique, where he was sent to spread the Christian faith (Harries 2007, 68–80). As Chirinda Felicidade and Baloyi Tlharihani (2017, 119) argue, the work of Mhalamhala and other Black evangelists laid the foundations for later Swiss missionary activities in Mozambique but was scarcely acknowledged in historical accounts.

Fig. 8. Henri A. Junod, map titled “Le pays des Ba-ronga”, in Les Ba-ronga. Neuchâtel: Imprimerie Paul Attinger, 1898.

Fig. 8. Henri A. Junod, map titled “Le pays des Ba-ronga”, in Les Ba-ronga. Neuchâtel: Imprimerie Paul Attinger, 1898.

Private collection.

  • 28 “Le Bantou [. . .] a une littérature” (Junod 1897b, 515f).

29During his time in Rikatla, Junod studied the local languages and reduced various dialects to standardized written forms of Ronga and Thonga (Harries 1981, 48). His work aligned closely with the principles of salvage anthropology and its inherent contradictions: Patrick Harries noted that “while decrying the collapse of the old social relations, Junod fostered the creation of Christian communities which fed off, and lived separately from, the indigenous population” (Harries 1981, 41). He spent two years directing the mission station in Lourenço Marques before returning to Switzerland in 1896, where he published a trilogy of his linguistic and ethnographic studies on the Ronga: Grammaire Ronga (1896), Les Chants et les Contes des Ba-ronga de la baie de Delagoa (1897), and his main work, Les Ba-Ronga: étude ethnographique (1898). Folklore and songs served as both illustrations for ethnographic arguments and as agents in the standardization of language, often being presented bilingually. However, Junod also appreciated their cultural significance: “The Bantu has [. . .] a literature.”28 He left Switzerland in 1899 to continue his missionary work, first in Shiluvane, South Africa, and then, from 1907, in Rikatla once more. In 1912/13, he combined and expanded his works on the Ronga into his two-volume study, The Life of a South African Tribe. His writings received less favorable acclaim in France than in Britain, where Junod soon became regarded as essential reading in anthropology (Harries 2007, 211–216).

30In Les Ba-ronga, Junod added nine tales to the thirty previously published in Les Chants et les Contes. He provided a list of the thirty-nine tales he assembled in total, organized into thematic groups, ranging from “Contes d’animaux” (Animal Tales) to “Contes étrangers” (Foreign Tales). He presented the first seven of the new folktales in both Ronga and French, with notes provided at the end of the section. However, the final two contes, “Les Souris” (The Mice) and “Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine,” are accompanied by footnotes but omit the Ronga text, except for the notable inclusion of the “Gambadeur” song, which Junod provided in both French and Ronga. In commenting on “Les Souris,” he justifies the inclusion of the tale:

  • 29 “Bien que ce conte soit assez insignifiant, je le cite pour que le lecteur puisse juger de la grand (...)

Although this tale is relatively insignificant, I quote it so the reader can judge its great resemblance to Ronga tales. It’s one of many illustrations of the dangers of laziness, a theme that the Bantu, despite their reputation for laziness, willingly deal with.29

31Similarly, “Le Gambadeur” is mentioned merely as an illustration of medical practices in The Life of a South African Tribe (Junod 1913, 425–26), yet it was subsequently excluded from the selection of tales translated into English. It seems that Junod did not attribute as much importance to it as Cendrars, Einstein, and Meinhof did. Therefore, I would argue that “Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine” acquired significance in the European imagination of African folklore primarily through its translations, reproductions, and commentary after Junod.

32All these later versions shared a commonality: they did not replicate the Ronga version of the “Gambadeur” song found in Junod. Within the plot, the wife uses the song to aid her attempts to resurrect the slain buffalo, which seems effective at first but ultimately fails when the husband arrives on the scene. The song serves as an example to illustrate the philological aspect of the research approach: identifying and describing the differences between versions of a text.

E! Tatana! Matlangu-wa-libala!
Ba hlayile ban di byela, Matlangu-wa-libala.
Ba ku: U rwala munyama u ngumbangumbala ni busiku, Matlangu-wa-libala.
U ka nhlampfura ya marumbi! Nwantabu-ntabu!
Muntlhanti wa sibulwa! Matlangu-wa-libala!

Hé! mon père! Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
Ils me l’ont bien dit, ils me l’ont bien dit, Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine:
Ils m’ont dit: C’est toi qui vas par l’obscurité profonde, qui erres de tous côtés durant la nuit, Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
C’est toi la jeune plante de ricin qui croît sur les ruines, qui meurt avant le temps, dévorée par le ver rongeur . . .
Toi qui fais tomber fleurs et fruits dans ta course, Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
(Junod 1898a, 357)

Hé! mon père! Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
Ils me l’ont bien dit, ils me l’ont bien dit, Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
Ils m’ont dit: C’est toi qui vas par l’obscurité profonde, qui erres de tous côtés durant la nuit, Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
C’est toi la jeune plante de ricin qui croît sur les ruines, qui meurt avant le temps, dévorée par le ver rongeur!
Toi qui fais tomber fleurs et fruits dans ta course, Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine!
(Cendrars 2005, 145)

O mein Vater, Gaukler der Weite.
Sie sagten mir wohl, Gaukler der Weite,
Du wanderst durch dichte Finsternis,
Du irrst nach allen Seiten, Gaukler der Weite.
Du bist die junge Pflanze, die aus Trümmern wächst, die vor der Zeit stirbt,
Verzehrt durch den nagenden Wurm.
Du knickst Blumen und Früchte in deinem Lauf, Gaukler der Weite.

(Einstein 1925, 239)

Ach, mein Vater, Tausendkünstler der Ebene,
Wohl haben sie es mir gesagt, wohl haben sie es mir gesagt, Tausendkünstler der Ebene,
Sie haben mir gesagt: Du wirst durch tiefe Finsternis gehen, nach allen Seiten wirst du durch die Nacht irren, Tausendkünstler der Ebene;
Du bist die junge Wunderbaumpflanze, erwachsen aus Trümmern, die vor der Zeit stirbt, aufgezehrt von einem nagenden Wurm . . .
Du ließt Blumen und Früchte auf deinen Weg fallen, Tausendkünstler der Ebene!
(Meinhof 1917, 105)

Je te le dis.
Hé! gambadeur du Royaume
Tu t’en vas par l’obscurité profonde, profonde
Tu erres lamentablement dans la nuit
Hé! Hé! gambadeur
Hé! Hé! gambadeur du Royaume
(Schwarz-Bart 1979, 216)

E! Tatana! Mutlangi-wa-livala!
Vahlayile vanibzela, Mutlangi-wa-Livala!
vaku: urwala munyama ungumbangumbeka ni vusiku,
Mutlangi-wa-Livala!
U ka nhlampfura wa marumbi! N’waNtabu-Ntabu!
Muntlhanti wa sibulwa! Mutlangi-wa-Livala!
(Tembe 2024, standardized Ronga in new orthography)

Hey! Sir! Matlangu-wa-libala!
They killed and said to me, Matlangu-wa-libala
This: You carry the darkness and walk in the night.
Matlangu-wa-libala.
In the ricin plant of the ruins! Beast of the beast!
Killing curse! Matlangu-wa-libala!
(Ugembe 2024, new translation based on Junod’s Ronga version)

  • 30 Translated literally: “You who make flowers and fruits fall in your path.”

33The new translation of the Ronga by Zeferino Maguiuane Ugembe enables a critical reflection on Junod’s French translation, which served as the foundation for all subsequent versions. Junod must have intentionally created a free translation, as he was aware, for example, that the verb ku rwala in line 3 meant not aller (to go) but porter (to carry), as indicated in his Grammaire Ronga (1896, 168). He must also have recognized that his lengthy lines do not correspond to the brevity of the original text. Yet, how did he arrive at “Toi qui fais tomber fleurs et fruits dans ta course”30 when the Ronga simply says “Killing curse”? It is equally curious that his version only alludes to the killing of the buffalo in a roundabout way through the plant metaphor, whereas the Ronga in Ugembe’s interpretation explicitly states the killing in the second line and revisits it in the final one. These discrepancies make it unlikely that Junod’s bilingual presentation of the song served the purpose of language instruction. Ultimately, did Junod see himself as a creative writer entitled to a literary translation akin to Einstein and Meinhof? Additionally, how many liberties did he permit himself in translating the remainder of the tale?

  • 31 “petit buffle” (Schwarz-Bart 1979, 63, 118).

34With almost every new version, the song changed. Observing the interjections already reveals significant differences: E!, Hé!, O, Ach, Hé! Hé! The French Hé! (Junod and Cendrars) primarily serves to attract attention, intended to make the addressed party aware of the speaker, in this instance, the buffalo of the singer. It suggests that the song is an attempt by the woman to wake the buffalo and prevent him from falling asleep again, passing away for good. The punctuation seems to support this interpretation: The first line, featuring three exclamation marks, distinguishes three separate exclamations, creating a climax in addressing the buffalo. Einstein’s German O, by contrast, has a more religious ring, particularly in relation to mein Vater (my father). There are no exclamation marks, and O mein Vater (Oh my father) stands out as a separate unit, almost resembling a set expression in prayer. This aligns with the use of full stops in the rest of the text, promoting a less affected reading. Meinhof, conversely, transforms Junod’s anxious yet hopeful Hé! into a despairing Ach, a German word typically associated with the sound of a sigh. While the woman in Junod’s text appears to have high hopes of saving the buffalo, in Meinhof’s rendition, it suggests that she is on the verge of giving up and experiencing despair, somehow sensing that her healing efforts will be in vain. In Schwarz-Bart’s novel, a little devil sings to Ti Jean, the trickster, who is referred to as “little buffalo” (Schwarz-Bart 1981, 49, 106)31 elsewhere in the narrative. The devil turns Junod’s Hé! into laughter: Hé! Hé! He mocks the protagonist for his years-long wanderings through the underworld, unsuccessful in his quest for his home, Guadeloupe.

35Just as Ti Jean’s journey does not conclude with devilish laughter, the wanderings of “Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine” continue. And one must ask: Will they lead back “home”? One detail regarding Junod’s publication offers a clue. He published it twice, in Les Ba-ronga, the source for both Meinhof’s and Einstein’s translations, as well as in Nouveaux Contes Ronga (1898), which Cendrars included in his bibliography. At first glance, the text appears identical. Nouveaux Contes Ronga was an extract from Les Ba-Ronga, intended for separate distribution, with only the page numbers altered. It turned section “III. Les contes” (Junod 1898a, 277–363) from the first chapter “La Littérature des Ba-Ronga” of the fifth part into an independent book comprising ninety-one pages. This book was meant to supplement Les Chants et les Contes, appealing particularly to an audience interested in folklore. Junod retained not only the nine tales unchanged but also reprinted his introductory remarks with just one small difference. He included a paragraph acknowledging the storytellers:

  • 32 “Je dois le conte de Doukouli à Jim Boy, du Tembé, qui l’a écrit lui-même de mémoire. Ceux de Sikou (...)

I owe the tale of Doukouli to Jim Boy from Tembé, who wrote it himself from memory. Those of Sikouloumé, Mboukouane, Longoloka, and Grosse-Tête were written by Titus Senzela, a young evangelist, under the dictation of some elderly female relatives residing in Nhlanguène, near the city of Lourenço Marquès. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, Moutikatika, and Les Souris come from Camilla, whose intelligent likeness can be found on page 210. Lastly, Nouahoungoukouri was recounted to me by a very articulate girl from our schools.32

36Contrary to David Pan’s assertion that “Junod does not document the identity of the original Thonga storyteller” (2001, 227), this mention of Camilla is just one of several in the missionary’s works.

Chiguyane, 1896: The Storyteller and Her Literary Theory

37In folklore anthologies, stories are almost always presented as the anonymous output of an entire group of people. Conversely, the stories are assembled to identify this group as such, or better: to invent it. While it would miss the point to search for an “author,” it must be acknowledged that these stories passed through the hands and bodies of several individuals before reaching the giftbook table. These individuals are easier to pinpoint in a written source and much more difficult to identify in oral transmission. The point where these two lines intersect, however, is critical. Before they disappear behind the editor in later editions, the storytellers or poets are often mentioned by missionaries and ethnographers, sometimes even with details about their lives and personalities. This was also the case with Junod. In Les Ba-ronga, a photograph of Camilla, “femme de Lourenço-Marques” (woman from Lourenço-Marques), is reproduced (Junod 1898a, 210) (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Henri A. Junod, “Chiguyane (Camilla). Femme de Lourenço Marques”, in Les Ba-ronga.

Fig. 9. Henri A. Junod, “Chiguyane (Camilla). Femme de Lourenço Marques”, in Les Ba-ronga.

Neuchâtel, Imprimerie Paul Attinger, 1898. Private collection.

  • 33 “une femme des plus intelligentes” (Junod 1898a, 11).
  • 34 “un degré de civilisation plus avancé” (Junod 1898a, 210).

38Yet this photograph is not presented within the context of the tales. While Junod refers to her as “a most intelligent woman”33 earlier in the book, he fails to mention anything about the qualities of her storytelling. Instead, the photograph serves as an illustration of a more “civilized”34 type of female clothing among the Ronga. On the other hand, Junod neglects aspects of the image that may seem significant to us today, such as the materials used in the construction of the shack: corrugated iron, roof tiles, and chicken-wire fencing—colonial imports associated with the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. Furthermore, Junod also overlooks Chiguyane’s expression: her cheeky smile, self-assured posture, and folded arms. In his more comprehensive English edition, The Life of a South African Tribe (1913, 82), he again used the photograph to illustrate “the evolution of dress,” in which Camilla represents “a third stage,” surpassed only by the adaptation of the “European frock.”

  • 35 For more on female storytellers in southern Africa and Junod, see Pieterse 2010.

39By contrast, the image fulfils a very different purpose in Les Chants et les Contes des Ba-Ronga, credited by Alain Locke as the “starting point of an aesthetic interest in N**** musical idiom” (Locke 1924, 137). Here, Junod provides further details about Camilla. Firstly, the reader discovers that Camilla was her Christian name, which she received at her baptism, while she was originally called Chiguyane (Junod 1897a, 72). One encounter between her and Junod, at which she shared another tale with him, is dated rather precisely on May 1896 (Junod 1897a, 203–4), shortly before he left for Switzerland. Was this also the occasion when she recounted the story of the “gambadeur”? Unfortunately, this must remain mere speculation. What is clear, however, is Junod’s admiration for Chiguyane’s skillful storytelling.35

  • 36 “La meilleure conteuse que j’aie jamais rencontrée, c’est Chiguyane, une femme admirablement douée, (...)

The best storyteller I have ever met is Chiguyane, an admirably talented woman, as eloquent as she can be, as mischievous and witty as she is a woman of the world! I owe her a good number of the tales in my collection and, although I have written many hours under her dictation, sometimes transcribing her stories directly into French, I am far from having exhausted her repertoire. A native of the Chirindja district, on the fringes of Ronga country, she had long since settled in Lourenço-Marques, where she became a Christian and baptized Camilla.36

  • 37 “Camilla, la conteuse émérite” (Junod 1897a, 307).
  • 38 “devant sa maisonnette de tôle, sur la colline de Lourenço-Marques.”

40Her “more civilized type of dress” may have influenced Junod’s characterization of Chiguyane as a “woman of the world”; however, he does not mention her clothing in this book at all. With a heading that reads, “Camilla, the skilled storyteller,”37 and comments about her featured elsewhere in the book, the photograph now emphasizes her intellect and character. A footnote informs the reader that she is standing “in front of his tin shack on the hill of Lourenço-Marques.”38 Depending on the context, the reader perceives either a talented storyteller and homeowner or a fashion model—all in one and the same photograph.

  • 39 “se sont transmises à travers les siècles sans subir de modifications profondes” (Junod 1898, 278).
  • 40 “un fond commun” (Junod 1898, 278).

41But what exactly is a “storyteller” (conteuse)? The introduction to the stories in Les Ba-ronga sheds light on how Junod interpreted them at the time. Distinguishing them from ephemeral songs, he emphasizes their quality as particularly durable over time, thus providing a window to an otherwise inaccessible cultural past; the tales “have been passed down through the centuries without undergoing any major changes.”39 By comparing their various versions, the folklorist could reveal “a common ground.”40 Unlike Cendrars, Junod did not differentiate between older and newer tales; he initially regarded them all as traditional and ancient. However, in Les Chants et les Contes, he refined this notion of unaltered transmission, recognizing the storytellers’ capacity to modify the tales:

  • 41 “Les conteurs usent souvent d’un certain procédé littéraire par lequel ils introduisent dans leur n (...)

Storytellers frequently use a particular literary device in which they incorporate elements drawn from their surroundings, specifically the locality in which they are situated at the moment of their narration.41

  • 42 “Dans l’histoire de Sidioulou, qui est probablement d’origine zouloue, Chiguyane fait intervenir to (...)

42Chiguyane serves as an example of these literary techniques: “In the story of Sidioulou, which is probably of Zulu origin, Chiguyane incorporates all the names of the principal districts in Ronga country.”42 Later, he completely shifted his perspective and even mocked his previous belief in the unaltered tradition as naïve. Not his own naïveté, however, but “the naïve hypothesis of my storyteller”:

  • 43 “Camilla [. . .] me disait un jour, ‘Ne vois-tu pas qu’ils viennent du temps d’Adam? Est-ce que l’o (...)

Camilla [. . .] once said to me, “Don’t you see that they come from the time of Adam? Don’t you hear animals talking in stories? In Adam’s time, animals spoke. They’ve unlearned since then. This proves that our tales date back to that time!”43

  • 44 “une masse plastique, molle, que chaque conteur façonne en quelque sorte à son gré, sans s’en rendr (...)

43Now, Junod was convinced that the storytellers were creative author-editors, even if they did not admit or realize it. Despite their intergenerational transmission, folktales constituted “a soft, plastic mass that each storyteller shapes at will, without realizing it.”44

44What Junod failed to realize, however, is that Chiguyane could have deemed it appropriate to assume the role of the conscientious editor while simultaneously asserting creative authorship. All of the editors of the anthologies I have examined—Meinhof, Einstein, Cendrars, and Junod—pretended to provide an essence of traditional African folklore, of which “Le Gambadeur” served as an example, while also rewriting or reframing the text, situating it in a new context each time. Chiguyane pushed this principle to the extreme by claiming a tradition that dates back to Biblical times, thus inscribing the experience of the Christian mission into her syncretistic literary theory. A “symmetric anthropology” (Latour 1991) might then find parallels between Chiguyane adapting a Zulu tale to Ronga, Einstein adapting a Ronga tale to German Expressionism, and Schwarz-Bart adapting a Ronga song to Afro-Caribbean literature. They are all part of a tradition of inventing traditions, of transmitting inventions, and of making them look traditional. The animals may have ceased to speak, but the buffalo continues to gambol through literary history as “a plastic mass.”

  • 45 This paper is indebted to scholars who look beyond these highways. I thank Eric Morier-Genoud (Quee (...)

45However, this story also has an asymmetric ending: Once Junod’s version reached Europe, every subsequent print version was effectively based on his. This means that while Einstein and Cendrars may have adapted it for the avant-garde and Schwarz-Bart for the Caribbean, they all referenced a text frozen in 1896. Any later modifications to the narrative during its oral transmission were excluded from this print-centered circulation, rendering the replication process essentially unidirectional and stripping the storyteller of their agency (Urban 1996, 42–43). Through the power of “paper-work” (Latour 1986, 19), the oral text was turned into a print object with limited mutability and biased mobility. While not necessarily vanishing from circulation in Mozambique immediately, the text and the sovereignty of its interpretation began gravitating toward paper-powered libraries and bookshops in Europe. Chiguyane may have been a creative interpreter and a literary theorist no less skilled than Junod. However, it is Junod’s version and its translations that were distributed in gift books with a high print run, which have been and continue to be reprinted in anthologies, and that are commented upon and appropriated further by researchers, literary authors, and others in ongoing discussions. In the words of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1998, 127): “Once again Africa produces, the West disposes.” From this perspective, it seems that the buffalo has lost many of its trickster skills and has become a flat object, whose wanderings are restricted to the highways of the Western textual infrastructure.45

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Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. 1998. Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams. Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State of Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pan, David. 2001. Primitive Renaissance. Rethinking German Expressionism. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press.

Pape, Marion. 1993. “Auf der Suche nach der dreidimensionalen Dichtung. Carl Einsteins ‚Afrikanische Legenden.” In Wahlverwandtschaften = Elective affinities. Eine Gedenkschrift. Tributes and essays on Germanic and African studies in memory of Edith Ihekweazu, edited by Willfried F. Feuser. Bayreuth: Boomerang Press, 125–144.

Pieterse, Jimmy. 2010. “Trickster tropes: Female storytelling and the re-imagination of social orders in four nineteenth-century southern African communities. Historia 55 (1): 55–77.

Robinson, Michael. 2016. The Lost White Tribe: Explorers, Scientists, and the Theory that Changed a Continent. New York: Oxford University Press.

Schüttpelz, Erhard. 2005. Die Moderne im Spiegel des Primitiven. Weltliteratur und Ethnologie (1870–1960). Munich: Fink.

Schwarz-Bart, Simone. 1979. Ti Jean L’horizon. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Schwarz-Bart, Simone. 1981. Between Two Worlds. Translated by Barbara Bray. New York: Harper & Row.

Silverstein, Michael and Greg Urban. 1996. “The Natural History of Discourse.” In Natural Histories of Discourse, edited by Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1–17.

Simons, Oliver. 2004. “Schwarze Dichtung erobert Europa. 1916: Carl Einsteins Afrikanische Legenden.” In Mit Deutschland um die Welt. Eine Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit, edited by Alexander Honold and Klaus Scherpe. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 481–87.

Strother, Zoë. 2011. “À la recherche de l’Afrique dans Negerplastik de Carl Einstein.” Gradhiva 14: 31–55.

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Ugembe, Zeferino Maguiuane. 2024. “Matlangu-wa-libala.” New translation from Ronga into Portugese and English, provided via email.

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Notes

1 It can be found in Guyana, Mauritius, North America, and Canada, while also showing similarities with figures from East African orature. Versions of the story are featured in various anthologies, for instance, in Elsie Clews Parsons’s Folk-Lore of the Antilles (1933) and Patrick Chamoiseau’s Au temps de l’antan: Contes du pays Martinique (1988).

2 “You who gambol over the plains” (Schwarz-Bart 1981, 196).

3 This approach was first proposed in Albers and Schmid 2023.

4 For practical reasons, I have excluded versions of the tale in English, namely, “The Rover of the Plain” (Lang 1897, 190–200), “The Wonder-Worker of the Plains” (Radin and Sweeney 1952, 229–34), and in Portuguese, “O taumaturgo das planícies” (Correia da Silva et Lacerda 1959, 217–25).

5 For a concise overview of Einstein’s interest in Africa see Meffre 2015.

6 My doctoral thesis will include the complete list of sources.

7 Translated literally: “The Jester of the Plain.”

8 This is confirmed by Einstein researchers, who—if they addressed Afrikanische Legenden at all—typically chose the “Gambadeur” over the other tales for an exemplary reading (see Pan 2001, 173–88, Simons 2004, 484, Kiefer 2019, 121–22). My article is no exception in this regard.

9 Translated literally: “This done, the wound was made smaller.” In Einstein’s source: “Cela fait, la blessure était allégée” (Junod 1898a, 357).

10 Translated literally: “Their back would break in astonishment.”

11 “J’ai fait mon Anthologie n**** en compulsant 11821 volumes à la Bibliothèque nationale et en m’aidant de grammaires, de dictionnaires, de contes composés par les Missionnaires et rapportés par eux d’Afrique dès 1815” (Cendrars 2005, 479).

12 “En effet, l’étude des langues et de la littérature des races primitives est une des connaissances les plus indispensables à l’histoire de l’esprit humain et l’illustration la plus sûre à la loi de constance intellectuelle entrevue par Remy de Gourmont” (Cendrars 2005, 4).

13 “Cendrars, en citant Gourmont, légitime le rôle de la littérature dans la connaissance d’une part de l’homme, connaissance à laquelle l’ethnologie ne peut prétendre” (Denogent 2022, 140).

14 “Ce ne sont pas toujours les versions les plus originales, ni les traductions les plus fidèles. Il est bien à regretter que l’exactitude littéraire ne soit pas le seul souci légitime de ces voyageurs lointains” (Cendrars 2005, 4).

15 “qui devient ‘fétiche métonymique’ de sa personne.”

16 “Cendrars s’approprie donc l’auctorialité de ces contes, par le biais de leur publication, en la subtilisant à leurs auteurs réels, les conteurs africains” (Maccotta 2011, 46).

17 “Ce conte, d’origine sans doute à demi européenne, rappelle l’histoire de la Belle et la Bête et celle de Psyché” (Marillier 1900, 429).

18 “Ce conte est curieux parce que c’est le seul où apparaît une croyance apparentée aux croyances totémiques” (Marillier 1900, 429).

19 “ist ein Spiegel der ewig lebenden Volksseele.” Leaflet, “Die Märchen der Völker in aller Welt,” Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena, Nachlass Ulf Diederichs, folder “EDV Reihenprospekte & Zeitschriften II,” Section M.

20 According to the publisher. Material analysis would be required to fact-check these claims.

21 For a critical biography of Meinhof, see Gerhardt 2022.

22 For Meinhof’s investment in the racist Hamitic hypothesis, see Gerhardt 2022, 144–57. For the hypothesis’s longer history, see Robinson 2016.

23 Translated literally: “The Jack-of-all-trades of the Plain.”

24 “Cela fait, la blessure était allégée” (Junod 1898a, 357).

25 Translated literally: “That alleviated.”

26 Translated literally: “and will not immediately collapse in shock.”

27 See Jehanne Denogent’s essay on the Mission Romande in this issue.

28 “Le Bantou [. . .] a une littérature” (Junod 1897b, 515f).

29 “Bien que ce conte soit assez insignifiant, je le cite pour que le lecteur puisse juger de la grande ressemblance qu’il présente avec les contes ronga. C’est une des nombreuses illustrations du danger de la paresse, thème que les Bantou traitent assez volontiers malgré leur réputation de fieffés paresseux” (Junod 1898a, 352).

30 Translated literally: “You who make flowers and fruits fall in your path.”

31 “petit buffle” (Schwarz-Bart 1979, 63, 118).

32 “Je dois le conte de Doukouli à Jim Boy, du Tembé, qui l’a écrit lui-même de mémoire. Ceux de Sikouloumé, Mboukouane, Longoloka et Grosse-Tête ont été rédigés par Titus Senzela, un jeune évangéliste, sous la dictée de quelques vieilles parentes demeurant à Nhlanguène, aux environs de la ville de Lourenço Marquès. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, Moutikatika et Les Souris proviennent de Camilla, celle dont la figure intelligent se trouve à la page 210. Enfin Nouahoungoukouri m’a été raconté par une jeune fille fort diserte de nos écoles” (Junod 1898b, 8).

33 “une femme des plus intelligentes” (Junod 1898a, 11).

34 “un degré de civilisation plus avancé” (Junod 1898a, 210).

35 For more on female storytellers in southern Africa and Junod, see Pieterse 2010.

36 “La meilleure conteuse que j’aie jamais rencontrée, c’est Chiguyane, une femme admirablement douée, diserte autant qu’il est possible, malicieuse et spirituelle autant que femme du monde! Je lui dois un bon nombre des contes de ma collection et, quoique j’aie écrit bien des heures sous sa dictée, transcrivant parfois ses récits directement en français, je suis loin d’avoir épuisé son répertoire. Native du district de Chirindja, aux confins du pays ronga, elle était fixée depuis longtemps à Lourenço-Marques, où elle est devenue une chrétienne baptisée dès lors Camilla” (Junod 1897a, 71–72).

37 “Camilla, la conteuse émérite” (Junod 1897a, 307).

38 “devant sa maisonnette de tôle, sur la colline de Lourenço-Marques.”

39 “se sont transmises à travers les siècles sans subir de modifications profondes” (Junod 1898, 278).

40 “un fond commun” (Junod 1898, 278).

41 “Les conteurs usent souvent d’un certain procédé littéraire par lequel ils introduisent dans leur narration des traits empruntés à leur situation, à la localité dans laquelle ils se trouvent au moment où ils parlent” (Junod 1897a, 75).

42 “Dans l’histoire de Sidioulou, qui est probablement d’origine zouloue, Chiguyane fait intervenir tous les noms des principaux districts du pays ronga” (Junod 1897a, 75).

43 “Camilla [. . .] me disait un jour, ‘Ne vois-tu pas qu’ils viennent du temps d’Adam? Est-ce que l’on n’entend pas les bêtes parler dans les contes? Or, du temps d’Adam, les animaux parlaient. Ils ont désappris depuis. Cela prouve que nos contes datent d’alors!’” (Junod 1924, 325).

44 “une masse plastique, molle, que chaque conteur façonne en quelque sorte à son gré, sans s’en rendre compte” (Junod 1924, 326).

45 This paper is indebted to scholars who look beyond these highways. I thank Eric Morier-Genoud (Queen’s University Belfast), Félix Filimone Tembe, and Zeferino Maguiuane Ugembe (both Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo) for valuable feedback or translations.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1. Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Nkisi nkondi (detail). Wood, pigment, tooth, vegetal fiber, glass, metals. 112 cm x 40 cm x 34 cm. EO.0.0.19845, collection Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium. Photo R. Asselberghs © MRAC Tervuren.
Crédits Photo R. Asselberghs © MRAC Tervuren.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 484k
Titre Fig. 2. Carl Einstein, N****plastik. Leipzig, Verlag der Weissen Bücher, 1915. Plate 19. Nkisi nkondi, Kongo.
Crédits Photo Alberto Ricci.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 500k
Titre Fig. 3. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, manuscript of Raymond Radiguet, edited by Blaise Cendrars (detail).
Crédits Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Archives littéraires suisses, fonds Cendrars O 23/I. Chap. IX, 35 © Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Photo Marco Stalder.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 212k
Titre Fig. 4. Le Gambadeur-de-la-Plaine, manuscript of Raymond Radiguet, edited by Blaise Cendrars.
Crédits Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Archives littéraires suisses, fonds Cendrars O 23/I. Chap. IX, 35 © Bibliothèque nationale suisse. Photo Marco Stalder.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 636k
Titre Fig. 5. Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria). Ikoro (armcuff). Ivory, h. 14,6 cm, d. 9,4 cm.
Crédits MARKK Collection Africa / Benin: Inv. No. C 2406 © Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), Hamburg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 416k
Titre Fig. 6. Carl Meinhof (ed.), Afrikanische Märchen. Jena, Diederichs, 1917.
Crédits Private collection. Photo by Alberto Ricci.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 512k
Titre Fig. 7. Collector’s editions of Afrikanische Märchen (1917), edited by Carl Meinhof, in raffia cloth from Madagascar, and Südseemärchen (1916), edited by Paul Hambruch, in barkcloth from Samoa.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 396k
Crédits Private collection. Photos Alberto Ricci.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 308k
Titre Fig. 8. Henri A. Junod, map titled “Le pays des Ba-ronga”, in Les Ba-ronga. Neuchâtel: Imprimerie Paul Attinger, 1898.
Crédits Private collection.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 452k
Titre Fig. 9. Henri A. Junod, “Chiguyane (Camilla). Femme de Lourenço Marques”, in Les Ba-ronga.
Crédits Neuchâtel, Imprimerie Paul Attinger, 1898. Private collection.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/docannexe/image/8641/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 465k
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Andreas Schmid, « Tracing the “Matlangu-wa-libala”: The Trajectory of a Ronga Tale »Gradhiva [En ligne], 38 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 juin 2025, consulté le 18 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/8641 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/1451g

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Andreas Schmid

Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
University of Oxford et
Peter Szondi-Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
Freie Universität Berlin
andreas.schmid[at]fu-berlin.de

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