Folk Tales of Zambia — Part 1 (Njerenjere · What Do You Mean, Block of Wood? · How I Shall Be Admired! · Branch Off, Blaze of Fire · The Little Iron House)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part one — the premiere of a new shelf. Five folk tales of the Bene-Mukuni and the Ba-Tonga of Northern Rhodesia, from J. Torrend's Specimens of Bantu Folk-Lore from Northern Rhodesia (1921), heard here in Torrend's own English translations. In Njerenjere, the king's messenger Rumba sings his incantation beneath the mushroom umbrella to fetch the dwarf bride Malambo; her mother's stitching song is a threat never enacted, and the marriage is completed with cattle for the whole family. In What Do You Mean, Block of Wood?, Kasere, refused a wife, carves one from a block of wood; a cowry on her head makes her a maiden, the king's people carry her off, and Kasere's drumming shames the court until he takes the cowry away and she is a block again. In How I Shall Be Admired!, the frightened adults flee the enormous snake, leaving their bows behind, and the children simply carry it to court on their shoulders — where the king dismisses it as an ugly bit of a snake. In Branch Off, Blaze of Fire, the girl ordered thrown away is fostered in secret by an old woman, and her song from the rabbit hole — "You have hurt me, Drums" — brings her home, and to marriage. And in The Little Iron House, Master Rabbit builds a house of galvanized iron for the rabbit girl, and elephant, lion, gnu, eland, zebra and leopard all knock and are refused in song; she accepts only Master Rabbit. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Blazing Fire, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters
0:38 Njerenjere
8:33 What Do You Mean, Block of Wood?
19:48 How I Shall Be Admired!
24:37 Branch Off, Blaze of Fire
36:26 The Little Iron House
Seventeen further tales of the book are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: Part I — How Can I Silence Katubi? (I) · Father, Wait for Me (II) · Let the Big Drum Roll (IV) · Alas! Father! At the Temple (VI) · I Am Calling You Loud (VIII) · Open, Open, Little Bird (IX) · Little Bead! Little Bead! (X) · I Am Tembwe (XII) · First, Let Me Hand Over (XIII) · Little Old Woman There! (XIV) · To Be Marked! (XV) · Mother, Come Back (XVI); Part II — How Thick the Bush Is To-Day! (III) · Camundari (IV) · I Shall Reveal Thee (V) · My Berries! (VI) · Dance Like That! (VIII). Five more stand on the bench, held, not failures — Part I III (As I Am Be-Thankful, I Go Back) and XVIII (Kapepe, the Little Feather), Part II I (Drum, You Have Hurt Me), II (I Don't Want To) and IX (Give Me a Little Tobacco) — needing adjudication or a by-name ruling before any later use. No claim of completeness for the book is made.
From Specimens of Bantu Folk-Lore from Northern Rhodesia by J. Torrend (1921), public domain — in Torrend's own English translations. Narrated by Morgana. Theme: Blazing Fire.
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