Welcome back to the Ba-Ronga of Delagoa Bay, on the coast of what is now Mozambique. Part One of this shelf was drawn from Henri-Alexandre Junod's Songs and Tales of the Ba-Ronga (1897). Tonight's tale comes from his companion volume, the ethnographic study Les Ba-Ronga, published in 1898, where Junod printed nine further tales in the Ronga language with his own French translation. Each of the nine has been read in full; eight stand set aside under this shelf's standing rule, every one named with its reason in the shelf register. The English in this episode is a fresh translation made for KacheliTV from Junod's French.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Grosse-Tête — In this tale: an old woman whose children have all died is given a single pea by the white people she begs from — and finds herself with child. The boy is born with no legs, only a head, a chest and hands; and before the cord is even cut, he speaks, and asks for paper — for he came into the world already knowing how to write. His letter to the Governor wins him a blanket, a cow, a servant and a goat. The Governor's daughter Minina conceives a great love for him, is driven from her home to him with nothing but the clothes she wears, and will not be parted from him. By night, Grosse-Tête calls on his father's ring: houses rise, trunks of clothes appear — and by night, too, he steps out of his own head as a splendid whole man, eats the food left for the morning, and falsely accuses Minina of feeding lovers. It is the little maidservant, watching through a hole in her blanket, who uncovers him; and it is Minina who catches him, and will not let him go back.
Source: Henri-Alexandre Junod, Les Ba-Ronga: étude ethnographique sur les indigènes de la baie de Delagoa (Bulletin de la Société Neuchâteloise de Géographie, Tome X, Neuchâtel, 1898) — the tale "Grosse-Tête" (Ronga: Nhloko), printed in Ronga with Junod's French translation. Junod (1863–1934) collected among the Ba-Ronga of Delagoa Bay with the Swiss Romande Mission. Public domain.
The reading is complete and unabridged from Junod's French text, in a fresh English translation made for this programme.
Narration: Orson.
Music: "Subterranean Earth" — opening and closing theme.
KacheliTV — World Classics: the folk tales and classics of every culture, read aloud.
