Most human communities have moved on from oral traditions as the primary means by which knowledge is collated and transmitted. Yet, folklore persists as urban legends. This is because our very human need to use stories to make sense of and memorialize the events of our lives is timeless.
Urban legends are a type of folklore which emerged from the modern human context. They reflect the anxieties and beliefs of modern society, especially in relation to new technologies. There are many urban legends from the 1900s when traditional African societies transitioned to industrialized societies. Most, if not all, of these stories are continuations of the accounts of well-known figures, creatures, concepts and geographical landforms of traditional folklore. The stories that feature geographical landforms are particularly interesting, keeping in mind that for traditional societies, these landforms were almost always the dwelling places or physical manifestations of powerful spirits and deities. These urban legends detail their encounters with industrial technologies and in so doing, reveal what the people from whose oral traditions they come truly think about the changes wrought by these technologies.
For the month of August, the Mythological Africans podcast will focus urban legends about African geographical landforms. We start with what might be the most popular African urban legend of all time: the story of Nyaminyami and the construction of the Kariba Dam.
References
* Chikozho, Joshua, et al. "Nyaminyami,‘The Tonga River-God’: The Place and role of Nyaminyami in the Tonga people’s cosmology, and environmental conservation practices." Harnessing Cultural Capital for Sustainability: A Pan Africanist Perspective. Edited by Munyaradzi Mawere and Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye. Cameroon: Langaa Research & Publishing CIG (2015): 243-64.
* Gambahaya, Zifikile, and Itai Muhwati. "Tonga orature as historical record: An Afrocentric exegesis of the dialectics between African human factor agency and the European enslavement of place." Journal of Black Studies 41.2 (2010): 320-337.
* Matanzima, Joshua. “Exploring the Origins and Expansion of the Nyaminyami (Water Spirit) Belief Systems among the BaTonga People of Northwestern Zimbabwe.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 51, no. 3/4, 2021, pp. 364–96. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27286539. Accessed 11 Aug. 2025.
* Ncube, Godfrey Tabona. A history of northwestern Zimbabwe, 1850-1960. Mond Books, 2004. p25-26
Meanwhile…
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
* Creation myths and foundation legends
* Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
* Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
