We are still at the very beginning of our year-long exploration of Jungian archetypes as expressed in African mythology and folklore. In the first episode from last week, we defined some foundational concepts we will encounter over and over as we move along. These include the collective unconscious as well as archetypes and stereotypes. We also talked a bit about why we are looking at African myths and folklore through this lens and then laid out a tentative plan for the year.
We have a lot of ground to cover, friends, and it is important that we properly learn the contours of the psychic terrain we will be traveling. So, in this episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we will focus on Jung’s four main archetypes (the Self, the Persona, the Shadow and the Anima/Animus complex), probe (lightly) at personhood in some African contexts, and then outline a few more concepts that will help us along the way.
References:
* The Collected Works of Carl Jung
* Pearson, Carol . Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World (p. 182). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
* Oyeshile, Olatunji A. “Towards an African concept of a person: Person in Yoruba, Akan and Igbo thoughts.” Fiorita: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 34 (2002): 1-2.
* Ndlovu, Sanelisiwe Primrose. “A critical exploration of the ideas of person and community in traditional Zulu thought.” (2021).
* Brooke, Roger. “Ubuntu and the individuation process: Toward a multicultural analytical psychology.” Psychological Perspectives 51.1 (2008): 36-53.
* Jung and the Individuation Process
* Our Inner Partner: The Anima and Animus
Need a book of African Mythology and Folklore?
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 (including the foundation legend of the Tuareg!)
* 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!
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