Reading Notes: Stories from Congo, Part B

In one of the stories, a man stumbled upon a tree and starts to pull at the branches. When he pulls off one of the leaves, it turns into a woman. All of the leaves that he tugs at start to turn into men and women. This part of the story reminds me of the Tree of Life from the Bible, but it different because in this story, it involves magic. The woman who was transformed from a leaf became the man's wife and turned him into a more handsome man and created a village and home for them to live in. In the first story of Part B, it tells a myth about why the leopard always kills an antelope when it sees it. Within the story, the author uses native African words, like nkutu, ngongo, shimbec and chimpacasi, to incorporate the culture of the people of Congo. The words are put into the story in a manner where the reader can infer what they mean, without the author actually specifying. Most of the stories are depressing, but I think I could write my own unique and possibly up-beat version for this week's storytelling assignment. I plan to write about two other animals that don't get along, or perhaps do get along, and the story behind how they came to meet each other. I have noticed that most of the stories are more gruesome than the Greek myth, but they are still entertaining to read. In one of the stories, an antelope sends a leopard's skinned head to his wife and she ate it. It was a bit more morbid than some of the stories that I read, but it shows the unique characteristics and culture of original myths from Congo. Most of the myths also contain the same animals, including leopards, antelope and gazelle. These are animals native to Africa and are well known amongst that region of the world. I enjoy reading stories from Africa and Asia because I have never read anything like them before and it gives me some insight into what their cultures are like.


Leopard attacking an antelope.

Richard Edward Dennett's Stories from Congo (1898).