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Proverbs, Tales, Fables, & Historical Fragments

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Proverbs, Tales, Fables, & Historical Fragments n AFRICAN NATIVE LITERATURE, OR PROVERBS, TALES, FABLES, & HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS IN THE KANURI OR BORNU LANGUAGE. TO WHICH ARE ADDED A TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE AND A KANLTJ -ENGLISH VOCABULAKY. BY REV. S. W. KOELLE, CHURCH MISSIONARY. LONDON: CHURCH MISSIONARY HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE. 1854. Princt-8 -shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. (Psalm LXVIU, 31.) Printed by C. and F. Unger in Berlin , 51. Markprafen Str. EIGHT BEV. DR W. HOFFMANN, GENERAL -SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF PRUSSIA, IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THE HAPPY YEARS DURING WHICH I ENJOYED HIS LUMINOUS AND ANIMATING INSTRUCTION, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. PEEFACE, 1 have now the pleasure of introducing to the friends of Africa, who arc interested in its languages and people, the last volume which has resulted from my lingual researches during a live years' stay in Sierra Leone. It connects itself with the Bornu Grammar, lately published, and contains a limited se- lection from the manuscript literature on which that Grammar is based , and a Vocabulary of the same language. These three; parts, the Grammar, the native Literature, and the Vocabu- lary, will be found to form something complete, as far as they go, in one of the most important Negro languages, hitherto unknown. The narratives which arc here communicated deserve spe- cial attention: they are not compositions, formed with difficulty by a foreigner, but they are the work of a genuine Negro mind, both in conception and expression; in them we hear a real Negro tongue speaking to us, we hear tales in the same language, and about the same words, in which they have been told over and over again to beguile many an idle hour in a land where nature's richest bounties are obtained without al- most any labour. Here, therefore, the student has the proper means presented to him by which a correct and thorough acquain- tance with the language may be acquired. Translations of books (e. g. the Bible), made by foreigners, cannot fully answer this object, and even to tell a native English phrases for the purpose of having them translated into his own language, is a mode of proceeding not quite safe, inasmuch as it often places him in the temptation of adapting his own language to the English idiom: the whole peculiar cast and the minute VI features of a language can only be throughly learnt , when we hear natives express their own thoughts in their own mo- ther tongue. Guided by these principles, I caused my Inter- preters, from the commencement ofmyKauuri studies, to tell me , in their own language , any thing they liked , in order that I might commit it to paper, word for word, as it came from their lips. In this manner I gradually collected a ma- nuscript literature of about 800 pages, which constituted a rich material for grammatical investigations , and from which this book communicates a limited selection. There are probably many who will concur with me in the conviction that this is the best and safest mode of studying a new and entirely un- cultivated language. It is hoped that the publication of these first specimens of a Kanuri literature will prove useful in more than one way. Independently of the advantage it offers for a practical acquain- tance with the language, it also introduces the reader, to some extent, into the inward world of Negro mind and Negro thoughts, and this is a circumstance of paramount importance, so long as there are any who either flatly negative the question, or, at least, consider it still open, "whether the Negroes are a genuine portion of mankind or not." It is vain to speculate on this question from mere anatomical facts, from peculiarities of the hair, or the colour of the skin: if it is mind what distin- guishes man from animals, the question cannot be decided without consulting the languages of the Negroes; for language gives the expression and manifestation of the mind. Now as the Grammar proves that Negro languages are capable of ex- pressing human thoughts, — some of them, through their rich formal development, even with an astonishing precision, — 1 so specimens like the following "Native Literature * show that the Negroes actually have thoughts to express, that they reflect and reason about tilings just as other men. Considered in such a point <>f view, these specimens may go a long way . vi r towards refuting the old-fashioned doctrine of an essential in- equality of the Negroes with the rest of mankind, which now and then still shows itself not only in America but also in Europe. Such views may perhaps be excusable in those who have never heard black men speak except in a language foreign to them and which they had to learn from mere hearing: but when I was amongst them in their native land, on the soil which the feet of their fathers have trod , and heard them deliver, in their own native tongue, stirring extempore speeches, adorned with beautiful imagery and of half an hour or an hour's duration, or when I was writing from their dictation, sometimes ten hours in succession, without having to correct a word or alter a construction in 20 or 30 pages, or when, in Sierra Leone, I attended examinations of the sons of liber- ated slaves in Algebra, Geometry, Latin, Greek, Hebrew &c. — then, I confess, any other idea never entered my mind but that I had to do with real men. Nor will it be denied that, in addition to the ethnological or anthropological bearing of the whole collection, the histo- rical sketches have still a particular interest, inasmuch as they contain information , derived from personal observation, respecting some subjects of natural history, and respecting two of the most powerful nations of Central Africa, the Bornuese and the Phula.*) The account of the last change of dynasty in the Bornu empire is given so fully and satisfactorily that it must always remain valuable in regard to the history of that land. Where all is still enveloped in so much darkness, as is the case with Africa, even such sporadic glimpses of light become of great value. On account of the more general interest possessed by these narratives, I have accompanied them with an English translation, in order thus to render them accessible also to those who cannot be at the trouble of reading them in the original text. *) See more about the latter in the Introduction to the Polyglolta Afrivana \ III The direct and chief object, however, of the publication of this small native literature is a lingual one. If I found it the best ami only satisfactory means for obtaining a tho- rough knowledge of the Grammar, first to spend much time ui writing the dictations of natives on a multiplicity of sub- jects, can it be otherwise but satisfactory for every one else who will study the language to have the means of convincing himself, by his own observation, how far I have succeeded in deducting the Grammar from the materials with which I was furnished, and, as it were, to reproduce it, independently of its first author? By furnishing these specimens of my own working materials, I give up the privilege of being the only competent authority respecting the Kanuri Grammar, and open the way to every student to judge for himself. For the Vo- cabulary which follows the text contains all the words occur- ring in the latter, and many more, so as to afford much greater facilities for understanding it than I originally possessed. I would therefore fain hope that this present volume, in con- nexion with the Kanuri Grammar, may prove a real acquisi- tion from the wide area of wilderness and fallow ground which still remains to be added to the known and cultivated tield o£ philology ) the highest destination of which is, to yield trunxldiions of God* eternal and *<trii<<i truth into all the lan- guages and tongues of the earth. It now only remains to make a few remarks respecting miiiic particulars. In the Vocabulary I always give in parenthesis the third person of those verbs whose character (i. e. final radical litter) is importance cither m , or », or «, because this is of great for the whole inflection. Of the quotations, occurring in this volume, the ^4j al- ways refer to my "Grammar of the Bornu or Kanuri Language/' In the Translation of the Kanuri text the words in pa- JX renthesw are not in the Original, but had to be added for the sake of clearness. It also frequently happened, as is gene- rally the ease in translating , that words or modes of expres- sion were to be used in English which are not quite identical with those in the Original, but which will be easily known by the reader, although they are not expressly marked as such. In regard to the accent we must remark that, it some- times shifts its place either for the addition of inflectional appendages to a word, or on account of its position in the con- text. From the same reasons the quantity of vowels also seems to vary. In both respects, however, my Interpreters them- selves appeared to me a little uncertain, so that I did not suc- ceed in fully getting hold of the proper laws for these changes. I always marked the accent and quantity of words as in each case my Interpreter's pronunciation seemed to require it. If, in a few instances, the accent or quantity of the examples in the Grammar does not quite agree with that of the text in this book, it is owing to the circumstance, that generally I did not simply copy those examples from the ma- nuscripts, but had them pronounced afresh by my Interpreter as detached propositions.
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