PODCAST · society
AfroMythos: Tellings
by AfroMythos
Myths, gods, history and living traditions from across Africa, read aloud. Each episode is one telling from AfroMythos: a creation story, a trickster tale, a hero, a journey into masks, cloth and the ancestors, or a chapter of history, from Ancient Egypt and the pyramids to Rastafari and the routes and forts. Every telling is retold from published sources. The narrators are computer voices with African English accents. Read along with pictures and sources at afromythos.com.
Episodes
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The unread script
Kush wrote its own language in its own letters for some six hundred years. Since 1911 we have been able to read every sign aloud, yet most of the words still mean nothing to us. Follow the script from two royal names on a boat stand to the last inscription on a temple column, by way of a lion god...
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Seven nights, seven night-walkers
Halloween is not an African festival. But Africa has its own beings of the forest path, the riverbank and the dark doorway. For the last week of October, one story a night, each told as a belief and traced to its source. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/halloween
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Iron and the river roads
Black heaps of slag still stand beside the ruins of Meroë, the royal city of Kush. In 1912 a British scholar called it “the Birmingham of ancient Africa”. Follow the evidence instead: a furnace rebuilt and fired again, ninety-seven radiocarbon dates, an old myth about how Africa learned iron, a...
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The pyramids of Kush
Kush built more pyramids than Egypt did, steeper and smaller, over about a thousand years. Follow them from Piye’s grave at El-Kurru to a flooded tomb at Nuri, an architect’s drawing cut into a chapel wall, and the chapels where the dead were fed; then meet the people who numbered, robbed, copied...
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The kandakes
Around 25 BC an army from Kush took Aswan and pulled down the statues of Rome’s new emperor. Follow the queens of Meroë: a title the Romans mistook for a name, a war told from both sides, an emperor’s head buried under a temple step, a queen carved as large as her king, and the women who carried...
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Kings of two lands
In the eighth century BC kings from Kush, in what is now Sudan, marched north and ruled Egypt for about ninety years. Follow them from a holy mountain at Napata: a king named for his country, a march that ended at Memphis, a conqueror angrier about starving horses than rebellion, a puzzle about...
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Kerma
Not long before 1550 BC an army led by Kush marched deep into Egypt; soon after, an Egyptian king seized a letter meant for its ruler. Follow the first kingdom of Kush, at Kerma in Sudan: a temple of mud still nearly 20 metres high, a round hall for the king, pots fired upside down, graves…
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The great library
Around 280 BC, in a young city on Egypt’s Mediterranean shore, a line of kings set out to gather every book in the world. Follow the scholars of Alexandria, the Egyptian priest who wrote Egypt’s history in Greek, the shadow at Aswan that measured the Earth, and the long, slow end that no single...
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Reading the sky
Before dawn on a summer morning, a bright star climbs out of the eastern glow, and Egypt knows the river will soon rise. Follow the sky-watchers who turned that star into a year, the night into hours, and a goddess into a map of heaven. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The first doctors
Around 1600 BC, a scribe in Thebes copied a book of surgery: 48 injuries, from the head down, each with a verdict. Follow Egypt’s doctors from the wound to the pulse, the tooth and the birth, and follow their books out of Luxor into the world. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The two crowns
A white crown for the south, a red crown for the north, and one king wearing both. Follow the double crown for three thousand years, through eight rulers: a palette, a pyramid, five ships, a sun with hands, a carved mountain, a king from Kush and the last queen. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The weighing of the heart
Around 1250 BC, a long painted roll was made for the burial of Ani, a royal scribe of Thebes. On one sheet, his heart sits in a balance against a feather. Follow him through the hall of judgement, and then follow the roll itself, out of Thebes in 1888. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The scribe’s sums
In year 33 of King Apophis, a scribe named Ahmose copied an old book of sums: sharing bread, swapping grain, measuring the slope of a pyramid. Follow his working out into the world that needed it. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/empires/scribe
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The village of the tomb makers
The people who cut and painted the tombs of Egypt’s kings lived together in one walled village, and wrote almost everything down: their pay, their sick days, their quarrels, and the month the grain did not come. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/empires/tomb-makers
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How Ananse went up on the rafters
At the Sky-god’s mother’s funeral, Ananse wept in three voices. None of them was his own. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/ananse-rafters
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Ananse goes looking for a fool
Ananse wanted a fool to do the work while he took the money. Anene the Crow said yes. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/ananse-looking-for-a-fool
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Ayiyi and the leopard's honey cloth
Ayiyi borrowed the leopard's cloth for a funeral. It was dyed with honey, and it rained on the way home. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/ayiyi-honey-cloth
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One grain of corn
Ananse swapped one grain of corn for a fowl, a sheep, a cow, and a whole town. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/ananse-grain-of-corn
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Ayiyi and the millstone that ground by itself
In a famine, Ayiyi the spider's friend found a millstone that ground flour by itself. Ayiyi could not wait for morning. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/ayiyi-millstone
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How Ananse got his bald head
At his mother-in-law’s funeral, Ananse would not eat. On the fourth day, he hid hot beans under his hat. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/ananse-bald-head
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The chariot at first light
A king who carved his own victory on six temples, a battle both sides claimed, a narrow road taken against advice, and a peace treaty you can still read. Ancient Egypt at war, his version first. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/empires/chariot
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The boat that carried the mountain
A boatman's diary, a town of bakers, wet sand under a sledge and gangs who signed their work. The Great Pyramid, told through the people who raised it. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/empires/pyramids
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Refusal and return
Some Africans sold captives. Others refused, fought and fled, and people on three continents spent centuries ending the trade. Their descendants are still finding the way home. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/history/refusal-and-return
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The routes and the forts
Across the desert, over the Indian Ocean and through the castles of the Atlantic coast, millions of Africans were taken from their homes over more than a thousand years. Where it happened, how we know, and the numbers historians can actually defend. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The Emperor and the Rastaman
An emperor crowned in Addis Ababa in 1930, and poor men in Kingston who heard it as prophecy. How Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie and Jamaica’s Rastafari became bound together, and what the herb, the locks and the drums really mean. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The priest who called down a nation
A child born with his fists closed. A priest at a king’s side. A stool from the sky, a sword no one can pull out, a battle, a body of laws, and a death the Asante still talk about. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/anokye
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The road from Notsie
A walled city, a cruel king, a wall softened with washing water and a people who walked out backwards. Then a priest who rode a crocodile, a kingdom named for folding in, and a border drawn through the middle of them. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/ewe
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Spider, god or storyteller?
Kwaku Ananse is the most famous spider in the world. In Ghana he is a trickster, a teacher and a warning. In some old prayers, his name belongs to God. So who is he? Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/ananse
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Wisdom you can wear
A ram's horns. Two crocodiles sharing one stomach. A bird looking back over its shoulder. Each Adinkra symbol is a proverb pressed into cloth with a calabash stamp, and a whole cloth can be read like a page. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/adinkra
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The dead are not gone
Across Africa, the dead stay in the family. They are called by name when drink is poured, honoured on a stool, danced with every few years, carried to the grave in a coffin shaped like their life, and sometimes born again in a grandchild. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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What the beads say
A string of glass can announce a girl becoming a woman, a warrior's age-set, a secret love letter or the authority of a king. Across Africa, what people wear on their bodies is a language. Here is how to start reading it. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/beads
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Èṣù is not Satan
He carries every offering to heaven, guards every crossroads and keeps the bargain between people and the gods. In the 1840s, missionaries borrowed his name for the Devil. This is who he was before that, and who he still is. Read it with pictures and sources:...
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The keepers of the word
Before archives, there were families whose whole inheritance was memory. In the Mande world they are the jeli: historians, advisers, praise singers and musicians, who have carried an empire's story for eight hundred years. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/griots
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When the ancestors walk
A masquerade is not a costume. When the mask arrives, the person inside is gone, and someone else is standing in the square. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/masquerades
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Vodún, not voodoo
Vodún means spirit. It is a living religion of the Fon, Ewe and Aja peoples, a national holiday in Benin, and the root of Haitian Vodou. The pins, the dolls and the zombies came later, from somewhere else. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/journeys/vodun
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Bring it back alive
Two asafo companies leave Simpa. The bushbuck must return alive. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/aboakyer
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When the balance of power broke
Denkyira held the advantage. At Feyiase, that order broke. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/feyiase
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The stool no one sits on
Anokye calls. The sky answers. Osei Tutu receives something no king will ever sit on. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/golden-stool
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The day hunger was mocked
Hunger once emptied the bowls. Now the community calls it out by name. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/homowo
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A way through the wall
Agokoli had a wall. The women had water and time. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/notsie
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When the sky moved away
She had food to prepare. Heaven was in the way. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/sky-retreat
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The hunter at the water
The village could see its water. Reaching it was another matter. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/tohazie
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The river did not keep him
The rain brought resentment. The stone was meant to end him. Tsali brought it back. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/tsali
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The queen mother who refused
The king was already in exile. Then the British demanded the Golden Stool. Her full story is now a living memorial: afromythos.com/leaders/yaa-asantewaa Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/ghana-stories/yaa-asantewaa
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Agya Ahor and the life he gave
The answer has been announced. Nobody moves. Then Ahor stands. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/agya-ahor
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The medicine he never brought home
Anokye found the cure for death. At home, his nephew had already started the funeral. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/anokye-death
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When cattle came down from the sky
The cattle did not begin as property. They came down carrying a responsibility. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/cattle-from-sky
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How African creation myths think about origin
A world can begin in water, depend on a serpent, or need a voice it left outside. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/creation-cosmology
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Ditaolane inside the swallowing monster
He opened the monster and found a whole people alive inside. They thanked him by digging a grave. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/ditaolane-monster
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Èṣù: The bargain for sixteen palm nuts
Ifá came home hungry. Èṣù knew another way to feed him, but named his price. Read it with pictures and sources: https://afromythos.com/stories/eshu-sixteen-palms
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Myths, gods, history and living traditions from across Africa, read aloud. Each episode is one telling from AfroMythos: a creation story, a trickster tale, a hero, a journey into masks, cloth and the ancestors, or a chapter of history, from Ancient Egypt and the pyramids to Rastafari and the routes and forts. Every telling is retold from published sources. The narrators are computer voices with African English accents. Read along with pictures and sources at afromythos.com.
HOSTED BY
AfroMythos
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does AfroMythos: Tellings have?
AfroMythos: Tellings currently has 78 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is AfroMythos: Tellings about?
Myths, gods, history and living traditions from across Africa, read aloud. Each episode is one telling from AfroMythos: a creation story, a trickster tale, a hero, a journey into masks, cloth and the ancestors, or a chapter of history, from Ancient Egypt and the pyramids to Rastafari and the routes...
How often does AfroMythos: Tellings release new episodes?
AfroMythos: Tellings has 78 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to AfroMythos: Tellings?
You can listen to AfroMythos: Tellings on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts AfroMythos: Tellings?
AfroMythos: Tellings is created and hosted by AfroMythos.
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