Episodes
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The Magician Archetype
Hello to all new subscribers and followers! Welcome! Please read this. Meanwhile, life is life-ing so this week’s episode features a short story reading and a light-hearted discussion of the magician archetype. Hope you enjoy! Can’t Get Enough? Miracles of Another Kind! Still Can’t Get Enough?…
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The Magician
It’s April, friends, and we’ll spend the month focused on the Jungian archetype of the Magician. We’ll go over what Jung (and Jungian scholars in general) have to say about the Magician, set it in the African context, and then examine specific examples of the patterns of behavior, circumstances,...
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The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore
Hello Friends! We close the series with a short reflection on what this might all mean for us as people living in today’s world of chaos and contradictions. Virtually everything depends on the human psyche and its functions. It should be worthy of all the attention we can give it, especially…
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The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore
Hello Friends! New to Mythological Africans? Welcome! Read this. Meanwhile, we’re still talking about the images, symbols, and patterns of behavior or circumstances associated with rulership in African myth, folklore, legend, and history. This week, we linger in that sliver of space where the...
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The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore
Hello Friends, In this week’s episode, we examine the archetypal symbols, patterns and motifs from the story of Chief Shemwindo, a case of bad rulership from the legends of the Nyanga of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I also reflect on how this ties to the persistence of bad rulership on the...
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The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore
Hey Friends We’re on the fourth episode of the MA deep dive into Jungian archetypes in African myths, legend and folklore. We’re remaining focused on the rulership archetype for the month of March and the plan is to look at it from different angles. In this week’s episode (and to honor Women’s...
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The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore
Hello Friends! This week’s episode is a bit experimental. We tell a story. Not a folktale, legend or myth. Just a story about a Malinke boy who has a very interesting dream. Then, we talk about the dream and tease out some archetypal images, patterns and symbols which, in the context of West...
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The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore
Hi Friends! In week three of our Jungian archetypes meets African myth and folklore series, we start on the story of Sundiata (AKA Son Jara) Keita, arguably one of the major figures from African legends about good and courageous rulership. Sundiata is to the Manding people what Arthur of Camelot…
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Who is a person?
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…
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Introducing MA 2026
Black/African people spend an incredible amount of energy, time and resources on countering negative stereotypes. Stereotypes are oversimplified, rigid, and, too often, biased perceptions people have of others. Black/African people have been locked in an all-out war against negative stereotypes…
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Tishuash
The average human in the modern context is largely cut off from deep and transformative encounters with the natural world. The reasons are manifold. Some people live in places where access is nonexistent or limited. Others have access but no time, buffeted as they are by their obligations and...
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Asouf Sings a Muwwal
Last week, we started our analysis of Libyan writer Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone.” We met Asouf, the young Tuareg man who is the book’s main character. We also encountered one of the major conflicts that drive the book’s plot: the sun’s eternal vendetta against the desert and the...
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Sun, Sand and Human
You meet three of the main protagonists and hear a central conflict in Libyan writer Ibrahim al Koni’s “The Bleeding of the Stone” in the first sentence of the book. “Evening was coming,” he writes, “the flaming disk of the sun sinking slowly down from the depths of the sky as it bade farewell,...
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Africa's Sahara
It‘s hard to believe its December already, but here we are! We’ve spent the bulk of the year talking about land form myths from across the continent so I figured we could zoom in and look at things from another perspective: how these myths influence daily life. However, I don’t live on the…
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Creation Myths vs Foundation Legends
I ran into a bit of a problem while doing the research for the first section of my book: “The Watkins Book of African Folklore”. That section is titled “Creation Myths and Foundations Legends” but it was originally supposed to be titled just “Creation Myths.” The problem I ran into was that many...
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The Placenta of the Earth
We are still looking at African creation myths this month. This week, we examine a version of the creation myth of West Africa’s Mande-speaking people. I’m very excited to spend time on this story because it is one of the best documented and analyzed myths from the African continent. It is also...
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A comment on variations in mythological and folkloric accounts
If you were raised Christian like me, your head probably threatens to explode at the thought of there being more than one version of a creation myth. In the Christian worldview, the Genesis account is it. However, even the Christian biblical canon as we know it was compiled and legitimized over...
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African Creation Myths
Hi Friends! We’re looking at African creation myths this month on the Mythological Africans podcast (Listen to part 1 here). In this episode, we examine stories of creation by emergence from underground. In these accounts, all that exists seems to emerge from under the earth or a body of water....
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African Creation Myths
Creation myths are the first geological myths in the true sense of the word, even when the accounts speak of eggs rather than rock. Creation myths address the most fundamental question of human existence: how did we get here? And as they answer this question, creation myths also provide reason…
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Ngorongoro belongs to the Maasai
Hello Friends! We’re at the end of our month-long examination of how different African peoples have fought back against extractive and exploitative industrial and commercial practices, often at the hands of multinational companies. In the first episode, we discussed Kenya’s Chonyi people’s...
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Our Good Mother Who Feeds Us
Hello all! In the last episode, we examined the case of Kenya’s Chonyi people’s fight and ultimate victory in preventing a cement plant from being established on their lands. We ended that episode with a question: How should modern Africans navigate a future which will continue to demand land and...
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Saving the Kilifi Caves
To those who still look and listen, the majestic beauty of the African continent’s diverse landscapes thrums with life, animated by the spirits who inhabit them. Each forest grove or tree, river, mountain, oasis, cave or shoreline is a portal to connection. It is to these liminal places that…
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Folk Beliefs and Psychology
We are at the end of our month-long series about the intersection of mythology, folklore and psychology in the African Context. But it wouldn’t be much of a series about mythology, folklore and psychology if we didn’t discuss the denizens of the spirit world as understood and experienced across…
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Folk Beliefs and Psychology
We are in week three of the Mythological Africans Podcast September series on how mythology and folklore from the African continent intersects with psychology. This week, we tackle yet another phenomenon common to the African continent: the incidents of mass panic which seem to take hold of…
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Folk Beliefs and Psychology
I’m very excited about this week’s episode of the MA Podcast because I get to talk with my mother, author and poet, Susan Nde. This is not her first time on MA! Back in 2022, we got to chat with her about her short story collection, The Mirror and Nine Other Short Stories. We talked menstrual...
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Folk Beliefs and Psychology
In the ever fascinating world of the internet, the word “narcissist” lurks under just about every person’s tongue, waiting to be lobed at any and every one whether or not it is deserved or appropriate. I want to believe most people who use the word know the Greek myth of Narcissus. I might be...
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African Urban Legends Finale
We end our August discovery of African urban legends this week. In the first episode, we heard the story of the showdown between Nyaminyami, the beloved and fearsome spirit of the Zambezi River and the engineers building the Kariba Dam. In the second episode we talked about the case of Epasa…
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Efasa Moto and the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope
We’re discovering African urban legends this month on the Mythological Africans podcast. In the first episode, we heard the story of the showdown between Nyaminyami (the beloved and fearsome spirit of the Zambezi River revered by the Tonga of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique) and the…
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Nyaminyami and the Kariba Dam Project
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...
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The Endless Waters
Hello Friends! We spent the month of July getting to know some of the folklore associated with Lake Victoria. Normally, we would be moving on to a new topic but there are a couple more lake-related stories and aspects of folklore that I want to touch on before we do. And so in this episode of the...
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Mukasa: Spirit of Lake Nalubaale
Hello friends! This week’s episode of the Mythological Africans podcast is inspired by a conversation with award-winning Ugandan author and film maker, Dilman Dila, who I had the pleasure of meeting at the African Book Festival. We return to those accounts of strangers who come from Lake…
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The Story of Murianyi
She is the world’s largest tropical lake and second largest freshwater lake by surface area, covering almost 69,000 square kilometers (43,000 square miles). Naturally, she is the largest lake on the African continent. Three countries: Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, lie along her shores. Burundi and...
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Up the White Nile
One of the most fascinating characteristics of the Nile is how it is often spoken of as one river but the location and lore surrounding each section of the river makes it seem, at times, to be different rivers. There is the bounteous silt-laden Egyptian Nile spreading its palm out at its...
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Abay
To the people of Ethiopia, Abay (the Blue Nile) is the River of All Rivers. Abay is a friend, a stranger and an enemy. It is a healer, a unifier and a giver, as well as a destroyer, a scatterer and a taker. Much has been written and said about what Abay means to Ethiopians but nowhere else has…
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Meet the Aman Doger
Midnight skin, fiery vertical eyes, long tails, donkey legs, big ears, and an insatiable taste for palm dates and little children, the Aman Doger is the stuff of Nubian nightmares. But what is it exactly? In this week’s episode of the Mythological Africans podcast, we start with some Sudanese...
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Hymn to the Nile
The ancient Egyptian civilization emerged around 6,000 years ago. It is one of the greatest of human civilizations. Ancient Egypt owed its very existence to the river Nile. Its landmass consisted of the river’s fertile floodplain and delta. Its life force was driven by the river’s annual…
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Nile
May was a strenuous but exciting trek north through the Saharan desert, charting the North African mythical landscape. Like travelers from times past and present, we sought out the Tuareg to guide us on this journey. After all, who could be more qualified at trans-Saharan crossings than those who...
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Look at the Mountain Peaks!
This week, we travel even further north to the African Mediterranean coast where the Rif Mountains are located. The Rif Mountains are another Moroccan mountain range rich in history and mountain-related folklore. We’ll visit the town of Chefchaouen, whose name tells you just how much the...
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Sidi Chamharouch
To most people, the name “Atlas” (in the context of mythology and folklore) refers to Atlas, the North African king from Greek mythology. Atlas sided with the Titans in their war against the Olympian gods and so was cursed to hold up the western sky on his shoulders. Accordingly, the highest peak...
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Tales from the Plateau of Rivers
Deep in the Algerian section of the Sahara Desert, nestled in the southeastern* corner of the country, are the Tassili n'Ajjer and Ahaggar mountain ranges. The Tassili n'Ajjer range is familiar to the world as the largest open air museum with striking rock formations and prehistoric rock art for...
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Desertland, Spiritland
Hello Friends! For the month of May, we go north with our meanderings through the landscape of African geomythology. Come along as we cross the Sahara with the Tuareg, the African continent’s great desert nomads. We will travel through the desert where nature has been stripped bare, where nature...
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Bad Lake
Around 9:30 pm on the night of Thursday August 21st 1986, a roaring sound, muted like an approaching storm, arose near the area surrounding Lake Nyos in Cameroon’s North West region. In its aftermath there was a strange eerie silence. When dawn came, no cocks crowed to welcome the rising sun. No...
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African Flood Myths
In “Legends of the Earth: Their Geologic Origins”, American Geologist Dorothy Vitaliano asserts that the lack of widespread catastrophic flood myths from the African continent is one of the reasons why people who study such things came to question the plausibility of a global flood as described…
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Geomythology
In this episode of the MA Podcast, we introduce the concept of Geomythology (another term for the folklore of landforms). In the process, we also start our exploration of the kinds of stories African people have come up with to explain the landforms and landscapes of wherever they have found...
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Stories of the Land
Hello friends, new and old! (New friends, read this post if you’re not sure what Mythological Africans is about.) Meanwhile, I am so thrilled to share this week’s MA podcast episode with you! We are starting out on one of my favorite aspects of studying folklore: the connection between folklore…
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Other Trees of African Folklore
Hello Friends! In this week’s episode, the last in our exploration of African trees and forests, we’ll acquaint ourselves with some arboreal friends and fiends from across the continent. We start with a tragic historical account of the felling of two great Baobab trees in Lokoja (Nigeria). Next…
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On International Forest Day
Hello there! (And welcome to new friends! Read this post if you’re not sure what Mythological Africans is about!) Have you been following along so far this year? We’ve been talking about how the natural world shows up in African mythology and folklore. In recent episodes, we’ve focused on forests...
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No podcast episode. Just <insert happy dance gif>
Hello Friends! We interrupt regular podcast programming to bring you the news. The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is here! Our baby, all 1.25lbs of her, entered the world on March 11th. She’s currently #2 on Amazon’s list of top new releases in African...
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On the Nakayima Tree Incident
The Nakayima Tree (Pterygota mildbraedii) is one of Uganda’s most well known cultural artefacts. A recent tragedy at the Nakayima Shrine, where the tree stands, highlights some of the perils of poorly informed eco-spirituality. In this episode, we explore the tree’s history and discuss the...
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Sidi Bou-Mehada: The Cedar Tree
If you grew up immersed in Christian theology like I did, you’re probably familiar with the Cedars of Lebanon. King Solomon famously used large quantities of this holy and most prestigious of wood to construct the temple which housed the Ark of the Covenant of the Israelites. In Northern Africa,...