"Well, you know, among the Basoko, it is supposed, if one is too clever, or too lucky, or too rich, that it has…
- Date of account
- Published 1914
- Source
- My Dark Companions and Their Strange Stories
- Reference
- My Dark Companions and Their Strange Stories · selected passage 9
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
"Well, you know, among the Basoko, it is supposed, if one is too clever, or too lucky, or too rich, that it has come about through dealings in witchcraft, and people are burned in consequence
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention only"Well, you know, among the Basoko, it is supposed, if one is too clever, or too lucky, or too rich, that it has come about through dealings in witchcraft, and people are burned in consequence. I do not like the idea of being burned--and therefore I have refrained often from assisting you because I feared you could not contain your surprise, and would chat about it to the villagers. Then some day, after some really remarkable act of cleverness of mine, people would say, `Ha! this is not a dog. No dog could have done that! He must be a demon--or a witch in a dog's hide!' and of course they would take me and burn me."
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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