The same belief is noted by Chatelain in Angola, West Africa: "In African folk tales the animal world, as also…
- Date of account
- Material collected chiefly 1887-1890; published 1900
- Source
- Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology
- Reference
- Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology · selected passage 131
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with Cherokee names and material translated from oral testimony
- Translation
- Collected and edited by James Mooney
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The same belief is noted by Chatelain in Angola, West Africa: "In African folk tales the animal world, as also the spirit world, is organized and governed just like the human world
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 onlyThe same belief is noted by Chatelain in Angola, West Africa: "In African folk tales the animal world, as also the spirit world, is organized and governed just like the human world. In Angola the elephant is the supreme king of all animal creation, and the special chief of the edible tribe of wild animals. Next to him in rank the lion is special chief of the tribe of ferocious beasts and highest vassal of the elephant. Chief of the reptile tribe is the python. Chief of the finny tribe is, in the interior, the di-lenda, the largest river fish. Chief of the feathery tribe is the kakulu ka humbi, largest of the eagles. Among the domestic animals the sceptre belongs to the bull; among the locusts to the one called di-ngundu. Even the ants and termites have their kings or queens. Every chief or king has his court, consisting of the ngolambole, tandala, and other officers, his parliament of ma-kota and his plebeian subjects, just like any human African saba" (Folk tales of Angola, p.
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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