MYTHS and folktales African Stories from the Jieng South Sudan

By Jacob J. Akol

THESE MYTHS and folktales are a collection from my own pool of stories, told when I was a child in the village and locked up somewhere in the recesses of my memory. Although much has decayed with time or been wiped out by other peoples' stories fighting for front-page in my brain, I am sure there is a lot more in there that I cannot recall at th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Africa World Books Pty Ltd
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645452921

Jacob J. Akol

The Author Jacob J. Akol was born in Southern Sudan, now South Sudan, in the mid-40s. He enjoyed telling myths and folktales as a child. He was educated in southern Sudan at Kuacjok Catholic Mission up to the intermediate school level. He then skipped in and out of formal education as he led the life of a refugee in Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Zambia, Ireland and England where he finished school and eventually earned a Masters Degree in Communication Arts and Media from the University of Leeds, England. As an aid worker cum journalist he travelled widely in Africa, from Antananarivo in Madagascar through Cape Town to Cairo and from Mogadishu in Somalia to Timbuktu in Mali and beyond - there is apparently more of Africa beyond Timbuktu. In addition to this book, he has authored three other books, including two memoirs. He is married to Joy and they have two grownup children, Aker and Atem. They all live in UK.  

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Note: This book was first published with illustrations as "Dinka Folktales by Paulines Publications, Nairobi, in 2007. It has since been republished in Japan – in Japanese.

The publisher wishes to acknowledge and thank Dr Douglas H. Johnson for his invaluable help and support for Africa World Books and its mission of preserving and promoting African cultural and literary traditions and history. Dr Johnson and fellow historians have been instrumental in ensuring that African people remain connected to their past and their identity. Africa World Books is proud to carry on this mission.

© Jacob Jiel Akol, 2022, All rights reserved.

ISBN (Paperback): 9780645452945

ISBN (eBook): 9780645452921

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including the condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Cover design, typesetting and layout : Africa World Books

To the children of South Sudan:

These are your roots.

CONTENTS

About The Author

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

I How Clans Got Their Names

II Why it is as it is

III How The Jieng Got The Cow

IV How The Jieng Got The Drum

V Unexpected Rain

VII The Disputed Calf

VIII Acenggaak Junior and Acenggaak Senior

IX The Hyena, The Pigeon and The Monitor

X Jelbek The Lion

XI The Fox and The Camel

XII The Old Folk and The Young Folk

XII The Lion, The Fox and The Ostrich

XIII The Fox and His Brother-In-Laws

XIV The Lion, The Fox and His Brother

XV The Lion, Alai and The Beetle

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JACOB J. AKOL was born in Southern Sudan, now South Sudan, in the mid-40s. He enjoyed telling myths and folktales as a child. He was educated in southern Sudan at Kuacjok Catholic Mission up to the intermediate school level. He then skipped in and out of formal education as he led the life of a refugee in Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Zambia, Ireland and England where he finished school and eventually earned a Masters Degree in Communication Arts and Media from the University of Leeds, England. As an aid worker cum journalist he travelled widely in Africa, from Antananarivo in Madagascar through Cape Town to Cairo and from Mogadishu in Somalia to Timbuktu in Mali and beyond - there is apparently more of Africa beyond Timbuktu. In addition to this book, he has authored three other books, including two memoirs. He is married to Joy and they have two grownup children, Aker and Atem. They all live in the UK.

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

IAM MOST GRATEFUL to the Jieng/Dinka people of the Sudan for their resilience in and faithfulness to their culture in the face of adversity from hostile cultures aimed at wiping it out. I feel privileged to have been born into and brought up in such a rich cultural background that has sustained me in both good and hard times as a refugee in foreign lands.

Many thanks to Sudanow¹ magazine which first published a number of these folk stories under my name. Included in this volume are Acenggaak Junior and Acenggaak Senior, The Lion, the Fox and the Ostrich. The Old Folks and the Young Folks. The Hyena, the Pigeon and the Lizard (Monitor). Jelbek the Lion. The Sound of Drum (Unexpected Rain in this collection). The Fox and the Camel.

My thanks also to Professor Taban Lo Liyong for including in his anthology a number of these stories.

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1 Sudanow was a Sudanese national monthly magazine published in Khartoum in the 70s.

PREFACE

Why Record Myths And Folktales?

ICANNOT PUT IT much better than these remarks by Dr. Francis Mading Deng in the preface to his book, Dinka Folktales (1974):

In my research, both inside the Sudan and abroad, I have found that all Dinka, including the educated, deeply enjoy talking, discussing, reminiscing and even bragging about the essential virtues of their people and their culture. Yet very few are aware of the fact that verbalising romanticism is not enough to save what is good in their culture. During this transitional period of political preoccupation and seeming denial of tradition, a great deal is being lost which could enrich the modern society of Nilotics and Sudan. When this loss is finally felt, the substance may no longer be there to find…. In a sense, recording Dinka folktales is not only a preservation of what was and what is, it is an attempt to enrich what will be.

These myths and folktales belong to the estimated three to four million Jieng, universally known as Dinka, people of the South Sudan. They are to them like the vast swamps, grassland and forests that straddle the White Nile and its tributaries they inhabit. They are part of the wealth on which they depend for survival, recreation and creativity. They are the roots of their culture.

But an underdeveloped land has limited uses and meagre returns. Its productivity often depends on the whims of nature such as the weather. Its very underdevelopment reeks and, like carrion to the vulture and the hyena, attracts the adventurer and the development-mercenary who care less for the soul of the land.

Like undeveloped land, unrecorded myths and folktales are in greater danger of being polluted, high jacked and/or stripped off much of their cultural value. While their adaptability to changing political and social circumstances may at first appear to be the proof of their utility, it nevertheless contains the seeds of distortion and their destruction. Passed on by word of mouth from person to person and from generation to generation, they depend on the whims of storytellers whose memories are being increasingly influenced by lives outside the Jieng traditional experience.

I have had the benefit of looking back at my own work over the years. Retold and written in English in England in the 70s or soon after a long spell there, I later found that those stories had the flavour of those far away lands. Some of them sought, for example, to exact a moral lesson at the end, something a Western folk or fairy tale would do. With the Jieng, the moral lesson is always implied, never spelt out.

But, then, that’s the value of having these myths and folktales recorded. If I had just told the stories orally to someone and had not written them down, I would never have had the chance to reread and revise them. More importantly, recorded stories are always available for other readers and writers to criticise. Any constructive criticism should then lead to revision and meaningful growth and creativity based on solid cultural roots.

The ideal situation would be first to retell, record, write and publish in the Jieng Language. Various Jieng tribes (among whom are the Rek, the Malwal, the Agaar, the Twic, the Ngok, the Bor, the Atuot and the Cich) may then debate, evaluate and amalgamate to fully understand and appreciate the basis of their common cultural values. That which survives these evaluations would be worth consolidating and preserving in book and other durable forms for future generations.

The next stage would then be to translate the tales into other languages in order to share their value with other Sudanese, Africans and the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, publishing in Jieng is currently difficult if not impossible, for the reasons given later in this chapter.

The vast majority of Jieng myths and folktales are still circulating from mouth to mouth. Only a tiny proportion is recorded in book form1. So, how