The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore

The Magician Archetype

Hello to all new subscribers and followers! Welcome! Please read this [https://open.substack.com/pub/mythologicalafricans/p/welcome?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web]. 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? The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections: * Creation myths and foundation legends * Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created * Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!) I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody! Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe [https://mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

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, images and ideas which allude to the Magician archetype as they show up in African myth, folklore and legend. We will necessarily touch on the topic of witchcraft in the African context but only peripherally and as relevant to the topic. In today’s episode, we’ll see how Nuer (Sudan) prophet, Ngundeng Bong, embodied the Magician archetype to catalyze change. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Sir Arthur Charles Clarke [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke], English science fiction writer, science writer, futurist, and invento [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke]r. References * The Collected Works of Carl Jung [https://archive.org/stream/the-collected-works-of-carl-jung-complete-digital-edition/The%20Collected%20Works%20of%20C.G.%20Jung%20-%20Complete%20Digital%20Edition_djvu.txt]. * The Fate of Ngungdeng’s Dang [https://riftvalley.net/news/sudan-and-south-sudan/fate-ngungdengs-dang/]. * Kelsey, Darren. "The Archetypal Magician. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-93660-0_2]" Storytelling and Collective Psychology: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Life and the Work of Derren Brown. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. 21-40. * Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan. The Nuer:: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford University Press. 1940. p185. Can’t Get Enough? * Tenets of Kikuyu Witchcraft and Religion [https://hingesoftime.substack.com/p/tenets-of-kikuyu-witchcraft] Still Can’t Get Enough? The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections: * Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!) * Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created * Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!) I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody! Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe [https://mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

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 today, when everyone admits that the weal or woe of the future will be decided neither by the threat of wild animals, nor by natural catastrophes, nor by the danger of world-wide epidemics, but simply and solely by the psychic changes in (hu)man(s). It needs only an almost imperceptible disturbance of equilibrium in a few of our rulers’ heads to plunge the world into blood, fire, and radioactivity. - Carl Jung, God, the Devil, and the Human Soul. Hope you enjoy and see you next week! Can’t Get Enough? The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections: * Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!) * Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created * Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!) I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody! Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe [https://mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore

Hello Friends! New to Mythological Africans? Welcome! Read this [https://substack.com/@mythologicalafricans/note/p-189514495?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=mwtpv]. 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 perception of “good” or “bad” rulership bends to the will of the beholder. Arraweelo of Somalia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arawelo] is a particularly contradictory ruler in African legend. In some accounts of her story, she is maligned as an exceptionally evil ruler who despised men. Yet other accounts present her as a ruler who fought for the good of her people, especially the women. We’ll hear two versions of her story and reflect on how their contradiction is a both a manifestation of the bipolarity of archetypes and an expression of wholeness. References * The Somali Queen: Queen Arraweelo [https://www.amazon.com/Somali-Queen-Arraweelo-ebook/dp/B07YQDC414] by Farah Mohamed. * British Somaliland [https://www.google.com/books/edition/British_Somaliland/Ke9JAgAAQBAJ?hl=en] by Ralph E Drake-Brockman (pages 169 - 171). * Arraweelo: A Role Model For Somali Women by Ladan Affi [https://criticalmentalists.blogspot.com/2011/09/arraweelo-role-model-for-somali-women.html]. * A Tree for poverty : Somali Poetry and Prose [https://archive.org/details/treeforpovertyso0000unse/page/125/mode/1up] by Margaret Lawrence (pages 126 - 131) Can’t Get Enough Still Can’t Get Enough? The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections: * Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!) * Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created * Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!) I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody! Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe [https://mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

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 continent in current times. The way I see it, bad rulership is not new to the African continent. What has been disrupted is the ability of the people to organize against it and when they succeed, to move on from it. References * Biebuyck, Daniel, and Kahombo C. Mateene, editors. “The Mwindo Epic.” The Mwindo Epic from the Banyanga, 1st ed., University of California Press, 2021, pp. 39–142. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1hm8jb6.5. Accessed 16 Mar. 2026. * Mysterioum Coniunctionis [https://archive.org/details/mysterioumconiun0014cgju/mode/2up] by C.G. Jung Can’t Get Enough? Still Can’t Get Enough? The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections: * Creation myths and foundation legends (including the story of Tin Hinan, Founding Mother of the the Tuareg!) * Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created * Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!) I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody! Mythological Africans is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Mythological Africans at mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe [https://mythologicalafricans.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]