out its tongue, which he thoughtfully salted and preserved. The credit of the exploit was claimed by the captain of a band of soldiers sent by the chief to ascertain why the whale had not sent the usual wind as a token that the girl had been eaten. The chief accordingly gives the captain his daughter in marriage. When, however, the marriage feast is ready, and the people assembled, the lady is unwilling. Rombao, who has made it his business to be present, interferes at the critical moment with the inquiry why she was to wed the captain, and is told it is because he has killed the whale. "But where", he asks, "is the whale's tongue?" The tongue, of course, cannot be found, until Rombao himself triumphantly produces it and proves that he, not the captain, is entitled to the victor's honours. He marries the maiden, while the captain and his men, who aided and abetted his falsehood, are put to death.[1]
This we shall at once recognise as a variant of the Breton story of The King of the Fishes, and somewhat more distantly akin to the classic legend of Perseus and Andromeda. It was told, presumably at Blantyre, on Lake Nyassa, to the Rev. Duff Macdonald, of the Church of Scotland Mission, by a native of Quilimane; and the children's names betray the Portuguese influence paramount on the Quilimane coast. The tale, however, differs considerably from any Portuguese version with which I am acquainted. Most of its details are purely native. The husband and wife eating apart, the hunting and filibustering proceedings of the twins, the scarcity of water, the salting of the monster's tongue, the wedding customs, are among the indications of its complete assimilation by the native mind. The only details distinctly traceable to Portuguese influence are the names Rombao and Antonyo, the guns, and perhaps the millet—none of them essential to the story. Something appears to be wanting, as we know by comparing other variants, to account for the two dogs, the two spears, and the two guns; and another point on which explanation is required is the word translated "whale". There is little of the supernatural in the tale; what little there is is entirely in harmony with native beliefs. Upon the whole, then, this tale, which comes from a place where the Portuguese are dominant, bears traces of foreign influence only in a few inessential details.
- ↑ Rev. Duff Maodonald, Africana, ii, 341.
