Physical resemblances determine the identity of the baby. Before death, the emi-spirit may visit relatives, clan-members who will thus learn in a dream that their kinsman or -woman is going to die soon. Even in daytime, the cold presence of a dying relative may be felt from far away, as if he were close by. The ghosts of those who died in mid-life may go and live in distant towns and assume a quasi-physical existence there. A man who died early in life might even marry, his wife would not even know that her husband was dead already, a mere ghost. When the final hour arrives, the man dies a second time. After death the guardian soul arrives in heaven and confesses to the Supreme God Olorun what it has done on earth. The good souls will then be sent to the Good Heaven, Orun Rere. The souls of the wicked, those who are guilty of theft, murder or cruelty, poisoning, witchcraft or slander, will be sent to Orun Buburu, the Bad Heaven, as punishment.

The Queen of Ethiopia: In the days of King Solomon, three thousand years ago, there lived in Ethiopia a dynasty of queens, who reigned with great wisdom. One queen, the Malika Habashiya or Abyssinian Queen of old legends, had a dream in which she held a kid in her lap. On waking up she found herself pregnant and in due course she gave birth to a baby daughter. But alas! The child had one goat's foot. When the queen died, Princess Goat's Foot succeeded her, since she had no other children. One day she heard of King Solomon and his great wisdom, so she wrote him a letter announcing her arrival at his court.

She was hoping that his great knowledge might enable him to cure her foot but she did not mention that. The King, however, always knew in advance what was going to happen, so, in front of his new palace he had a large pool dug, so that all his visitors had to rinse their feet before arriving. When the Queen of Abyssinia arrived, she had to raise her skirt before wading through the pond, so that the King could see her legs, one normal and one caprine. In the pond was a piece of ironwood which was placed there on the King's orders. When the Queen's cloven foot hit it, she was cured. When she stepped out of the water, she noticed that she had two human feet. She was now a very attractive woman and Solomon fell in love with her. She wanted to go home, having achieved her purpose, but Solomon persuaded her to stay. He proposed marriage, but she refused.

However, Solomon knew the answer to that too. He gave some orders to his servants and an hour later the cook served a very spicy meal. That night the Queen felt very thirsty but there was no water in the palace. The pond had been drained and the servants told her that only the King had water, so she had to go and beg Solomon for water in his bedroom.

There is a version of the tale which says that she had agreed to marry King Solomon only if she took something vital from him. She therefore stole into his bedroom like a thief, hoping to find water without waking him. However, Solomon was wide awake like every man in love. As she was drinking from his water jar, she felt his hand holding hers in the dark, while the King's voice asked: 'Is water not vital, my dear Queen?' She had to agree to marry him there and then, but the next day she insisted on going home. Solomon gave her a ring, saying: 'When you have a son, send him to me when he is grown up, and I will give him half my kingdom.' The Queen of Ethiopia took the ring and travelled back by boat along the Red Sea.

In due course she gave birth to a son whom she called David, after his father's father. When he came of age, his mother sent him to King Solomon, with numerous presents. When David entered Solomon's court, he noticed an empty chair next to the King's and sat down on it. Solomon asked him: 'What have you come for, handsome young man?' He replied: 'I am David of Ethiopia I have come to ask you for half of your kingdom, and here is the ring which you gave my mother.' Solomon embraced him when he recognized his ring, and spoke: 'So be it. I will give you Africa, which is half my kingdom.' According to the legend, the King was in his right to do so for God had given him the whole world as his realm. No one knew at that time how big Africa really was.

Liongo: Mythical hero of the Swahili and Pokomo peoples of eastern Kenya. Historians have endeavoured to place Liongo in the chronology of the history of the Kenya Coast, as early as 1200 or as late as 1600. A large number of Swahili poems are attributed to Liongo, many of them popular wedding songs which are still performed at weddings, accompanied by special dancing, the so-called gungu dances, after the rhythm. Even the myth of Liongo is fragmentary and not a coherent story. Liongo was born in one of seven towns on the Kenya Coast which all claim the honour of being the great poet's cradle. He was exceptionally strong and as tall as a giant.

He could not be wounded by any weapon, but when a needle was thrust into his navel, he would die; fortunately only he and his mother, whose name was Mbwasho, knew this. Liongo was King of Ozi and Ungwana in the Tana Delta, and of Shanga on Faza (Pate Island). He was passed over for the succession to the throne of Pate, which went to his cousin Ahmad (Hemedi), probably its first Islamic ruler. It seems that the advent of Islam caused the changeover from matrilinear to patrilinear succession. King (Sultan) Ahmad tried to get rid of Liongo and had him chained and gaoled. By means of a long and self-laudatory song, the refrain of which was sung by the crowds outside the prison, Liongo caused enough noise to file through his shackles without being heard by the guards.

As soon as they saw him unchained, they fled, for he was a formidable man. He escaped to the mainland, where he lived with the Watwa, the forest-dwellers. Each episode of this saga is marked with a song, which has been preserved. He learned to perfect his sureness of hand with bow and arrow, so that he later won an archery contest organised by the king to entrap him, and escaped again. Little is known about Liongo's successful battles against the Galla (Wagala), whose king decided to offer him his own daughter in marriage so as to tie the hero to his own family. With her Liongo had a son who later betrayed and killed his father.

Suk (Western Kenya): The Suk once had a great reputation as fierce warriors, beating even the dreaded Maasai-Samburu in c. 1850. The Suk are the first branch of the Kalenjin family of tribes to leave their original homeland of Mount Elgon's slopes. Originally only hunters, the Suk now herd cattle in Kerio Valley, living in peace with their neighbours if they can.

They believe in God, whom they call Tororut, offering him animal sacrifices. God's son is called Ilat; he has to fetch water for his father in Heaven. When he spills it, it rains on earth (ilat means 'rain'. Tororut's blessing must be invoked at least once a year for the crops and the cattle. An ox is selected by the priest, tusin, to be slaughtered; he rubs its blood on the chests of the participants, all men. In times of drought, famine or epidemic, similar rituals are necessary, to propitiate God. Personal illness is blamed on Oi, the spirit of disease, who may be expelled by emptying the sick man's house, after which the priest casts the evil spirit out, since it has nothing left to lurk behind inside. Tororut has a wife, the Pleiades, and a brother, Asis, the Sun-god. Tororut's wife Seta has three children, Ilat, 'Rai', Arawa, 'Moon', and Topoh, the 'Evening Star'. The appearance of the Pleiades marks the beginning of the planting season.

After death, a man's spirit may travel in the shape of a snake. In the bush, snakes may be killed, but if a snake enters a house, it must be given milk and meat since it is the spirit of an ancestor who can intercede with God on behalf of the living, in order to avert disease and other disasters. After death an old man or woman would be buried in his or her own hut, after which the descendants would move house; this was no hardship, since they were nomads anyway. Death 'infects' a house. The bereaved shave their heads, but when the New Moon appears, mourning ceases.

Trees: Africans know they depend on trees for firewood, without which their wives cannot cook their food. In some areas the goats can climb trees to eat the green leaves. The leopard lurks in a leafy tree to fall upon the Lonely traveller at night, and vipers do the same in Uganda. In some trees the bees make their nest where they store honey. Every big tree has a spirit.

Some trees house many spirits. Whether a tree is a spirit or is inhabited by a spirit is not an easy question. The people will say: The tree has a spirit, or: in the tree there is a spirit. The spirit has a voice which the careful listener can hear and even understand if he knows the language of the spirits. This voice has to be preserved carefully by the drum maker. The boat-maker too, wants to keep the spirit of the tree in the wood so that it will protect the boatman against drowning in the treacherous rivers, when the tree has become a boat. The appearance changes, the spirit remains. Together in a forest, the trees have a collective spirit, powerful enough to be revered as a god.

Trees can be tricky. With their roots they can trip up the unsuspecting traveller, who will often believe that his enemy bewitched the root to do that. Thorny branches have the same function. In Namibia there is a tree that is believed to eat people: it catches them with its branches, opens its bark and swallows them up. Inside the tree, the victim can be heard singing a goodbye song to their relatives and friends. Only the Woodpecker can save them, for it possesses magic powers. For a fee, it will open the tree with its sharp bill. A man in Zaire was married to a tree. It gave birth to his children, a healthy boy and a girl who were human but knew the spirits of the forest and so became famous herbalists, for it is the doctors who need the trees for their medicines.

Sunbirds (Zimbabwe): The sunbirds are two golden birds, which were found among the ruins of Zimbabwe about a century ago by one of the first explorers. They were probably discovered in the remains of a building which may have been the sun-temple of the ancient Bantu religion of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. These birds which form a pair, represent, it appears, two swallows, whose high and swift flight is praised by many poets of the old Bantu tradition, and about which the story-tellers relate that they can fly better even than the eagle.

The swallows, as is well known, are migrating birds. They arrive in southern Africa from Europe around the beginning of October, when spring is at its most beautiful and thousands of flowers are blooming. The sun is on its way up. The myth of the Shona people relates that the sunbirds belonged originally to the goddess Dzivaguru, the goddess of the earth, of the darkness of night, and of the rain clouds, of the pools and streams. The rainy season begins usually also in October, or later, when the gods are displeased.

We cannot live without sunshine, nor can we live without rain, yet we cannot have them at the same time, for rain and sunshine do not normally descend together. The great goddess Dzivaguru, whose name seems to mean Great Sun, ruled both heaven and earth in what may have been the oldest form of the Bantu religion, i.e. the religion of the peoples who speak Bantu languages. They have many myths in which the first man and woman on earth lived in darkness because the sun had not yet been discovered. The sun, the primal source of light, has to be captured so that people may have light to live by. The secret of the sun is that its light penetrates even in the darkest room, just as a swallow can fly through a house before anyone can catch it. Nosenga caught the sunbirds in his trap, and so day broke.

Malaika (East Africa): A good spirit sent from heaven to help people. It can assume human form. The Malaika love people and will work for their benefit. God created them specially so that they might keep people on the straight path by sitting on their right shoulders and whispering in their ears what they should do or not do. The Malaika receive no food, because praying to God is their food. They have been created from the Light, Gods first creation, so they are entirely transparent and cannot even think evil, let alone do it

They always obey God, who will send an angel whenever he wishes to help a human being in distress. Normally angels are invisible, but once God sent the Angel Mikail to defeat a very powerful evil spirit. Mikail appeared in his full heavenly glory which was so dazzling that Karina was defeated by merely seeing him. She looked like an old woman after that encounter. Once Jiburili showed himself in his real form: standing astride the earth, his feet suspended above opposite horizons, he towered above the clouds. The angels are constantly guarding heaven against the attacks of the shaitani by throwing rockets (shihabu) at them, which we see as falling stars. Death too, is a malaika, who serves God by taking the souls of those God has decided must die now. He may also send angels to do battle against his enemies the unbelievers. The malaika wa vita, the Fighting Angels, will drop burning stones on the enemies.