Ambiguous animals: Two theriomorphic metaphors in Kaguru folklore

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThis paper deals with certain metaphorical uses of animals in the folklore of the Kaguru, a Bantu language speaking people of east-central Tanzania, East Africa. I have published elsewhere on Kaguru social structure (Beidelman, 1971b) and discuss this here only as it bears directly on the problems at hand. I have published many Kaguru folk-tales as well as various legends, riddles, and other texts (cf. bibliographies, Beidelman, 1967a, 1969, 1974c); it is difficult to publish textual material so that much of my data is still unavailable. In this paper I use published and unpublished texts.