How The Fetish Sunga Punished My Great-Uncle's Twin Brother, Basa.

This was a Congo reading. I found this reading to be absolutely fascinating. I haven't tried a reading in Africa this semester so I thought this reading about the fetish sunga would end my list of reading lists really well.


Basa was a clever fisherman: "Every day he used to go out fishing in the river, and every day he caught great quantities of fish which he used to smuggle into his house so that none should know that he had caught any." This is so clever yet greedy I thought.

Wow.. Basa oviously was a hoarder: ""Basa, have you caught any fish?" And he would answer "No," although his house was full of fish going rotten."


I thought Basa liked to keep everything to himself so others can't touch his belongings:"It happened that uponthat day Basa caught so much fish that he had to make some new matets, or baskets, to hold it all."

This is a vivid and imagery scene I particularly liked in the reading: "When they stepped into the river, the waters dried up, and all the fish disappeared, so that the bed of the river formed a perfect road for them. Even the fallen trees had been removed that Basa might not meet the slightest difficulty in the way." It resembled that of Moses. 

Basa was welcomed by the crowd. Obviously, greedy people like Basa is always afraid no matter how well he is treated: "

Then Sunga laid a table before him, and loaded it with food and wine, and asked him to eat and drink. But he was still afraid and told Sunga that so grand was the feast she had placed before him that the smell alone of it had satisfied him".

Woww. this is such a tragic ending of Basa: "

Then Sunga deprived him of the power of speech that he might lie no more, and bade him depart to his town.

And so for the future he could only make his wants known by signs."

He essentially became a mute. 

Basa the Fisherman. Source: Basa

Bibliography: 

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).