The Lamba people, one of the many Bantu tribes, have had no written literature; like all Bantu folklore, their lore has been handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, preserved and perpetuated only in that way. The people are called Awalamba, one person Umulamba, their language Uwulamba, and their country Ilamba. Ilamba is situated in North-western Rhodesia [Zambia] and in the Belgian Congo.
The Lambas live mostly in the district of Ndola and the Katanga province of the Congo; their country stretches over some 30,000 square miles of territory. One has to picture a country of forests, rivers and swamps, abounding in big game of all sorts, abounding also in the tsetse fly, and hence cattle-less: the paucity of stories dealing with cattle and pastoral subjects is thus accounted for. The Walamba are an agricultural and hunting people living in small villages, sometimes far removed one from the other, or in communities of villages grouped under a sub-chief. Each village has its headman, who is usually of the chief’s clan; then a number of such villages is usually grouped together under a group-chief; next, numbers of such groups within certain territories owe allegiance to an important territorial chief; and he, in turn, with other territorial chiefs, bows to the authority of the paramount chief, Mushidi.
Uwulamba belongs to the central division of Bantu languages. To the north is spoken Luba, to the north-east Wemba, to the east Wisa and Lala, to the south Lenge and Ila, and to the west Kaonde...
Amongst the Lamba people and especially in the sub-tribe called Wulima, differing but slightly in tongue, are numbers of very clever story-tellers, the most renowned being a man named Mulekelela from the village of Kawunda Chiwele. Mulekelela supplied me with a number of the stories given in this collection; and, on being questioned as to the origin of these tales, he denied having invented a single one himself, and asserted that they have been handed down for generations from one to the other, the women especially perpetuating them.
A study of comparative Bantu folk-lore convinces one of the great antiquity of these tales. Even connections with old-world traditions are found. The legend No. CLIX not only gives an account of primitive man’s great ambition heavenward, the Babel story in Bantu setting, but it consecutively introduces the confusion of languages as a result of this ambition, in almost the same way as is told in Scripture. Forked poles take the place of bricks, and the inevitable “white-ant” [termite] seems to have been at the bottom of their misfortune. One of the signs of chieftainship is the wearing of a white disc, in the olden days a costly sea-shell; and the ambition was to wear the sun and moon in that fashion, and thus to merit the highest chieftainship. After the “fall”, those who remained still had the idea of rebuilding, for their first words were, “Let us go and get bark-rope!” with a view to rebuilding the structure and making another attempt on heaven, but the confusion of their laguages made co-operation impossible. The Lamba world is small, and their immediate neighbors to the west and south are the ones chosen for mention in that story.
...
Lamba folk-tale is classified by the natives in two ways, according to the mode of delivery. First and foremost comes the prose story, called Icisimikisyo. The other, which, for want of a better term, is translated here as “Choric Story” [the better term, which Doke evidently did not know, is chante fable or canta fabula], is variously called by the natives Ulusimi, Icisimi, Akasimi, or Akalawi. This is a prose story interspersed with songs. The stories are mostly told by women and girls, the verse parts being chanted in a way which is not without its charms, especially to the native audience hanging on every word. Some examples of these choric stories are given in this collection.