The Myth-Reality Nexus In Shona Oral Traditions In Zimbabwe: Mediating Contradictions And Sustaining Societal Values

Abstract

The Karanga and the Kalanga, due to language similarities between them, morphed into one
ethnic grouping known as the Shona during the 19th and 20th century ethnic creation during
the colonization process. Common among the Shona people is the identification of a particular
clan with a myth or totem of origin, and other specific myths that are there to ensure political,
physiological, economic, religious and social equilibrium. Some legends are portrayed as
mythical, yet they remain very relevant to the contemporary societies as if they represent
significant episodes of past lived reality. The Shona epistemological and ontological
presumptions built and generationally sustained around the philosophy of ‘ubuntu’ are
predicated on a system of myth transmission, validation and modification to ensure societal
acceptance and group identity and cohesion. This article analyses selected myths that are
universal to the Shona people so that contemporary societies develop an understanding and
appreciation of how and why values in different myths have managed to survive through
generations. Focus is on the inextricable link between myth and reality in social phenomena to
determine the extent to which they have influenced Shona oral traditions over time and space.
Most, if not all oral traditions, are replete with ambiguities that arise from the different
interpretations of myths that specific groups of people give to them in their attempt to
reconstruct the past as it really happened. The connection between myth, reality and oral
tradition is discussed and historical probabilities that have become fact from a
transcendentalist perspective are highlighted through this interpretive study. The position of
this study is that myth and reality can often and contextually be used interchangeably to
describe original traditions of the Shona people and that variations within the different oral
narratives can be resolved and contradictions reconciled.