The Child with a Moon on his Chest is a South African folktale from the Sotho people. It is related to the cycle of the Calumniated Wife, and is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". These tales refer to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother.
Sources The tale was collected by Édouard Jacouttet from the Basotho people, and published in 1895, with the title Khoédi-Séfoubeng.Jacottet, Edouard. Contes populaires des Bassoutos: Afrique du Sud. Paris: Ernest Leroux. 1895. pp. 226–232. His book was translated into English as The treasury of Ba-suto lore (1908), and referred to the tale as Ngoana ea Khoeli-Sefubeng.Jacottet, Édouard. The treasury of Ba-suto lore; being original Se-suto texts, with a literal English translation and notes. London, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co. 1908. pp. 190–195. A later publication names it Ngwana ya Kgwedi Sefubeng, which translates to "The child with a moon on his chest".Van Niekerk, Annemarié. Raising the Blinds: A Century of South African Women's Stories. Donker, 1990. p. 38ff. .
Summary Jacottet's first version In Jacouttet's first publication, Boulané is a chief married to ten wives, his favourite one named Morongoé. Boulané has the mark of a full moon on his chest, that is why he is also known as Khoédi-Séfoubeng (literally, "moon on chest").
One day, he tells his nine cowives that the queen - Jacouttet explains that the queen is considered to be the first wife and the others her servants - will bear a boy just like his father, with a full moon on his breast, while the other co-wives will bear boys either with a half-moon or stars on their chests.
When Morongoé, the queen, is ready to give birth to her son, the second co-wife tells the midwife to get rid of the boy and replace him for a puppy. The midwife obeys, takes the boy and throws him to the back portion of the hut, among the pots. There, he is raised and fed by a little rat. Boulane returns to ascertain the birth of their children, and is told that the queen gave birth to an animal. Morongoé is demoted and the second co-wife becomes the queen.
One day, the new queen walks by Morongoé's hut and sees a boy with the full moon on his chest, playing with the rats. The second queen asks Boulane to burn Morongoé's hut for fear of the rats. The rats, fearing that they will perish in the fire, guide the boy to an ox named Thamaha, for the animal to rear the boy. Morongoé's hut is burned and the rats with it.
Some time later, the new queen sees the boy playing with Thamaha. She lies to Boulane that she is ill, but, through bone divination, she will get better if Thamaha is killed. So Boulané promises to do it. The next day, Thamaha delivers the boy to the crabs, and accepts his fate. The same fate falls on the crabs, which, before they die, lead the boy with the full moon to the hut of the merchants.
A person from Boulane's village visits the merchants' hut and sees the boy with the full moon on his chest. He goes back to tell Boulané what he saw. Boulané goes to the merchants's hut and questions the boy about his parentage. The boy with the full moon tells Boulane his whole story, and Boulané, seeing the birthmark on the boy, realizes he is his son. So he takes him back to his village and announces a grand feast to he held in the boy's honor. To the assemble guests, Boulané introduces his son, restores the boy's mother as his queen, and banishes the second wife and her sons to another country.Cendrars, Blaise. Anthologie nègre. Paris Éditions de la Sirène. 1921. pp. 119–121.
This version of the tale was translated as The Moonprince by linguist Jan Knappert, in his collection of tales from Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.Knappert, Jan. Myths and Legends of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985. pp. 126–132. .
Jacottet's second version In another version published in 1908 with the title The Child with a Moon on his Breast (in the original, Ngoana ea Khoeli Sifubeng), Bulane, who has a moon on his breast, has two wives, one childless and one with children. The childless wife eventually becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy with a moon on his breast. The other wife acts as midwife, hides the boy in between the pots and replaces him for a dog.
The boy is found by a mouse. The same events happen: the second wife sees the boy playing with the mouse and orders the hut to be burnt down to kill both. The mouse warns the boy and takes him out of the hut and into Bulane's cattle kraal. The second wife sees the boy under a cow in the krall and orders the kraal to be set on fire. The boy escapes with the mouse and survives. The mouse takes the boy to a hut of traders, and goes back to his mousehole.
One day, a man from Bulane's village comes to trade and sees the boy with a shining moon on his chest. He reports back to Bulane, who goes to the traders' hut to discover the boy's identity. The boy tells the whole story and shows Bulane the moon birthmark.
Bulane takes the boy to his village and places him in his hut, and summons a great meeting, with slaughtered oxen and beer. Before the assembled crowd, Bulane introduces the boy with the moon on the breast as his son, dresses his mother in fine clothes, appoints his son as his successor, and exiles his other wife back to her father.
Jacotter's second version was translated as The Moon-Child by Ethel McPherson,McPherson, Ethel L. Native Fairy Tales of South Africa. London: Harrap. 1919. pp. 73–76 (Tale nr. 8). and republished in Sotho as Morena Bulane ("Chief Bulane").
Analysis Tale type The tale is related to the cycle of the Calumniated Wife, and is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".
The Sotho tale has been related to a cycle of stories about jealous sisters (in this case, co-wives) that take their sister's children and replace them for animals to humiliate her. After many trials and tribulations, the children reunite with their parents, the jealous relatives are punished and the disgraced woman (usually a queen) is restored to her position and status.MacCulloch, John Arnott. The Childhood of Fiction: a Study of Folk Tales And Primitive Thought. London: John Murray, 1905. pp. 359-361.
In a 1921 article, anthropologue noted that the Sotho tale showed "an extraordinary resemblance" to the Bengali folktale The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead, collected by Lal Behari Day.Dorman, S. S. "The Heavenly Bodies in South African Mythology". In: South African Journal of Science Vol. 18, 1921. pp. 435-436.
Motifs Accorind to linguist Jan Knappert, Bulane (and Senkepeng) is a common appellation for characters in Lesotho.
According to Africanist Sigrid Schmidt, the presence of the mouse in the Namibian tales and the rat in the South African tales "show" a connection to a tradition that includes the variants from the Sotho, the Xhosa and the Venda, reflecting a similar motif that appears in the Indian tales: the wonder child is reared by domestic animals.Schmidt, Sigrid. "Internationale Märchen in Namibia. Bewahren und anpassen". In: Fabula 62, no. 3-4 (2021): 294-295. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabula-2021-0015
Variants Southern Africa Africanist Sigrid Schmidt asserted that the tale type was particularly widespread in Southeast Africa.Schmidt, Sigrid. "Namibische Volkserzählungen: Vom Urzeit-Mythos bis zum Märchenhaus mit Sprechanlage". In: BAB (Basler Afrika Bibliographien) Working Papers. n. 8. Presented on September 16, 2008. p. 10. In fact, according to her studies, the tale type 707, as well as types 706, Maiden Without Hands, and 510, Cinderella, "found a home in Southern Africa for many generations"."Europäisch/asiatischer Herkunft, aber seit vielen Generationen im südlichen Afrika heimisch, sind außer dem "Mädchen ohne Hände", "Der Junge mit dem Stern auf der Stirn" (Nr. 20 = Aarne-Thompson 707) und die Aschenputtel-Märchen Nr. 15 und Nr. 23 (Aarne-Thompson 510, 511)". Schmidt, Sigrid. "Reviewed Work: The World and the Word by Nongenile Masithathu Zenani, Harold Scheub". In: Anthropos 90, no. 1/3 (1995): 312. Accessed April 18, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40463177.
Schmidt provided the summary of two manuscript tales. In the first, a woman gives birth to twin boys in the likeness of their father, a king with the mark of a moon on his chest, but a jealous servant casts them in the water. The twins are rescued and saved by a falcon. Later, they return to their father's castle and a jet of milk leaks from their mother's breast to their mouth, confirming the boys' parentage.Schmidt, Sigrid. "Europäische Märchen am Kap der Guten Hoffnung des 18. Jahrhunderts". In: Fabula 18, no. Jahresband (1977): 61. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1977.18.1.40 In a second tale, a couple wishes for a son with a star on the chest and a moon on the front. Their son is born, but a jealous servant replaces the boy for a puppy and abandons the boy with a giraffe. The giraffe raises the boy as its son and gives him a cloth to hide his astral birthmarks. The boy finds work with in a farm that belongs to the king, where the princess sees his shining birthmarks and marries him. Later, when he returns home, jets of milk leak from his mother's breast to his mouth. Schmidt suggested that, since these two tales contain elements from European fairy tales (kings, queens, castle, the child in the box), these tales must have originated from a (now) lost Dutch tradition in the Cape of Good Hope.Schmidt, Sigrid. "Europäische Märchen am Kap der Guten Hoffnung des 18. Jahrhunderts". In: Fabula 18, no. Jahresband (1977): 61-62. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1977.18.1.40
In a tale from the Venda people titled The Chief with the Half-Moon on his Chest, the titular chief with the mark of a half-moon on his chest has two wives. The elder wife has two sons with no lunar birthmark, while the younger is childless. One day, the younger wife gives birth to a boy just like his father, with the half-moon on th chest. The elder wife replaces the boy for a pup and hides him in a beer-pot. A little rat takes the boy out of the beer pot and hides in its hole. The little rat takes the boy to his mother to be suckled. One day, the elder wife sees the rat playing with the boy in the younger wife's hut, then in the cattle kraal. The elder wife wants the younger's hut to be burnt down, then the kraal, but the rat hides the child away from both perils, and lastly takes him to another village, where he grows up. Two people visit the boy's hut and report back to the chief with a half-moon. The chief meets the boy, his own son, and takes him back to his village in secret. The chief organizes a ceremony with beer, then introduces his son to the assembled crowd. He banishes his elder wife and her sons and names the boy with the half-moon as the next chief.Stayt, Hugh Arthur, and International African Institute. The Bavenda. London: Pub. for the International institute of African languages & cultures by Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1931. pp. 345–347. Hugh Arthur Stayt noted a similar tale among the Sotho, and suggested it as the origin for the Venda tale.Stayt, Hugh Arthur, and International African Institute. The Bavenda. London: Pub. for the International institute of African languages & cultures by Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1931. pp. 347–348.
Namibia