The Ruler Archetype in African Myth and Folklore

Hello Friends!

This week’s episode is a bit experimental. We tell a story. Not a folktale, legend or myth. Just a story about a Malinke boy who has a very interesting dream. Then, we talk about the dream and tease out some archetypal images, patterns and symbols which, in the context of West Africa’s Mande-speaking people, might allude to the rulership archetype.

I hope you like it!

References

* Jung on Dreams: Part I - Definitions, Components, Functions and Features

* Sundiata : an epic of old Mali by Djibril Tamsir Niane

* The Epic of Son Jara by John W. Johnson

* The Collected Works of Carl Jung

* Dreams as Portals to the Soul: Dreamwork and Analysis Across Freudian, Jungian, Indigenous, and African Perspectives

* McCall, Daniel F. “The Prevalence of Lions: Kings, Deities and Feline Symbolism in Africa and Elsewhere.” Paideuma, vol. 19/20, 1973, pp. 130–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40341534. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.

* Manzon, Agnes Kedzierska. "Humans and Things: Mande" Fetishes" as Subjects." Anthropological Quarterly 86.4 (2013): 1119-1151.

* Chidester, David. “Dreaming in the Contact Zone: Zulu Dreams, Visions, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century South Africa.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 76, no. 1, 2008, pp. 27–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40006024. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.