649013

research-article2016

SGOXXX10.1177/2158244016649013SAGE OpenPalmeirim

Article

Do Culture Heroes Exist? A Dialogue

With Luc de Heusch on the Limits of the
Structuralist Approach to Myth

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April-June 2016: 19
The Author(s) 2016
DOI: 10.1177/2158244016649013
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Manuela Palmeirim1,2

Abstract
This article argues the inadequacy of the structuralist framework of analysis as applied to Central African myths of
foundation and tries to demonstrate that a dichotomous approach can inhibit the full understanding of these narratives, often
misrepresenting and curtailing their meaning. Instead, it is claimed that blurredness, ambiguity, consubstantiality, and fluidity
are, in Central Africa, the assortment of logical and symbolic instruments able to convey, as well as constantly recreate, the
prodigious intricacy of meanings that emanate from mythological thinking.
Keywords
structuralism, concept of opposition, myths of foundation, Central Africa (DRC), Aruwund (Lunda of the Mwant Yaav)
Central African narratives of the foundation of kingship and
the state have long been the object of intense debate, ever
since Jan Vansina (1961/1965, 1966) proposed a historical
reading of these oral texts. Many were the Africanist historians who followed up his steps, some opting for more literal
interpretations of these traditions, others proposing more
metaphorical and analytical approaches (see Miller, 1980).
The incursion of the structuralist analysis in the midst of this
debate, launched by Luc de Heusch in 1972 with his Le roi
ivre ou lorigine de ltat, brought a complete new universe
of understanding to these oral narrativesconsidering them
as myth rather than historical sourcesand became a pillar of subsequent studies.
In this article, I shall not go into the prolific controversy
that opposed historians and structuraliststhe latter mainly
represented by de Heuschs writingsin the interpretation of
these foundation narratives for I have long taken my standing
in this debate (Palmeirim, 2006, pp. 40-43). Nor will I be
discussingfor much the same reasonthe extensive literature that uses oral traditions for the reconstruction of early
African history (such as in the works of Joseph Miller, David
Schoenbrun, or Christopher Wrigley, among many others).
However, interest on the motif of the stranger-king
which was once considered by Marshall Sahlins (1981) a
means of conflict resolution in the context of foreign colonial
influence in the Pacifichas been re-awaken in anthropological literature, mainly in relation to the Austronesianspeaking world but also in other contexts, African included
(see Caldwell & Henley, 2008). It is again a very different
approach from the one I shall take, often drawn from the
social and political spheres. And yet, the minute mythical

analysis undertaken here can interact with this latter literature in that it addresses the basic opposition between the categories of outsider and insider, of rulers and those
who are ruled, on which it relies (see, in particular, Fox,
2008). Moreover, it is exactly because this is an underlying
opposition in most of these writings that the theme of the
stranger-king deserves careful scrutiny by re-analyzing it
within the corpus of oral traditions from which it originally
stems.
In my book Of Alien Kings and Perpetual Kin, I share
with de Heusch two main assumptions. The first is that
Central African narratives of foundationthe Ruwund
(Lunda)1 epic, which I studied in detail, includedare of
mythical and ideological nature. This means that, with de
Heusch, I steer away from readings of these oral texts as historical sources. The second is that Ruwund oral traditions
share with other Central African narratives a common framework of thinking and, therefore, should be placed and understood within a wider symbolic continuum. They are, at times,
able to mutually elucidate each others meaning.2
Notwithstanding this convergence, however, I have long
been a critic of the structuralist framework of analysis as
applied to Central African foundation traditions for I believe
it inhibits the full understanding of these narratives, as well
1

Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

The State University of Zanzibar, Tanzania

Corresponding Author:
Manuela Palmeirim, Instituto de Cincias Sociais, Universidade do Minho,
Gualtar, 4710-054 Braga, Portugal.
Email: mpalmeirim@hotmail.com

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as misrepresents and curtails their meaning. De Heusch

(2009) believes that African sacred kingship is ruled everywhere by the same logic and that the notion of transformation accounts for the incontestable flexibility of the African
symbolism (p. 122). The question is has de Heusch really
succeeded in grasping that logic?
I should make here a preliminary statement: Luc de
Heuschs work has always been an endless source of inspiration to me. Hence, despite the fact that my studies on the ideology of kingship among the Aruwund (or nuclear Lunda)on
whom I worked for more than 20 yearspoint out the wrongs
and limitations of the structuralist approach to myth, they can,
by the same token, be viewed as a tribute to de Heuschwho
has left us not long agoas well as to the immensely fruitful
horizons that structural analysis opened up to the study of
symbolic thinking and without which my reasoning and arguments would have never gained existence.
In his last book, Pouvoir et religion (Paris, CNRS
ditions/ditions de la Maison des Sciences de LHomme,
2009), de Heusch includes a short text under the title La
royaut chez les luba et les lunda (rponse Manuela
Palmeirim) (de Heusch, 2009, pp. 121-126). In this text, the
author aims at discussing my approach to Ruwund myths and
symbolism as I presented it in 2006, in this way launching in
writing a dialogue that we had long pursued in person. The
present article wishes to pursue this dialogue; a dialogue
which I feel can be extremely enlightening of the complexity
of the symbolic mechanisms that are built, in Central African
contexts, around the foundation of kingship, the state, and
the motif of the stranger-king. To push such discussion further can also draw, I am led to believe, new paths into the
understanding of these overwhelming productions of human
and collective thinking, which are indeed myths.
For the non-specialist reader, let me resume the Ruwund
epic of kingship origin, which became the center of this
debate. This narrative recounts that Ruwund kingship was
founded in the sequence of the arrival of a foreign hunter of
Luba origin, called Cibind Yirung (or Tshibinda Ilunga, in
some of the literature), at the lands of the princess Ruwej
(Lueji). She was then the leader of the Aruwundorganized
in an egalitarian and simple society based on kinship ties
and ruled with the help of her close relatives and fellow
chiefs, the atubung, at the sacred land of the river Nkalaany.
However, she comes to fall in love with the stranger, to
whom she ends up entrusting the symbol of ancestral chiefship, a bracelet of human sinew called rukan. In the version
most often collected, and that which is most widely told at
the Ruwund capital today, Ruwej proves to be sterile after
marrying the hunter. Cibind Yirung then marries a second
woman, Kamong, with whom a son is conceived. It was the
son of Cibind Yirung (named Yaav) who would instate a
more sophisticated order and become the first king (or paramount chief). He was the first holder of the dynastic title of
Mwant Yaav, a title which was subsequently bestowed upon
all Ruwund kings.

In his Le roi ivre, de Heusch assertsand I agree with

himthat the hunter hero of the Ruwund epic is a homologous figure of the hunter of the Luba narrative of foundation,
Mbidi Kiluwe. He also proclaims that Ruwejs order is
opposed to the new order founded by Cibind Yirung and his
son. The theme of the sterility of Ruwej (present in some, but
not all, versions of the epic) plays here a crucial role as the
first king is indeed Cibind Yirungs son, not Ruwejs. These
two mythical characters engage, for de Heusch, in a radical
opposition (explicitly stated in de Heusch, 2009, p. 124), one
which opposes the discourteous, ill-mannered, uncivilized,
and primitive order of Ruwej and her fellow chiefs called atubung (an order associated to sterility, the moon, terrestrial
waters, and the dry season) to the new and sophisticated order
represented by the hunter hero of Luba origin (who appears,
in his turn, associated to fecundity, to the sun and celestial
fire, and to the rainy season; de Heusch, 1972, p. 226).
De Heusch does sustain that the alliance through marriage
of Ruwej and Cibind is essential to trigger the emergence of
a new order. However, in the good structuralist manner, he
affirms this alliance to be one between mutually exclusive
opposites, doomed of utter symbolic irreconcilability. As a
consequence of this interpretation, the new order which was
to be found appears, in the eyes of de Heusch (1972, p. 191,
as translated in 1982a, p. 155), of a completely different
nature from that which preceded it, a rupture of a sociological kind having taken place.
Other corollaries of this structuralist emphasis on opposition are the ideas that kingship is an order symbolically
construed as coming from outside the primitive society (de
Heusch, 1972, p. 276; 1982a, p. 228), as a new civilization
introduced from the exterior (de Heusch, 1972, p. 187; 1991,
p. 115), in which process Cibind Yirung plays the role of
culture hero, the true mentor of social change and bearer of
kingship (for instance, de Heusch, 1972, p. 203; 1982b, p.
192). Ruwej and the autochthonous people, however, are relegated to a passive kind of behavior. The non-cultural profile
of Ruwej (which, once again, is seen to stress the radical
dichotomy instituted between the native princess and the foreign hunter) would gain sturdier prominence when analyzing
the Ruwund epic in the context of a broader system of transformations, by means of which Ruwej can be seen as the
homologous counterpart of the uncouth and incestuous Luba
mythical king, Nkongolo.
Our main point of dissention resides precisely on the
stress placed by de Heusch on the heuristic and theoretical
validity of the concept of opposition as capable of supplying the key for the whole understanding of Ruwund (and
other Central African) symbolic constructs. In my book
(Palmeirim, 2006, ch. 2 mainly), I point out that de Heuschs
emphasis on the opposition between the old order of Ruwej
and the new political system installed by Yirungs son is a
mere consequence of his structuralist standpoint and that
Ruwund material cannot be straitjacketed into such a rigid
framework. If opposition and dichotomous thinking indeed

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Palmeirim
appear to be, at times, features of these narrativesand of
Ruwund overall symbolic ideologythe stress on the sameness and closeness of both terms of the opposition is equally
forceful, thereby originating a mythical and symbolic thinking of extreme ambiguity and fluidity, and indeed of overwhelming complexity. De Heusch affirms, for instance, that
we can oppose the hyperexogamy of Yirung to the hyperendogamy of Ruwej. However, if Ruwej was indeed engaged
in one of the versions that I collected in the fieldin a
relationship with a close relative of hers before the arrival of
the Luba hunter (the dignitary Mwant Rumang), she finally
engages in a hyperexogamous relation with Cibind Yirung.
Her profile is, thus, one of ambiguity. De Heusch (2009) is
ready to admit that he has no doubt put too much emphasis
on the negative aspects of Ruwej (p. 122) based on the idea
that Ruwej is a homologous of the Luba hero Nkongolo.
However, then he seems to discard this by attributing it to a
mechanism of inversionagain, a mere formal device of
the structural model is used to interpret the mythical text.
Indeed, Ruwund ideological thought constantly plays on
difference and likeness, affirming mythical heroes as both
antagonistic and accomplices, kin and allies, and creating, by
this token, a complex of blurred identities that yield the
duplicity and ambiguity claimed, in my book, to be the very
essence of Ruwund mythical constructs and kingship ideology. The fixity of the structuralist framework cannot capture
such ductility and intricacy of thought. Let me resume here
some of my arguments.

The Theme of the Sterility of Ruwej

De Heusch considers the mytheme of the sterility of Ruwej
critical in conveying the sharp opposition between the two
mythical heroes, the Ruwund princess and Cibind Yirung,
the Luba hunter, who assume in the myth the old and new
orders, respectively. Indeed, being sterile in most versions
collected (and indeed the ones which are given privilege in
de Heuschs analysis), Ruwej sees herself unable to conceive
the first king and founder of the dynastic title of Mwant Yaav
(this undertaking is entrusted to Kamong, the hunters second wife). It is as if Ruwej would set herself aside from the
rise of the new order associated to the foreign hunter, by this
gesture instating a disjuncture between the autochthonous
order within which she ruled and the new system that was to
be installed after the arrival of the Luba hunter.
This interpretation invites usin line with de Heuschs
thinkingto build a system of oppositions which would, at
the symbolic level, contrast the inferior, ancestral, and
autochthonous political organization (associated with sterility) to the (so-called) new civilization, brought about with
the arrival of the foreigner, more sophisticated and instating
fecundity. These are indeed the two principles which, according to the author, would characterize the dualistic ideology of
sovereignty in this and other Central African kingdoms. We
would thus be facing a perfect dichotomous system of

thought. Moreover, as a consequence of this structuralist

framework of analysisI will stress this once morethe
role of Ruwej in the foundation of the new order would of
necessity be diminished, the hunter appearing as the culture
hero (hros civilisateur), that is, the genuine promoter of
social change and of a more cultured order (de Heusch, 1972,
p. 203, 276; 1982b, p. 192, for instance).
However, as I tried to demonstrate (Palmeirim, 2006, ch.
2, in particular), the Ruwund princess is essentially an
ambiguous figure, an ambiguity that challenges rigid dichotomies such as those proposed by de Heusch, as well as a
model of analysis in which the terms of an opposition are in
a relationship of the type a/negation of a. For indeed, the
Ruwund ideology of kingship appears more complex and
ductile than that, moving constantly in the midst of
ambiguity.
To begin with, not all versions of the myth of kingship
origin associate Ruwej with sterility. Variants are there in
which the princess is fertile (Dias de Carvalho, 1890, pp.
58-76; and the neighboring Sanga version, see Roland, 1963,
p. 23), and, in these, she is clearly in a relationship of conjunction, not disjuncture and opposition, with Cibind Yirung.
I also pointed out that there are different levels of specificity
in the narration of the myth (Palmeirim, 2006, ch. 1). If narrators residing at the capital of the kingdom (Musumb) will
base their story on the title histories of the main dignitaries
who live at the royal courtand might then produce a variant which stresses Ruwejs sterilityat the periphery of the
kingdom title histories of minor dignitaries may be included
in the narration, hence disclosing other facets of Ruwejs
behavior. I myself collected in the field accounts which claim
that Ruwej had, before the arrival of the foreign hunter, a
previous consort from whom she conceived a son (this son is
nowadays perpetuated at the kings court by the notable with
the title of Mutiy). Narrations may indeed incorporate a
lesser or a greater number of title histories and, by this token,
become more schematic or else richer and more detailed.
Narrators, however, may also give different emphases to the
narration to argue a point or negotiate a position. In this process, they may include, or else omit, certain title histories
from their account. The act of narration is, actually, more of
a dynamic process than we would gather from de Heuschs
writings. In addition, if it is trueas de Heusch arguesthat
in the versions in which Ruwej is sterile she places herself in
clear opposition to Yirung, these very same versions insist
that Ruwejs consent is absolutely needed for Yirung to take
up another wife (glise Mthodiste [EM], 1963, p. 16). In
some variants, it is the princess herself who appoints Kamong
(a close relative) to conceive, on her behalf, he who would
become the first king (Duysters, 1958, p. 84).3
Ruwej is therefore an equivocal being: She appears to set
herself aside from the new order (and indeed the dignitary
who represents Ruwej at the royal court nowadays is seen as
representing the ancestral order), and yet she generates all
the necessary conditions for its emergence. In Dias de

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Carvalhos (1890), variant this is particularly obvious: It is

the princess who seduces Yirung by offering the hunter her
own house to stay, and it is her who persuades the atubung,
the chiefs with whom she ruled Ruwund land, into accepting
the newcomer. In this versionand in others alsoit is
against her brothers will that she hands the sacred bracelet,
symbol of power, to the foreign hunter (Dias de Carvalho,
1890, p. 75; Duysters, 1958, p. 83; Struyf, 1948, pp. 374345; Van den Byvang, 1937, p. 431). Finally, it is Ruwej herself who prompts Kamong into marrying the foreigner. The
relationship between Ruwej and Cibind Yirung is, thus, from
the very first moment, a relationship of complicity, and
Ruwejs willing participation in the whole process is as
instrumental as that of Cibind Yirung, whom the literature on
culture heroes appears to indicate as the sole bearer of the
new order.
The two spouses of Yirung are thus accomplices in the
foundation of kingship. In previous writings (Palmeirim,
2003, 2006, pp. 4647), I have set forth the arguments that
allow us to affirm that Kamong appears in the myth as a mere
double of Ruwej, the bigamy of the hunter (also a feature
of Luba foundation myths) being a way of emphasizing the
double-edged nature that characterizes the attitude of the
princess in the Ruwund ideology of kingship. De Heusch
(2009) is wrong when he implies that a clear opposition
between Ruwej and Kamong is maintained and reinforced in
the royal court nowadays by the sterility of the dignitary who
perpetuates the mythical princess, the notable with the title
of Nswaan Murund. It might have escaped de Heuschwho
did not do fieldwork among the Aruwundthat both the
Nswaan Murund and the Rukonkish (who perpetuates
Kamong) are strictly sterile dignitaries at the court. This feature, thus, brings them together rather than opposing them.
As a matter of fact, the duality of Ruwej is clearly codified
in the power insignia of the dignitary who represents her nowadays at the kings court. The Nswaan Murunds insignia
exhibits a hybrid nature, including at once elements present in
the symbols of office of the atubung, the dignitaries associated with autochthony and the primitive system, and elements
that characterize the regalia of the ayilol, the nobles who represent the innovative political and symbolic order. In this way,
the princess seems to embody both the egalitarian ideology,
which is a feature of the original system, and the hierarchical
principle characterizing the new order (see Palmeirim, 1998).
This very same twofold profile is once more superbly conveyed by the mask representing Ruwej that I have analyzed in
a short text titled As Duas Faces de Ruwej ("The two faces of
Ruwej", 2003; also 2008). This mask, manufactured by a
Cokwe artist for a Lunda initiation ceremony and photographed by Manuel Jordn during his fieldwork in Zambia in
the beginnings of the 1990s (Jordn, 1993), exhibits two faces
oriented in opposite directions. As I hope to have shown, the
mask is indeed the flawless plastic and metaphoric representation of the intrinsic ambiguity that I have argued to define
the Ruwund ideological thinking concerning royalty and, in

particular, the behavior of the mythical figure Ruwej. The

princess encompasses, on her own, the whole of the duality
that de Heusch attributes to the pair Cibind Yirung/Ruwej.
She remains attached to the ancestral order of the atubung
(only to Ruwej do these chiefs owe any allegiance), and yet
she engages, herself or through Kamong (depending on the
versions we consider), in the inception of kingship; she
declares herself sterile, yet she is fertile in some variants; she
represents the egalitarian principle of the atubung, yet her
insignia also exhibits the hierarchical ideology of the innovative order. As I shall argue next, she can be seen as the kings
spouse, and yet she is also one of his kin. She is indeed a twofaced heroine for she seems to blur and fade, at times, into the
features that appeared, at the eyes of de Heusch, to fit in a
clear-cut manner Cibind Yirung alone.

Unsolved Paradoxes From the

Structuralist Point of View
It is paradoxes such as the above that are of impossible
resolution were we to adopt the structural framework of analysis. And yet, for the Aruwund, statements that appear contradictory to the Western mind co-exist peacefully. What is
escaping our understanding then?
Ruwund mythical figures are perpetuated nowadays
through a system of positional succession similar to that
pointed out by Audrey Richards (1940, 1950) for the Bemba
of Northern Zambiaby living dignitaries who inhabit the
capital of the Ruwund kingdom as well as villages in the
outlying domains. A new incumbent to a position, or to an
office, so to speak, inherits the status and past experiences of
earlier incumbents, as well as the kinship relationships that
linked his predecessors to other titled dignitaries (this system, named perpetual kinship by Ian Cunnison [1956],
was first described by this author for the Luapula peoples or
Eastern Lunda). It is so that the chiefs and close relatives of
Ruwej, who are said in the myth to have ruled with her before
the arrival of the foreign hunter, are represented nowadays in
Ruwund land by a set of dignitaries called atubung.
The atubung, together with the noble who perpetuates
Ruwej at the court (the Nswaan Murund), embody the
autochthonous and ancestral power, that is, the original
social system. These chiefs follow an egalitarian ideology
and set themselves aside the complex and highly hierarchized political system that the first Mwant Yaav, son of
Yirung, would establish with the foundation of kingship and
the state. For the original chiefs, the Mwant Yaav will forever remain, as Cibind Yirung himself (his father and predecessor), a being coming from outside, alien to the primitive
and local culture that they themselves represent. As a result,
the atubung do not participate in the life of the royal court at
the capital. They inhabit the distant lands between the rivers
Nkalaany and Kajidij, considered the cradle of the Ruwund
kingdom and the scenario of the events recalled by the oral
traditions as leading to the emergence of kingship.

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Notwithstanding the fact that the atubung represent an
order that they often claim to be non-submissive to that of
Yirung and the Mwant Yaav, they areparadoxically once
morethe ritual investors of the king. It is the atubung who
officiate the healing and purification ceremonies that will
make the heir a new king, and it is them who, in the enthronement ceremony, hand over to the king to be the sacred bracelet, symbol of royal power. The opposition between the
autochthonous system and the hierarchy of the new order can
only be, therefore, part of the whole picture. It is the atubung
who initiate the heir into kingship and the Nswaan Murund,
the ultimate representative of the autochthonous order,
exhibits in her regalia some insignia that connects her directly
to the new order of the Mwant Yaav (a crown, for instance).
Most conclusive of all is the fact that the term kabung
itself, used to designate a chief who ruled with Ruwej before
the arrival of Cibind Yirung, means he who performs
ubung, that is, he who performs the ritual action at a king/
chiefs investiture, thus implying that the category of atubungand the term itselfdid not exist prior to the installation of kingship. The intrinsic overlapping between the two
orders becomes undeniable. Only occasionallyand artificiallycan they be separated, as they are indeed part of one
and the same whole.
These ritual officers, the atubung, arejust like all other
titleholders of the kingdomlinked to each other, and to the
king, by symbolic kinship ties of a perpetual nature. In trying
to register, while doing fieldwork, the maze of relations generated by the perpetual kinship system, I came across a contradiction which baffled me. In different moments of the
researchand as I talked to different informantsI had
written in my field books two statements that seemed to me
entirely irreconcilable. Some of my informants had told me
that the atubung were, at the symbolic level, the brothersin-law/cousins-in-law (ankwed) of the Mwant Yaav. On
other occasions, however, otheror even the very same
informantswould state that they were the kings maternal
uncles (amantu). The two avowals sounded to me incompatible: Were they, after all, in-laws of the sovereign, or else
his maternal uncles (and, therefore, of his own kin)?
Had it not been for the persistence of the Aruwund in
affirming that both assertions were accurate, I would never
have ventured into trying to make them intelligible. But
indeed, puzzles of this sort are not uncommon when dealing
with the system of perpetual kinship. Jeffrey Hoover (1978)
refers to this particular feature when he writes,
. . . perpetual kinship ties among individual titles are not
structured in a logical, coherent system. Each title has its own
maze of relationships with its peers, ties which become
contradictory when pursued as in a once popular American
song: I Am My Own Grandpa. (p. 121)

Contrary to what we could be led to believe at a first

glance, however, apparently incompatible statements (such

as the one just mentioned about the perpetual kinship tie

between the atubung and the sovereign) are not the result of
incoherent and ludicrous thinking. Instead, as I hope to demonstrate, they formas well as emanate froma scrupulously structured whole, responsible as it were for a vast and
elaborate array of meanings.
As we try to make sense of this twofold symbolic relation
between the atubung and the sovereign, we should be
reminded that, according to the oral traditions, the first
Mwant Yaav (whom the present incumbent represents) was
Cibind Yirungs son, not the hunter himself. This statement,
however, does not invalidate the fact that the Mwant Yaav is
equally avowed by the Aruwund to represent Cibind Yirung
himself bearing in mind that, being his heir, Yaav identifies
with his father (and predecessor) by means of the system of
positional succession.
In the light of what has just been said, the double nature of
the tie that unites the king to the atubung becomes easily
intelligible. Should we consider the Mwant Yaav as the successor of Cibind Yirung, then the dignitary who, at the court,
represents Ruwej is expectedly seen to perpetuate the relationship of spouse of the king. As a consequence, the atubung, whose perpetual kinship relation toward the princess is
that of siblings/cousins (anamaaku), are affines (brothers-in-law/cousins-in-law, ankwed) of the sovereign.
However, should we consider the king as being the son of
Yirung instead (a statement which, due to positional succession, makes equal sense to the Aruwund), then Ruwej
becomes his maaku (a kinship term used for both mother
and aunt). Even in the versions in which it is Kamong the
biological mother of the first sovereign, Kamongs son would
address both her mother and Ruwej by the same kinship term
for Kamong is said to be Ruwejs sister/cousin (mwanamaaku). Hence, if Ruwej is maaku of the Mwant Yaav, then
the atubung, as her brothers/cousins, become the kings
kin (his maternal uncles, amantu).4
In fact, the ambiguity and ductility generated by the perpetual kinship system allow Ruwund dignitaries a wide margin of maneuvering when in need of stating their link to the
king and other court notables. But, above all, this ambiguity
is a vehicle of meaning. As the kings brothers-in-law/cousins-in-law, the atubung proclaim a relationship of alliance
or affinity toward the sovereign, in this way emphasizing that
the new order installed results essentially from the alliance
with a foreigner, an alliance marked by difference. As his
maternal uncles, on the contrary, they declare themselves
engaged in an order in which the king is seen as their close
relative, that is, as an autochthonous being, son of Ruwej
and, therefore, a direct descendant of the local chiefs (the
atubung) and a native of the original lands at the Nkalaany.
The universe of symbolic thinking of the Aruwund takes up
constantly the idiom of kin and affine, of the identical
and the different, to highlight what are two absolutely
inextricable sides of the same ideology: that the king is both
an outsider and one of us.

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Do Culture Heroes Exist?

However, the discourse built on ambivalence, apparent paradoxes, enigmas, and seemingly logical ruptures unveils other
insights into the Ruwund ideology of kingship.
Contrasting Ruwej and Cibind Yirung in his analysis, de
Heusch considers the alien hunter to be what became commonly named in the specialized literature as a culture hero.
In his view, Cibind Yirung appears as the bearer per excellence of the new royalty, conceptualized as a more refined
and culturally higher system of organization. This theme of
the civilizing hero (hros civilisateur) indeed crosses all
literature on Central African oral traditions of foundation of
kinship. As a resultand as an outcome of the structuralist
standpoint, as seen beforethe contribution of the autochthonous power to the foundation of kingship is, by opposition, minimized, the role of Ruwej being seen of a passive
kind. De Heuschs argument, consequently, has us believe
that kingship is conceived in the myth as an order alien to the
indigenous population which, coming from outside, penetrates one other more rudimentary civilization, presided over
by the Ruwund princess. It is as though the two orders are of
a totally different nature, and the process is essentially carried out by the foreigner himself.
However, whereas the above interpretationthat kingship is construed ideologically as an order introduced from
the exteriorhas indeed clear echoes in Ruwund context,
the opposite idea is maintained by the Aruwund with equal
forcefulness. As a matter of fact, the oral narratives do not
present the process of foundation of kingship as a mereif
undesiredsubmission to a foreigner and the principles of
an alien civilization. Ruwej is actively involved in the project, so I claimed. Also, despite the fact that in some versions
Ruwej is herself willing to entrust the symbol of power to
Cibind Yirung (Dias de Carvalho, 1890, p. 75; Duysters,
1958, p. 83; Struyf, 1948, pp. 374-375), the Aruwund do not
make of the foreign hunter their first sovereign. Kinship ties
have to be forged with autochthony, that is with the native
people and land, before kingship is founded and a king proclaimed. The sovereign who inaugurates the dynasty of the
Ant Yaav is not Cibind Yirung, but his son. Moreover, if the
descent from Yirung confers to the king, no doubt, a strong
element of otherness, he is also seen as a native being for he
is able to claim unquestionable links, on the maternal side, to
Ruwej, her sister/cousin Kamong and the original people of
the Nkalaany. The Aruwund, hence, find sturdy grounds on
which to contend both the kings alien nature and his filiation
to the autochthonous culture.
Ruwund ideological thinking, thus, due to its richness and
intrinsic ambiguity, cannot be made to fit submissively de
Heuschs statement that the myth conceptualizes the king
and kingship itself as coming from elsewhere (as reasserted in his 1991 article). This being so, the concept of
culture herocentral as it has become in the relevant literaturemight call for some serious rethinking.

Further to what has been said, Dias de Carvalhos version

of the myth tells us that Cibind Yirung arrives at the land of
the Aruwund in possession of the Luba insignia of royalty
(the cimbuuy, a small hatchet). However, the hunter explicitly renounces this hatchet (which he returns to his brother in
Luba country) to embrace instead, as insignia of the new sovereignty, the sacred bracelet of the Ruwund ancestors called
rukan (Dias de Carvalho, 1890, p. 69). It is therefore in the
old society of Ruwej and the atubung that Yirung finds the
ultimate source of the new power!
In previous writings, I have set forward a whole argumentation to justify why, in view of these and other apparently
paradoxical data, it is no longer legitimate to conclude, with
de Heusch, that the Ruwund myth speaks of the introduction
of a new civilization (de Heusch, 1972, p. 187; 1991, p. 115),
in the sense that the essence of sovereignty would be symbolically conceptualized as having penetrated from another
place, a place exterior to society (de Heusch, 1972, p. 276;
1982b, pp. 26-27). If an element of otherness is indeed essential to the founding of this renewed order, it is the symbol of
the autochthonous power (the bracelet called rukan) that is
taken to become the insignia of kingship. Instead, I have
argued (on the basis of other lengthy empirical data which I
am unable to resume here, see 1996, pp. 49-55, 124-127) that
this narrative is, in Ruwund symbolic thinking, less of a
foundation myth and more a tale on re-creation or rebuilding of the autochthonous society.

Some Additional Data

Ruwund kingship ideology is not solely characterized by
blurredness and merging of characters and by the intricate
interplay between conjunction-disjunction, fluidity, and
ambiguity. The Aruwund speak constantly of ujindj,
secrecy. Statements contained in symbolic formulae and
the dignitaries praise-names (nkumbu) often conceal a double reading, a secret meaning which only some are aware of.
They are two-faced statements, or else they resort to deceiving forms that conceal an unspoken truth, not to be disclosed
to all. Multiple discourses can hide behind each other or
within each other and be constantly played against each
other. Let me illustrate with some data.
The major court dignitary Rukonkish, heir of Kamong
(the second wife of the hunter who was to give birth to the
first king), is considered the symbolic mother/aunt (maaku)
of the sovereign by the perpetual kinship system. However,
as some of my informants remarked, this perpetual tie aims
at concealing that the Rukonkish, being the heir of Cibind
Yirungs second wife, is also the sovereigns spouse (as by
positional succession the king is both the son and the father,
to whose office the former succeeds). In this view, the
Rukonkish is indeed a rival of the Nswaan Murund, the notable who represents Ruwej at the court, for they can both be
seen as wives of the sovereign. Only by playing down the
Rukonkishs role as wife and emphasize that of mother

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Palmeirim
can the system obscure her importance and elude the clash
with Ruwej. In her turn, the heir of Ruwej (the Nswaan
Murund), who can again be seen as both the kings wife
and his maaku (Kamong being Ruwejs sister/cousin), sees
her first role highlighted in detriment of the second. By doing
this, the perpetual kinship system deals with the intrinsic
ambiguity of Ruwund ideological thought. Nevertheless, the
underlying complexity remains the knowledge of many and
is never meant to be completely dissolved. One of my informants bluntly stated that the Rukonkish is a hidden spouse,
cloaked as a mother.
Ruwej, we saw, is a two-faced heroine. Likewise, twofaced are the chiefs (ayilol) who constitute the group of the
iin mazemb, the descendants of the original people of the
Nkalaany who inhabit the quarters just behind the royal palace, at the capital. They represent, in Musumb, the Ruwund
ancestors and the local rule and are considered the original
owners of the rukan. After the death of a king, it is the people
of the mazemb (with Ruwej) who select the new king, and it
is their main chief (the Sakawaat Nkwaany) who will occupy
the Mwant Yaavs throne during the interregnum. Being the
successor of Cibind Yirung, the foreign hunter, the king is
seen by the mazemb as an intruder in Ruwund land and,
therefore, the former represents a constant threat to the
Mwant Yaav. It is from the mazemb that the Ruwund sovereign fears betrayal, and this is the reason why the people of
the mazemb are praised as ampumb a mazu maad (the twofaced traitors).
This built-in ideological conflict between the people of
the Nkalaany, said to be at the origin of Ruwund power (and
considered the legitimate holders of its utmost ancestral
symbol, the rukan), and the rule which came to be installed
in association with an alien figure, the foreign hunter Cibind
Yirung, produces an overriding duplicity and concealment in
the way praise-phrases of Ruwund dignitaries are often verbalized and construed.
The dignitary from Nkalaany Mwant Kawungul, for
instance, is praised as cipepil da mazemb, ikuny wapepa
kasu, ing kukamekeneaku ant ajim (the lighter of the
mazemb, the man who lit the fire from which the big chiefs
originated). The fire is inextricably associated with chiefship and kingship. It is indeed around the fire, inside the
seclusion hut called masas, that the heir to an office is to
undertake the therapeutic process which will make him or
her a chief, or a king. The ceremony lasts all night, and the
fire should never extinguish itself. However, this praise is
often uttered differently by notables at the royal court (at the
capital), interested as they are in hiding or minimizing the
major role of this Nkalaany chief, who may be seen to question the decisive and crucial character of Cibind Yirungs
action in the foundation of kingship. It is so that this nkumbu
is often recited as cipepil da mazemb, ikuny wapepa kasu ni
matakwa (the lighter of the mazemb, the man who lit the fire
with his buttocks [through the release of intestinal gases, it is
meant]). Still, disguised in these shameful words, intended

to ridicule, is the idea that the essence of royalty should ultimately be traced to the original and autochthonous chiefs of
the Nkalaany, not to the foreign hunter, as it could appear at
first sight or be implied on other occasions.

A Call for a New Approach to Myth

I have highlighted the main arguments that point to the insufficiency of the structuralist approach in the analysis of
Central African foundation myths. De Heusch seems to
think, however, that my view of the Ruwund narrative as
conveying more of a process of social renewal than an act
of foundation is an assertion on my part about the specificity
of the Ruwund epic within the wider set of other Central
African homologous narratives, which, in his opinion, I fail
to consider. In his words,
. . . she refuses to believe that the ideology conveyed by this
narrative [the Ruwund epic], recurrent in the rather diverse (fort
diverse) mythical history of Black Africa, could be susceptible
of the same interpretation everywhere. She thinks that the
providential arrival of Tshibinda [Cibind, in my text] can only
be interpreted by going deeper into the Lunda [Ruwund] epic
itself. She therefore opposes my approach, which consists in
taking a look (jeter un regard) at neighbouring peoples or even
at a whole continent. (de Heusch, 2009, p. 121; my translation).

Although my analysis in Of Alien Kings was mainly centered on Ruwund material, I did not lose sight of neighboring
contexts, as I claimed at the beginning of this text. The ambiguity, suppleness, pliability, and blurredness of Ruwund
mythical characters and discourse, as well as their consequent disavowal to fit models of a dichotomous nature, are
not necessarily a specificity of the Ruwund context. Indeed, I
dare making the bold suggestion that it might be an intrinsic
feature of mythical thinking, wherever we may find it.
Allen Roberts, in an article written in 1991, elaborates on
the dual nature of Mbidi Kiluwes plastic representations.
Mbidi Kiluwe is, in Luba oral traditions, the counterpart of
Cibind Yirung in Ruwund narratives. Also a hunter coming
from elsewhere, Mbidi Kiluwe marriesjust like his
homologous figuretwo autochthonous princesses and, by
this token, originates a new Luba dynasty founded by his
son, Kalala Ilunga. The statues representing Mbidi Kiluwe
are also Janus-faced (Roberts, 1991), just like Ruwejs mask
collected by Manuel Jordn in Zambia, to which a discourse
on ambiguity is explicitly associated. The latter and similar
other data make us suspect that deeper fieldworkand, in
particular, one unconstrained by binary models of thinkingmight indeed reveal data pertaining to analogous conclusions in Central African contexts other than that of the
Aruwund.
The structuralist concept of opposition appears to be
too rigid a concept to be able to grasp the complexity of
Ruwund thinking: mythical heroines who are at once mothers and spouses of the king; perpetual titleholders who

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SAGE Open

can be defined both as the sovereigns kin and as his inlaws; a king who is simultaneously declared an alien and a
native, the son, and the father; an order in which power can
be viewed as coming from outside as well as generating
from within; autochthony both preceding and being the
outcome of kingship. It is indeed as if the ideological universe of the Aruwund would claim this intrinsic ambiguity
(what to Western eyes appears as contradiction or sheer
paradox) as the very mechanism on which their thinking is
built. Derridas deconstruction of the logic of opposition
based on the endlessly imbricated interplay between diffrence and diffrance could find here solid grounds for existence: Signs forever merging and overlapping each other;
signs that appear to produceand yet are also the effectof
other signs. In this philosophical frame, kingship could be
said autochthony deferred, the other deferred, as the
old order is simultaneously the origin and the effect of the
installation of the new order.5
One cannot play down such lushness of data (along with
all the intricate and subtle meanings it conveys) in the name
of a comparative structural analysis with homologous contexts. Instead, meticulous attention has to be devoted to this
kind of material, and new research in contexts neighboring
the Aruwund may indeed unveil similar mechanisms of
thought. In fact, authors working with mythological constructions in geographical areas very distant from the Central
African contexts have disclosed ways of building mythical
thinking that recalland some even resemblethose
pointed out here for the Aruwund. Manuel Ramos (2006), for
instance, points out similar mechanisms in Christian mythology epitomized in the merging of the God-Father (the
Creator) and the God-Son (Jesus Christ, the Savior). In the
context of Indian narratives, Gomes da Silva (2010) talks of
characters fading into one another, about consubstantiality
of apparently opposed mythical heroes and deities repeatedly
involved in tales of mutual creation or mutual parenthood (pp. 88, 162, for example), about stories built within
stories. Indianist authors try to grasp the astounding intricacy
of devices used in the creation of mythical thought in oral
and written texts by resorting to such multifaceted configurations as the hologram (Gomes da Silva) or the growth of
crystal strata (Ramanujan, cited by Gomes da Silva, 2010).
Blurredness, ambivalence, consubstantiality, fluidity, and
suppleness appear to constitute, in Central Africa as elsewhere, the array of logical and symbolic instruments able to
conveyas well as create and recreatethe prodigious
intricacy and sophistication of meanings that emanate from
mythological thinking.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Gomes da Silva and the anonymous reviewers
for the valuable contribution of their perceptive comments, in
particular the reviewer who drew her attention to the eventual
confluences between her analysis and Derridas framework of
thought.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: I am
grateful to the following institutions for funding research which
served as a basis for this article: Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research, The Royal Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland, The University of London Central
Research Fund, Instituto Nacional de Investigao Cientfica, Junta
Nacional de Investigao Cientfica e Tecnolgica, Fundao
Calouste Gulbenkian and the University of Minho.

Notes
1. The Aruwund (or Northern Lunda) inhabit the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), spreading also across the northeastern edge of Angola into DRC
southwest Bandundu province, where we find a smaller group
speaking a different dialect. They are organized as a kingdom
under the rule of a paramount chief who holds the title of
Mwant Yaav. In this text, I shall use Aruwund as the noun
that denominates these Lunda peoples, and Ruwund as the
adjective.
2. Bearing in mind this second statement of mine, I find it difficult to understand the following remark made by de Heusch
in his commentary on my work: She therefore opposes my
approach, which consists in taking a look (jeter un regard)
at neighbouring peoples, or even at a whole continent (de
Heusch, 2009, p. 121, my translation). By adopting as a starting point for my own reasoning de Heuschs analysis of these
narratives (without ever questioning its comparative nature), I
acknowledge implicitly (as well as explicitly, see, for instance,
Palmeirim, 2006, pp. 43-45) the merits of the latter. Indeed,
although my book does not aim at a horizontal analysis of
Central African material (once more, even if recognizing its
fruitfulness and value), I myself resort to other contexts to
enlighten Ruwund data. This is particularly obvious in the
Epilogue where I recall Luba and even Hawaiian ethnography to emphasize the crucial importance of the wandering
quality of the hero hunter (Palmeirim, 2006, pp. 125-126).
3. In the Luba homologous foundation narrative, Bulanda and
Mabela, the hunter Mbidi Kiluwes two wives, are also close
relatives.
4. For a description of the Ruwund kinship terminology system,
a more detailed discussion of this topic and explanatory diagrams, see Palmeirim, 2006, ch. 3.
5. Some moments of Derridas 1968 conference on Diffrance
are magnificently clarified by the Ruwund material here presented and, in turn, help out in making the latter more intelligible. Derrida (1982) states that the differences are themselves
effects (p. 11). They are the one in difference with itself
(Derrida, 1982, p. 22), but this does not mean that the diffranceas a system of referral that produces the differences and constitutes them historicallyis originated
before them (Derrida, 1982, pp. 11-12). It is because of diffrance that the movement of signification is possible only if

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Palmeirim
each so-called present element . . . is related to something
other than itself, thereby keeping within itself the mark of the
past element . . . (Derrida, 1982, p. 13) It is so that kingship, as autochthony deferred, elects for its greatest insignia the rukan, the ultimate symbol of the old order. Hence,
as claimed before, only momentarilyand somehow artificiallycan kingship and autochthony be split up into two
separate entities: One is but the other different and deferred,
one differing and deferring the other . . . This is why every
apparently rigorous and irreducible opposition . . . comes
to be qualified, at one moment or another, as a theoretical
fiction.(Derrida, 1982, p. 18)

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Author Biography
Manuela Palmeirim is professor of anthropology at the University
of Minho, Portugal, currently on leave of absence to work at The
State University of Zanzibar, Tanzania. She is the author of Of
Alien Kings and Perpetual Kin (2006), among other publications.
Having conducted extensive fieldwork among the Aruwund
(Lunda) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on foundation
myths and kingship ideology, she is currently working on sorcery
and the building of knowledge in Zanzibar.

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