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Overview

Two men regularly visit and talk together. When one warns that lions have entered the neighborhood and urges his friend to keep his house shut, the other trusts his gun and spear. Their disagreement becomes a practical contest. The warning friend obtains lion-man medicine and waits a month before visiting at night. Outside the house he becomes a lion and roars twice.

He opens the house with one fist, lifts his sleeping friend and throws him outside. He destroys the partition and the house, leaving the other man amid the wreckage. He then returns home and becomes human again. The next morning he visits as a friend and hears the account of the lion attack. His questions about the unused gun and spear expose the failed boast. The survivor concedes both the lion’s strength and the strength of friendship; the quarrel ends. The episode leaves him alive and does not describe the medicine’s ingredients or an invulnerability test.

Medicine-enabled lion formTwo roarsBreaks house with fistReturns to human formSurvivor concedes argument
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Origins & earliest records

Jelemía dia Sabatelu supplied XLVII in the Mbaka dialect. Chatelain leaves its origin between Mbamba and Mbaka, saying it circulates in both. His notes record a disagreement between his classification of the transformation as fiction and the historical status attributed to such narratives by his informants.

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Records & interpretation

XLVII, The Lion is Strong; so is Friendship Strong, bilingual pp. 244–247; contributor, origin qualification and hitu note pp. 307–308.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Folk-Tales of Angola

    Héli Chatelain, collector, editor and literal English translator; named contributor in origin · 1894

    XLVII, The Lion is Strong; so is Friendship Strong, bilingual pp. 244–247; contributor, origin qualification and hitu note pp. 307–308.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Collected Ki-mbundu text with facing English translation and contributor notesChatelain 1894 — Lion-Man of the Friendship ArgumentResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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