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Overview

Mukenge shares a household and meals with Sute in tale XXIX. He supplies stolen chickens while his companion brings flour from the women’s pounding place. When they go bathing before eating, the prepared food repeatedly disappears. Sute denies knowing who took it because both were supposedly away together. Mukenge investigates while Sute goes out early for flour. He finds the molehills leading from their house to the river, recognizes an underground route and sets a trap in the tunnel. At the next bathing excursion Sute dives, tries the route and dies in the trap. Mukenge returns to find the food untouched, discovers the body and eats it.

Tale XXX gives Mukenge a different friendship, with a cock who visits every day. He has previously feared the bird’s crest, supposing it could wound him during a struggle. The cock explains that it is flesh and cannot do so. The following morning Mukenge seizes the visiting bird by the neck and kills it. The ending makes that disclosure the cause of his subsequent attacks on cocks rather than only hens. These are two distinct episodes, not a statement that the cock shares Sute’s tunnel or returns after being eaten.

Although the English translation calls him Fox, Chatelain’s notes explicitly say mu-kenge is not the European fox. They describe a smaller animal than the jackal, with long coarse gray hair, a hairy tail and a head compared with an ichneumon. The profile retains the narrative name and those attributed descriptions without choosing a modern species identification.

Shared-meal arrangementDetects underground theftSets fatal trapLearns crest is not a weaponTranslated Fox label qualified
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Origins & earliest records

Both tales were contributed by Jelemía dia Sabatelu. XXIX is identified as Mbamba in origin and Mbaka in dialect; XXX is Mbaka in both. The animal descriptions are Chatelain’s explanatory observations in notes 550 and XXXI, distinct from the speaking episodes.

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Records & interpretation

Complete XXIX, Fox and Mole, pp. 202–207, and XXX, Cock and Fox, pp. 206–209; English on odd pages. Contributor and animal-label notes pp. 299–300.

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

    Complete XXIX, Fox and Mole, pp. 202–207, and XXX, Cock and Fox, pp. 206–209; English on odd pages. Contributor and animal-label notes pp. 299–300.

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 — Mukenge of the Shared MealsResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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