Ngana Hima, the Alert Grandson

Overview

Ngana Hima or Kahima, translated as Monkey, makes a second journey with Leopard after Antelope’s death. The first journey’s failures give his conduct a precise contrast. He identifies biting ants instead of collecting them, chooses edible crops despite misleading directions and rejects a fish-trap as a water vessel. In version A, when sent for spoons, he hides briefly behind the house, returns to find Leopard already eating and seizes his arm before securing his own share. He neither feeds a newborn nor revives Antelope; his role is an alert companion who resists repeating the earlier victim’s obedience.

During the night Leopard kills livestock and approaches with its blood to stain Monkey. Monkey is awake and pushes the vessel back, spilling the blood onto Leopard. In the morning he plays Leopard’s instrument and challenges whether the trick used on Antelope can work on him. The household finds Leopard blood-covered, recognizes the earlier injustice and kills him. Monkey receives permission to marry the host’s daughter and a leg of Leopard’s flesh. He takes that meat to Leopard’s own wife under a false account of her husband’s absence. Again a child recognizes the smell, and again the mother rejects the warning.

In version A Monkey says Leopard has gone hunting and reveals the truth after the household eats, then escapes their attempted pursuit. Version B uses the debt-collecting excuse, has the mother strike the warning child, and puts the final disclosure in Monkey’s speech from a tree outside the village. The widow recognizes the child’s accuracy and mourns. These version-specific endings retain Monkey’s retaliatory deception as well as his rescue of himself; they do not reduce the whole story to a harmless cleverness contest.

Origins & earliest records

Chatelain prints two versions of tale XXI: Piolho’s Lower Kuanza contribution and Jelemía dia Sabatelu’s Mbaka version. Piolho supplied the first half initially, then the continuation on a later visit after Chatelain asked for it. The collector’s comparison with Romero’s Brazilian text explains that editorial inquiry; it is not a claim that the two Angolan performances were identical.

Records & interpretation

Complete tale XXI, Leopard, Antelope, and Monkey: version A pp. 160–173, version B pp. 172–181; English on odd-numbered facing pages. Contributor and collection-history note XXI pp. 292–293.

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 tale XXI, Leopard, Antelope, and Monkey: version A pp. 160–173, version B pp. 172–181; English on odd-numbered facing pages. Contributor and collection-history note XXI pp. 292–293.

Family, evolution & connections

Leopard’s two named grandsons — Chatelain XXI A

Version A, narrator statements on English pp. 161 and 171.

Grandparent-to-grandchild links; each displayed edge skips an unspecified intervening generation. No intervening parents are supplied, and no brotherhood between the grandsons is inferred. Version A’s continuation was elicited after the collector read a Brazilian parallel; version B has a different contributor and is not merged. This is narrative kinship, not animal evolution.

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 — Ngana Hima, the Alert GrandsonResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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