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Overview

In Chatelain’s second Fenda Maria tale, the heroine’s dying mother leaves her a little goat, saying it is her mother and father. This bequest is distinct from the magical roadside women of the first tale. After her brother marries the governor’s daughter, his new wife reduces Fenda to service under the name Kamaria. Sent to wash clothes at the landing beneath a fig-tree, the young woman cries over her change in circumstances. The goat approaches bleating and asks why its young mistress is weeping.

Fenda explains the firewood, water-carrying and washing now demanded of her. The goat comforts her, predicts that she will see her glory and takes the clothes out of the tub. It washes shirts, trousers and coats, spreads them in the sun, searches its mistress’s hair for lice and then folds the clothes. When she returns, Fenda claims the completed washing as her own. The little helper’s speech and actual domestic work support its place in this particular narrative rather than an assumption that all inherited livestock are supernatural.

Later the brother’s son insists on eating this goat. It is killed and its entrails assigned to Fenda for washing. Fish carry away the entrails, and a bagre takes the stomach; the water also removes her tub. She is beaten for losing them and flees into the forest the next morning. The subsequent gifts and public restoration of her position follow encounters with other helpers. The goat does not return to life in the printed ending, and the mother’s parental comparison is retained without converting it into a stated bodily transformation of the dead parents.

Speaking inherited goatComforts displaced mistressWashes and folds clothingKilled later in the narrative
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Origins & earliest records

Chatelain credits the contributor nicknamed Piolho, a rope-maker at Bom-Jesus on the Kuanza River, who dictated the beginning for remuneration. He says the contributor interrupted before the ending, which was later obtained by letter and written down by Domingos de Lemos, a former pupil then working at Bom-Jesus. The dialect is identified with the lower Kuanza; the published completion is therefore not represented as one uninterrupted oral performance.

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Records & interpretation

Complete tale II, Fenda Maria and her Elder Brother nga Nzua, bilingual pp. 52–63; English pp. 53, 55, 57, 59, 61 and 63. Contributor note II p. 265; notes 199–201 pp. 269–270.

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 II, Fenda Maria and her Elder Brother nga Nzua, bilingual pp. 52–63; English pp. 53, 55, 57, 59, 61 and 63. Contributor note II p. 265; notes 199–201 pp. 269–270.

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 — Speaking Goat of Fenda Maria’s InheritanceResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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