HLAKANYANA

Trickster, childhood morality / Uhlakanyana

Hlakanyana, in Zulu Uhlakanyana, is a trickster figure of the oral traditions of the Zulu and the Xhosa of South Africa. His name evokes the little cunning one, the little deceiver. He is represented as a tiny being, the size of a weasel — which also earns him the name Ucakijana, the little weasel — endowed with precocious intelligence and unscrupulous cunning. The tales show him speaking before his own birth, then multiplying deceptions and wicked tricks, most often to obtain food. Some versions credit him with the power to change shape. In Zulu tradition his deeds are frankly malevolent, while Xhosa tradition sometimes presents him as an ambiguous being, neither good nor bad but capable of great cruelty. Killed several times over in the narratives, he always returns. Often compared to the tricksters of folktales the world over, Hlakanyana belongs less to mythology than to the moral tale: by violating every social rule, he serves as a mirror to the failings of the community. These stories were collected as early as the nineteenth century by the missionary Henry Callaway.