INGUMBANE

The Serpent Incubus, the figure that arrived without its address

Ingumbane is an incubus with the appearance of a serpent, an entity that visits sleepers and feeds on their life force. What concerns him must be said at once, because it is unusual in this Codex: his origin is not documented. The only traceable mention of his name, in a French-language repertory of African mythology, assigns him no people, no language and no region. The attachment to southern Africa rests solely on the form of the word, which bears the Nguni class prefix, and not on an attestation. No consultable Zulu, Xhosa or Swazi dictionary or ethnography records this name. The register to which he belongs, however, is solidly documented among the Nguni peoples. Several entities there visit sleepers and live at their expense: the tokoloshe, a small nocturnal being kept at bay by raising one's bed, uMamlambo, the water serpent that brings wealth and demands a human price in return, and iChanti, the changing serpent of the rivers whose encounter bewilders the senses. It is in this family that Ingumbane finds his place, and it is thus that the Codex presents him: a figure of the southern nocturnal register, whose name reaches us without its address.