YAMBA

Yamba-Kuru

In the ROHO ATU universe, Yamba is the king of the Yumboes, messenger of the winds who carries the words of the spirits across the savannas and shores of Senegal. The figure is rooted in a very real folklore: that of the Yumboes, the fairies of West Africa, described in the nineteenth century by the folklorist Thomas Keightley in The Fairy Mythology, from the testimony of a woman who had grown up on the island of Gorée. Collected among the Wolof and Lebou of the Cape Verde peninsula — a cultural heritage largely shared by the neighbouring Serer country — the legend describes creatures about two feet tall, with pearly skin and silver hair. They are also called Bakhna Rakhna, the good people. They live beneath the hills of the Mamelles, near Dakar, come out to dance in the moonlight, and lay great festive tables served by invisible attendants of whom only the hands and feet can be seen. They steal maize from humans, catch their own fish, and sometimes invite travellers to their banquets. Yamba's kingship over this little people, like his role as a neutral messenger between the worlds, belongs to the ROHO lore: a contemporary extension of one of the few West African fairy traditions ever set down in writing.