Tsonga · numen · Tsonga traditional religion; continuing · numen
Nwampfundla, the Hare, is the master trickster of Tsonga oral literature. Small and physically weak, he prevails through cunning, deceiving the elephant, the lion, the hyena and the crocodile, and turning the strength of larger creatures against them. Junod gathered many of these tales among the Ronga of Delagoa Bay, where the hare cycle forms one of the richest bodies of Tsonga narrative; the same trickster travelled with enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, where he is cousin to Brer Rabbit. The stories are at once entertainment and a school of wit, teaching that intelligence outmatches force.