Namarda
Zaghawa · numen · Zaghawa traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Namarda is one of the named ogre-figures of the Zaghawa oral-tale repertoire recorded by Marie-Jose and Joseph Tubiana. He belongs to the corpus's population of devouring ogres, horned spirits of the bush, many-headed monsters and cruel giants whose hunger falls especially on children, and stands close to the recurrent tale-motif of the tyrant. Throughout this repertoire such an overbearing power is characteristically overcome not by force but by cunning, the weapon of the weak, which the Zaghawa tales rank beside courage as a cardinal virtue.
Domains
- wilderness
Powers
- devours the weak and the wayward
Sources
- Namarda is a named ogre-figure of the Zaghawa oral-tale repertoire collected by Marie-Jose and Joseph Tubiana.: M.-J. & J. Tubiana, Contes zaghawa du Tchad: trente-sept contes et deux legendes (1961; repr. L'Harmattan, 2004), index of proper names. (primary)
- The Zaghawa tale corpus is peopled by devouring ogres, horned spirits of the bush, many-headed monsters and cruel giants, and by the motif of a tyrannical sultan, powers that are characteristically undone by the cunning of the weak.: M.-J. & J. Tubiana, Contes zaghawa du Tchad (1961; repr. 2004), comparative notes and preface (M. Leiris). (primary)