The corpus of oral literatures of Tanzanian Rift Valley (TRV) cultures is vast, but largely unexplored. Collections of ogre stories, trickster tales and other narratives of fictional content have been compiled since (pre)colonial days, mainly for the sake of linguistic exploitation, or for the sake of translation, edification and entertainment – but only rarely for a systematic literary analysis of its plots, figures and motifs, notable exceptions being Daudey et al. 2001, Kießling 1995, Mous 1998, ten Raa 1967. The present talk aims to counter this deficiency and explore the wealth of literary imagery in TRV cultures from the vanatage point of Southern Cushitic, using the tale type of Lách (Iraqw) / Laa’ay (Alagwa, Burunge) as exemplification. In the long run, this is supposed to pave the way towards building a motif index of TRV oral traditions, understood as compendium of the epic matrix of TRV cultures, i.e. prominent figures such as ogre (Geider 1990, 2016), trickster, enfant terrible (Geider 198, 2003, Görög-Karady et al. 1980), conventionalised plots and tale types (Thompson 1955-58, Uther 2004) and image sets (Scheub 1977), exploited in TRV oral traditions.

-Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change. -Acknowledgement and citation: Kießling, Roland. 2024. Towards an epic matrix of the Tanzanian Rift Valley area. Talk Given at Rift Valley Webinar Series 13/11/2024.