“The Thing of Foul Mouth”: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Hyena Lore in the Borana Oral Tradition

APA Citation: Wako, F. (2021). “The Thing of Foul Mouth”: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Hyena Lore in the Borana Oral Tradition. Ngano: The Journal of Eastern African Oral Literature, 2, 98- 111.

Abstract

No wild animal, other than perhaps the jackal, has caught the imagination of

traditional and cultural Borana life than the hyena. This is expressed profoundly in a

significant number of folktales, proverbs, and superstitions. In nocturnal darkness the

hyena induces fear and its name rarely mentioned and tabooed; only indirectly called

‘the thing of foul mouth’. A protagonist or an antagonist in many stories, it has been

contrastingly portrayed as foolish, greedy and witty. For those who understand its

‘language’ the hyena ‘speaks’ to people through ‘laughter’ and the howling noise it

makes, warning people of impending peril or forecasting good fortunes. Through the

oral narratives, the hyena is imbued with human characteristics by man. In this sense

the hyena represents man and his follies. This paper explores some of the oral

traditional narratives among the Borana in which the hyena is the subject and teases

out their psychological significance. By making an interpretative reading of the hyena

narrative and what it signifies, the paper concludes that the Borana project their

anxieties and wishes and express them through an animal they consider appropriate to

bear their unconscious.