Southern Africa Africanist Sigrid Schmidt asserted that the tale type was particularly widespread in
Southeast Africa. In fact, according to her studies, the tale type 707, as well as types 706,
Maiden Without Hands, and 510,
Cinderella, "found a home in Southern Africa for many generations". Schmidt provided the summary of two manuscript tales. In the first, a woman gives birth to twin boys in the likeness of their father, a king with the mark of a moon on his chest, but a jealous servant casts them in the water. The twins are rescued and saved by a falcon. Later, they return to their father's castle and a jet of milk leaks from their mother's breast to their mouth, confirming the boys' parentage. In a second tale, a couple wishes for a son with a star on the chest and a moon on the front. Their son is born, but a jealous servant replaces the boy for a puppy and abandons the boy with a giraffe. The giraffe raises the boy as its son and gives him a cloth to hide his astral birthmarks. The boy finds work with in a farm that belongs to the king, where the princess sees his shining birthmarks and marries him. Later, when he returns home, jets of milk leak from his mother's breast to his mouth. In a tale from the
Venda people titled
The Chief with the Half-Moon on his Chest, the titular chief with the mark of a half-moon on his chest has two wives. The elder wife has two sons with no lunar birthmark, while the younger is childless. One day, the younger wife gives birth to a boy just like his father, with the half-moon on th chest. The elder wife replaces the boy for a pup and hides him in a beer-pot. A little rat takes the boy out of the beer pot and hides in its hole. The little rat takes the boy to his mother to be suckled. One day, the elder wife sees the rat playing with the boy in the younger wife's hut, then in the cattle kraal. The elder wife wants the younger's hut to be burnt down, then the kraal, but the rat hides the child away from both perils, and lastly takes him to another village, where he grows up. Two people visit the boy's hut and report back to the chief with a half-moon. The chief meets the boy, his own son, and takes him back to his village in secret. The chief organizes a ceremony with beer, then introduces his son to the assembled crowd. He banishes his elder wife and her sons and names the boy with the half-moon as the next chief. Hugh Arthur Stayt noted a similar tale among the Sotho, and suggested it as the origin for the Venda tale.
Namibia Sigrid Schmidt created a whole system of classification for
Khoisan folktales. Tale type 707, in this system, was numbered KH 1125 and named "The mother of the boy(s) with a moon on his chest or forehead was banished but finally she was allowed back". In an updated version of the Khoisan Index, Schmidt renamed Khoisan type KH 1125 as "A boy was born with a moon on his chest or forehead.". According to her studies, at least 17 variants of type 707 have been collected in
Namibia since 1907. In the Namibian variants, a king wishes to have a son with astral birthmarks: the moon, the sun, or
Zodiac signs either in the boy's head or chest. After being cast away from home, he returns to his father's house years later and his mother's breastmilk flows from her body to his mouth, signifying their parental connection - a motif that Schmidt links to
Indian variants. In seven texts, the wonder child is reared by a cannibal woman, while in four variants the animals raise and protect him.
Regional tales Sigrid Schmidt published some tales from Namibia:
Der Junge mit der Sonne und dem Mond ("The Youth with the Sun and the Moon"),
Die Zwillingssöhne mit Mond und Stern auf der Brust ("The Twin Sons with the Moon and the Star on the Chest"). She grouped them under the banner
Der Bursche mit dem Mond auf der Brust (Stirn) ("The Boy with the Moon on the Chest/Forehead") and compared them to other instances of the tale type in international indexes. She also collected a tale titled
Das hundertste Schwein ("The hundredth pig"), which she classified as both type 707 and her type KH 1125. Africanist Sigrid Schmidt published a tale titled
The Son with a Moon on His Breast. In this tale, a white farmer and his wife are childless. One day, the man looks at the Moon and prays to God to have a son that shines like the Moon. In time, his wife becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy with a shining birthmark on his breast, when he is absent. Two Herero farmer workers see the luminescence, find the boy, and replace him for a puppy. The white farmer returns home and sees the puppy, falling for the deceit, then demotes the white wife as the farmer's servant and takes the Herero woman as his spouses. As for the child, a man-eating female creature finds him and decides to raise him and feed him until he is big enough to eat. The boy grows up, learns of his adoptive mother's true nature, and begins to construct aeroplanes and boats as a possible means to escape her. He fashions a boat a takes it to the sea, sailing away from the man-eater. On the other side of the sea, the boy finds work in a farm and marries a young girl. The boy has no need of lamp, for the mark on his breast shines with enough light to illuminate the room. Years later, the boy with the moon discovers where his birth parents are and tells his wife he will visit them, and if they see a female servant opening the door to his father's farm, it is his mother. The following morning, the boy with the moon and his wife go by horse-cart to the white farmer's compound, and the boy's mother opens the gate for him. Suddenly, a stream of her breastmilk springs forth from her body to the boy, now a man. The boy tells his wife about it, and goes to meet his father. The man welcomes the visiting couple and lets them stay overnight, since they were white. Later that night, the white farmer puts out the lamp, since the farm has no electricity, and the boy with the moon removes his shirt and lets his birthmark illuminate his room. The white farmer notices the bright light and takes a peek into the room, seeing the mark on his guest's breast, then realizes he might be the son he wished for long ago. The white farmer goes to embrace the boy with the moon, and restores his wife as his spouse, then ties the Herero women to horses and lets the animals lose to tear them to pieces.
Sotho people In a tale from
Basutoland,
Morena-y-a-Letsatsi, or The Sun Chief, a strong chief, with signs of the sun, the moon and eleven stars on his breast, is approached by two sisters: Siloane ("the tear-drop") and Mokete. Mokete says she can cook and grind, and thus becomes her sister's servant, while Siloane marries the chief. On the wedding feast, she "sings a song of [his] praise" and promises to bear him a son "in his image". When she is ready to give birth, Mokete replaces the boy for a deformed child with the face of a baboon. The real son is put with the pigs to be devoured, but "the spirits protect him". Mokete, the new wife, sees the boy survived and asks her husband to kill the pigs and burn down the kraal. She also tries to kill him in other attempts, when the boy plays with an elephant and another when he is living with the fishes, but fails. The boy survives every time due to intervention of the spirits, becomes the leader of another village, and is given the name Tsepitso. One day, when passing through a village, he stops by the well and sees a woman named Ma
Thabo ("mother of joy"), who gives him some water to drink.
Xhosa people Another African variant was collected from a
Xhosa storyteller named Nongenile Masithathu Zenani, recorded from a performance on September 13, 1967, in her home located in Nkanga, Gatyana District, Transkei. In this variant, titled
The Child with the Star on His Forehead, a man marries his wife's sister as another spouse to father a son. The sister gives birth to a boy "with a star on his forehead [and] the crescent of a moon on his chest, just like his father", but is replaced by a cat. The boy is saved and reared by a crab, which takes the boy back to his father's homestead to reveal the truth. Scholar Sigrid Schmidt recognized its classification as tale type AaTh 707. Two other tales from the Xhosa people were identified by scholarship:
Chief Bulane and his Heir and
The Child with the Moon on his Forehead. In
Chief Bulane and his Heir, published by South African magistrate Frank Brownlee (
af), titular Chief Bulane has a half-moon birthmark on his chest - a sign of his royal status. He had two wives, a first one called Mamtolo, with whom he had a family, and a second one named Mamiya, the latter with no child. Mamtolo mocks Mamiya for the latter's perceived infertility, until she bears a son in the likeness of his father. Jealous that none of her children has such a mark, Mamtolo hides the boy with the half-moon behind some pots and replaces him for a puppy. The chief of the mice pass by him with its retinue and decides to adopt and raise the boy. Meanwhile, Mamtolo tricks Bulane by showing him the pup, who orders the pup to be destroyed. Later, Mamtolo goes to Mamiya's hut and finds the boy playing with the mice, so she falls into a rage and asks Bulane to torch the hut to kill the mice. The tale
The Child with the Moon on his Forehead was published in
Fairy Tales Told by Nontsomi, by M. W. Waters (1927). ==Footnotes==