The frequent and widespread reference to proverbs and stories infuses these traditional images and their implied teachings into Chokwe current events. Adults use their treasured, entertaining, yet practical lore as a reference point when making difficult decisions.

People commonly describe these stories as their ancestors’ personal accounts about unusual events. Through years of retelling, they have been fictionalized to accommodate the storytellers’ audiences. Yishima therefore distill ancient insights.  Such ancestral lessons, embedded in both stories and proverbs, concern Chokwe traditions, ideas about the world, and practical survival skills. Thus, when listening to Chokwe lore, both children and adults expect to inherit that ancestral wisdom. By frequent reference—throughout the workday and at bedtime—parents imprint these stories on their children’s minds. The yishima will teach them how to live within a complex environment, in the bush that both nourishes and threatens.

Bush stories make listeners shiver with excitement. But they do more than tingle nerve endings: along with daily bush experiences, these stories form an inner vision for “seeing” in the wilderness. The images of yishima instill a particular mind-set: a predilection toward multiple dimensions of reality, an alertness for extraordinary beings, and a preference for timely action that strengthens relationships. Though arising from ancestral lives, the story images still influence Chokwe life because they predispose attentive listeners to think, feel, and act intuitively in the bush environment.

In the bush

Villagers make daily forays into the bush. People leave at dawn to go to their fields, to the river, or into the savanna forests. Women till their fields and soak their manioc tubers in the rivers, men fish and hunt, and children baby-sit at home or accompany their parents on errands. Occasionally, a family builds a hut near the fields and lives there temporarily to chase away the wild pigs that eat the manioc. Sometimes, too, several men construct a hunting or fishing campsite in the bush, where they eat and sleep during their expedition.

The bush nourishes them all. Through the rainy and dry seasons, it offers food and water. By its rivers lie forests that shade the fishing traps and whose marshy grounds hold delicious grubs.