Environmental Ethics in Sub-Saharan African Literature through Myths and Legends

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate how Language, Culture and Environment are linked.  It examines the relationship between the Environmental Ethics and the Sub-Saharan African Literature. That is, how do Myths and Legends inspire the respect of the Environmental Ethics in Sub-Saharan Cultures.

 The method consists of an Anthropological Analysis of some African Myths and Legends from Scholars and other Authors who wrote on African Literature to illustrate the fact that, they carry Rules that govern Environmental Ethics and values that deals with our relationship with the physical milieu around us and how Myths permit to avoid pollution and ensure the protection of the endangered species. A Comparative Study of some Myths, in cultural Contexts, different from the Sub-Saharan one, indicates how Anthropocentric and Ecocide, Myths are. The result is the reality that, most of environmental Problems faced by the Humanity nowadays, are Anthropogenic.  The Theoretical approach here is the Cultural Ecology to demonstrate how human adaptation to the natural Environment takes place by the Use of Cultural mechanisms.

As a Result, the Paper demonstrate how Sub-Saharan African Literature is Environmentalist for Myths and Legends, constitute Charter for societies concerning Nature. They are Cultural Adaptation to natural Environment. They are adaptive Strategies for people to survive in their natural Environment. They convey messages concerning Rules that govern peoples’ behaviour with social and natural environment. There is a harmony or an interdependence between People and their geographical Milieu. Through Myths and Legends, Sub-Saharan African Literature constitute a School of Ecology.  Because, the advocate for a Sustainable Management of Natural Resources, through their beliefs systems. Myths and Legends carry Environmental Ethics. They are cultural strategies for the respect of Environmental values; they communicate fundamental conceptions of nature and society and how people ought to relate and behave with natural environment. The paper demonstrates how the perturbation of Sub-Saharan African Language and Beliefs System by the western Imperialism, disturbed the relationships between people and their physical milieu and how the Environmental Ethics has been demoted, as the result of that fact.