Most of us are familiar with elves, dwarfs, sidhe, satyrs, nymphs and the Tuatha de Danann- but what of their equivalents from the African continent? Here are a few of the “good folk” that wander the grasslands and forests of West Africa:

1. The Aziza/Azizan:

According to Carol Rose’s scholarly “An Encyclopedia of Sprits, Fairies and Leprechauns”, the Aziza are the “little people” of those communities which formerly made up the Dahomey Kingdom in West Africa (whose borders existed within the modern nation of Benin). They inhabit the deep forests and had a relationship with the hunters who ventured into them. The Aiziza have conferred some of their knowledge of supernatural powers onto these hunters, who in turn have since introduced this knowledge to human society. For this, the Aziza were propitiated. 

The “Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology” by Theresa Bane gives similar information, but adds: “Considered to bring luck with them, the Aziza were often called upon by the native people for assistance in hunting and luck in general.” 

The book “African Myths of Origin” by Stephen Belcher records a story from the Fon (the dominant ethnic group of the Dahomey Kingdom), wherein a hunter whose wife suffered from leprosy came across a mound of earth inhabited by an azizan. The azizan spoke to the hunter, who never saw it with his own eyes, and presented him with a remedy composed of plants from the forest. The azizan offered to provide more remedies if the hunter returned with descriptions of the ailments that afflicted his people. The hunter returned on multiple occasions and the azizan kept his word. Eventually, the king of the country himself visited the mound and, after making various offerings, told the azizan “that in his land they had no means of curing sicknesses, and asked the azizan to provide him with remedies.” The azizan “gave the king of the country many of the Vodun [gods] who are now worshipped there [...] and the king took them back.”

The gods referred to here are the deities of the Fon religion, or Vodun. Fon religion and folklore survived in the New World in the form of Voodoo. 

2) The Mmoatia:

According to Carol Rose, this is the title given to a group of Little People in West African folklore. The Ashanti believe that they are the “guardian spirits” of the wilderness and of the animals that live there. 

“The Annotated African-American Folktales” by Maria Tartar and Henry Louis Gates Jr. records a number of Black American folktales as well as their African analogues. The collection has a West African tale titled: “How the Sky God’s Stories Came to be Known as Spider Stories.”

In this tale, Anansi the Spider (a trickster hero) asks the Sky God Nyankapon for the price of his stories. The Sky God replied that “They cannot be brought for anything except Onini the Python, Osebo the Leopard, Mmoatia the Fairy and Mmboboro the Hornets.” Anansi then agrees to capture all of these things and bring them back to the Sky God.