Note 28 — Chapter X · FOLK-STORIES
Reading edition
I have never been able to discover any other meaning but this for chinguli, which, moreover, I have never heard in any other connection. The usual word for this kind of top is nguli, or nanguli; chi being the augmentative prefix. Another version says rather vaguely that ‘he cut out a tree,’ and made his sister go into it. Evidently the function of the chinguli is the same as that of the magic carpet in the Arabian Nights. In the Fiote story of ‘Ngomba’s Balloon,’ given by Mr. Dennett, a basket of some sort seems to be endowed with magical powers. The song should be read phonetically (giving the vowels their German or Italian value), with the accents as marked: the e in nde, nde, nde (a meaningless refrain) is like that in our word ‘end.’