Bibliography: pages 364-375. / The field work for this thesis was never a "safe" project, but a very important one it a people's heritage (the Vakavango heritage), which includes memories of generations of migration and therefore some potentially highly informative data, was not to be lost. The project, concerned with the traditions of a people living on both sides of the Kavango river, on the border of Angola and Namibia, began when the Angolan civil war was already in full swing on the northern bank and the liberation struggle was already heating up in Namibia. The first purpose was to produce a definitive version of the most important myth cycle of the Vakavango, the myth in which Tjakova is the chief actor. The second purpose was to subject the myth to analysis as one expression of these peoples' religion. These two purposes are interactive. To decide what must be included and what excluded in a definitive version of the myth is to have already begun analysis.