You can also embed the audio for individual stories. There's a helpful page here at Internet Archive that describes all the different audio-embedding options.
This was the home of my Internet Archive bibliography work; now I am not sure what it will be...
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Zanzibar Tales
You can also embed the audio for individual stories. There's a helpful page here at Internet Archive that describes all the different audio-embedding options.
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Stories Collected in Ethiopia
Monday, June 28, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Maasai Folklore
Sunday, June 27, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Baskerville's Ugandan Stories
Saturday, June 26, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Week 6
And here we are, time for another week's round-up already! Here are the previous round-ups: Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5.
Friday, June 25, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Abrahams' African Folktales
Thursday, June 24, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Scheub's African Storyteller
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
African Animal Tales in the Public Domain / Koelle's stories from Sierra Leone
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Radin's African Folktales
The theme for this week is anthologies (see all this week's posts on one page), and today I want to write about a classic anthology of African folklore: African Folktales by Paul Radin, first published in 1952 as a book of sculpture and stories, and then reissued in 1964 with just the stories. The Internet Archive has both editions available: the African Folktales and Sculpture edition and also the text-only African Folktales book:
Plus the digital scan lets you zoom in, like this Baga idol from West Africa for example (more about the Baga people):
There are 81 stories in the book drawn from a variety of sources, including German-language sources that Radin translated into English.
Paul Radin was a leading folklorist in the first half of the 20th century, specializing in Native American storytelling traditions, especially among the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) with whom he lived and worked in the years 1908-1912. It was through his work on Native American traditions, especially the figure of the trickster, that he became interested in African traditions. He was a prolific author, and you can find many books by or about Radin at the Internet Archive.
And hey, since the sculpture pages are not interspersed with the stories, here's an idea: you could check out BOTH books at once, looking at the sculptures in one browser window while enjoying the stories in another browser window: a simultaneous viewing option that the folktales and sculpture book itself does not allow. Beautiful images, beautiful stories, both at once:
African Folktales
edited by Paul Radin
African Folktales and Sculpture
edited by Paul Radin
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
African Folktales at Internet Archive: Courlander's Treasury of African Folklore
The range of African oral literary forms is seemingly endless. it includes creation myths, myth-legends, half-legendary chronicles and historical narratives either in song or prose; tales that explain natural phenomena, tribal practices and taboos, and cultural or political institutions; stories and fables that reflect on the nature of man and his strengths and weaknesses; tales of adventure, courage, disaster, and love; epics with legendary heroes or fictitious heroes, and tales of confrontation with the supernatural and unseen forces of nature; moralizing stories and stories that define man's place and role in the universe; riddles that amuse and teach, and proverbs that stress social values; and a virtually inexhaustible reservoir of animal tales, many of which, at bottom, are morality plays, while other are purely humor.
And of course you know I'm here for that last part: the inexhaustible reservoir of animal tales.