African Folktales at Internet Archive: Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales

Yesterday I featured two important works of contemporary scholarship from the World Oral Literature Project, and today I want to feature an older, very important collection: Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales by R. S. Rattray, which contains 75 stories:

This book was published in 1930, so it will be entering the public domain soon, and for now, it's just a click away at the Internet Archive. Some of Rattray's earlier work is in the public domain, such as his collection of Ashanti Proverbs, which I've written about earlier at this blog. You can find out more about Rattray at Wikipedia.

In the introduction to this collection of tales, Rattray is highly critical of earlier tale collections for their amateurish approach: "The most that can be said for such methods is that the results are perhaps better than nothing at all." With this book, Rattray aspires to a close, literal translation of the stories that he heard from old storytellers in remote villages. 

The book has illustrations by members of the Ashanti, Fanti, and Ewe tribes with whom Rattray lived and worked but, sad to say, Rattray did not record the names of the artists. Some of the illustrations are really marvelous, like this one of Half-a-Ball-of-Kenki:

This illustration shows a woman on her way to her village:

Rattray's book has been important source for later book authors: Verna Aardema's books The Sky-God Stories, Anansi Finds a Fool, and Half-a-Ball-of-Kenki  rely on Rattray's book as a source, as does Ashley Bryan's The Adventures of Aku.

The Sky-God Stories

by Verna Aardema

Anansi Finds a Fool

by Verna Aardema

Half-a-Ball-of-Kenki

by Verna Aardema

The Adventures of Aku

by Ashley Bryan

So, you can enjoy Rattray's abundant collection of stories, or look at the books which those stories inspired; they are all available at the Internet Archive.

Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales

by R. S. Rattray