African Folktales at Internet Archive: Hausa Superstitions and Customs

I started off this week with posts about Skinner's book of Hausa stories and then Rattray's book, and today I want to write about a contemporary of Rattray, A. J. N. Tremearne and his book Hausa Superstitions and Customs, published in 1913, which is just a click away at the Internet Archive:

This monumental book is over 600 pages long, including a lengthy introduction to Hausa culture (appx. 200 pages), followed by 100 stories with detailed notes, along with photographs and drawings, like this:

Earlier,  Tremearne published a series of articles in the journal Folklore entitled "Fifty Hausa Folktales," spread out over the 1910 and 1911 volumes of that journal, and I have collected those articles into a single PDF for people's reading convenience: Fifty Hausa Folktales. 

Together with his wife, Mary Tremearne, he published a book of Hausa stories retold for a young audience, inspired by the popular Brer Rabbit stories of Joel Chandler Harris: Fables and Fairy Tales for Little Folk, or Uncle Remus in Hausaland. The book has illustrations, although the illustrator is not credited. I have collected those illustrations here: Public Domain Art: Tremearne's Hausaland.

Tremearne's career came to a sad end in World War I; he died in 1915 at the Battle of Loos. You can read more about his life and work here. He was only 38 at the time of his death.

Meanwhile, his work lives on, and Tremearne's books await you at Internet Archive: so many stories from the Hausa people of Nigeria to read and enjoy!

Hausa Superstitions and Customs

by A. J. N. Tremearne