Wednesday, August 25, 2021

African Folktales at Internet Archive: Nigerian Folk Tales

For this week of stories from Nigeria, I started with some books of Hausa legends (by Skinner, Rattray, and Tremearne), and today I want to focus on the two Nigerian collections of Yoruba folktales published by Barbara Walker: Nigerian Folk Tales (published in 1961) and The Dancing Palm Tree and Other Nigerian Folktales (published in 1968). Both books are just a click away at Internet Archive!



The stories in Nigerian Folk Tales are Yorbua stories told by Olawale Idewu and Omotayo Adu; you can find out more about the storytellers in the introduction to the book. The stories are divided into the following chapters: Tales of Demon Lovers, Pourquoi Stories, Moral Fables, Trickster Tales, and Fertility Tales, and there are useful notes at the back of the book, along with a bibliography.

The book contains illustrations and decorations by Margaret Barbour who did the drawings based on Nigerian artwork; there's a note about the art sources at the beginning of the book.


The second book, The Dancing Palm Tree and Other Nigerian Folktales, contains more stories from Olawale Idewu. This book is intended more for young readers, and it features numerous full-page illustrations by Helen Siegl. Here is her illustration to accompany the story of The Boy and the Leopard, for example:


You will find 37 Yoruba stories in the first book, and 11 additional Yoruba stories in the second book, and both books await you at the Internet Archive. Meanwhile, you can find out more about the Yoruba people and Yoruba language at Wikipedia.


by Barbara K. and Warren S. Walker



by Barbara K. Walker





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