African Folktales at Internet Archive: Fourteen Hundred Cowries

I'll finish up this week of story collections from Nigeria with another beautiful collection of Yoruba folktales: Fourteen Hundred Cowries and Other African Tales by Abayomi Fuja, just a click away at Internet Archive.

Abayomi Fuja originally collected these stories in Nigeria in the late 1930s and early 1940s and published the texts in 1962 under the title: Fourteen Hundred Cowries: Traditional Stories of the Yoruba; the book contains 31 stories. 

Then, a new edition appeared in 1971 with illustrations by Ademola Olugebefola, one of the leading figures of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Olugebefola was born in 1941 in U.S. Virgin Islands and migrated to New York City as a small child. As both an artist and businessman he was deeply involved in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s; find out more at the NYPL Archive: Ademola Olugebefola.

Olugebefola's illustrations really are remarkable; there are half-page illustrations like these for example:

And also full-page illustrations like these:

So, if you happen to own an old copy of the book without the illustrations, make sure to hop on over to the Internet Archive and take a look at this beautiful artwork!

Fourteen Hundred Cowries
and Other African Tales
by Abayomi Fuja