African Folktales at Internet Archive: The Cow-Tail Switch

I knew I could not let this week of story collections from western Africa go by without a book by the great Harold Courlander, so here it is: The Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories by Harold Courlander and George Herzog, just click away at the Internet Archive:

The title story is a dilemma tale, put into narrative form: a hunter, who had been killed by a leopard, was revived through the supernatural powers of his many sons. Now the father is going to give a beautiful switch made from a cow-tail to the son who most deserves it: would that be the one who found the tail that led to their father's body in the forest? the one who put the bones back together? the one who covered the bones with sinews and flesh? or the one who gave him the power of movement? the one who put blood back into the veins? the one who restored their father's breath? There is an ingenious answer to this question, which also yields a proverb... but I am not going to give it away here: you can snag the book from Internet Archive and see the answer for yourself.

As usual with Courlander's books, you will find helpful notes about each story in the back of the book. For example, the note explains that the cow-tail switch story is one of the tales that was collected in Liberia by Courlander's co-author, George Herzog, who was also an ethnomusicologist as was Courlander; more about Herzog at Wikipedia.

The illustrations are by Madye Lee Chastain, a children's book illustrator active in the 1940s and 1950s (this book was originally published in 1947). Here is her illustration of the sons going into the forest to look for their father (it's also the illustration on the cover of the book):

You might recognize Courlander's name from previous book recommendations; with this link you can access all the books by Courlander that I've written about so far, and there will be more to come!

The Cow-Tail Switch

and Other West African Stories

by Harold Courlander and George Herzog