The book was first published in 1967, and this is the revised edition of 1982. The book is organized thematically: The Creator, God Leaves the World, The First Ancestors, The Mystery of Birth, The Origins of Death, The World Beyond, Gods and Spirits, Oracles and Divination, Witches and Monsters, Secret Societies and Ancestors, Legends of Old Africa, and Animal Fables (you know I am glad he decided to include that). There's also a brief bibliography for further reading in the back.
The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs, both black-and-white and in color, of African artwork. The front cover shows a sacred python on wooden bowl, Yoruba, and the back cover shows a terracotta family group by an Igbo artist:
Here's a photograph of San cave art from Zimbabwe:
And this is a Benin bronze from Nigeria depicting a cow sacrifice:
Parrinder has published other books on African religion, some of which you can find at the Internet Archive: African Traditional Religion, Religion in Africa, Religion in an African City, Africa's Three Religions, West African Religion, West African Psychology, along with other books on comparative world religions.
The focus in Parrinder's book is sub-Saharan Africa, and I also want to share the book in this series about the mythology of Egypt in north Africa: Egyptian Mythology by Veronica Ions:
The Internet Archive actually has all 18 books in this excellent series. I'll write up a separate blog post with links to all of them; for now, here's a quick link to my Diigo bookmarks for the other 16 books in this series beyond Egypt and Africa.
Meanwhile, for today, two beautiful books about the mythological traditions of the African continent:
by Geoffrey Parrinder
by Veronica Ions
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