Africa at the Internet Archive: Negro Culture in West Africa

For the past two days, I featured books by Elphinstone Dayrell, a British colonial official in Nigeria (the "Southern Nigeria Protectorate" as it was then called), but today I want to feature the work of a very different foreigner in Africa: George Washington Ellis (1875-1919), an African American lawyer who served in the American delegation to the Republic of Liberia. Here is a portrait of Ellis from The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race (published in 1919):

During his posting in Liberia, Ellis undertook a decade-long study of the Vai people of Liberia, publishing Negro Culture in West Africa in 1914, a book that features both Vai folktales and proverbs, just a click away at the Internet Archive.

Here is a list of the stories, linking directly to the page where the story begins: The Rival Sleepers / The Man and the Goat / The Three Brothers and the Town / Man Hunting / The Race for a Wife / The Two Blind Men / Why the Elephant Runs from the Goat / Rival Brothers / The Fly, The Crab, and The Minnow / The Man and the Crabs / The Rival Doctors / The Man and his Chicken / Three Men Want First Smoke / Two Boys and the Snake / The Rabbit, The Snake, and the Ground Squirrel / The Deer and the Snail / The Tide and the Minnow / Three Rival Brothers / Rival Storytellers / Two Poor Men / Two Men Frightened / The Old Lady and the Little Boy / The Blind and Legless Men / The Spider and his Medicine / The Fox and the Goat / The Old Lady and the Bird / Three Royal Lovers / Two Bad Young Men / The Two Faithful Friends / The One Eyed Monarch / Poor Man and King's Daughter / The Blind Mori Man / The Little Boy and the Snake / The Two Thieves / The Father and Three Sons / The King and His Bangle / The Mori Man and the Secret / The Jealous Husband / The Man, The Deer, The Possum, and the Snake / The Lion, The Fox, and the Monkey / Two Great Swimmers / The Two Fighters / The Two Brothers / Two Unfortunate Men / The Lion, The Leopard, and the Dog / Three Storytellers / The Leopard and the Goat / Two Old Women / Two Orphan Brothers / Value of Education and Money / The Rascal Man / The Six Rival Heirs.

The chapter of proverbs is especially valuable because Ellis includes some commentary with each proverb, helping put it in its cultural context, like this explaination of The monkey wants to get honey but he has no ax to cut down the tree said in reference to a poor king with great ambitions but no money.

The book also contains chapters about other aspects of Vai life, along with photographs, like this photograph of musical instruments:

Here is a photograph of Vai singers:

Even when writing with admiration for African culture, white authors did not identify with African people in the deeply personal way that Ellis did. Although a foreigner in Liberia, he saw himself as a "Negro" who shared a cultural identity with all the people of "Negroland" that extended through the African diaspora around the world, forming a united culture connected back to Africa, as in the title of the book itself: Negro Culture in West Africa.

Ellis thus advocated for the special role that Black authors could play in documenting the cultures of Africa for audience beyond Africa: "the Negro should explain his own culture and interpret his own thought and soul life, if the complete truth is to be given to the other races of the earth."

Ellis was also convinced that the study of African culture was an essential element in fighting racism in the United States, and he corresponded with Du Bois and other African American leaders of the time, receiving encouragement from them for his African studies. 

While Ellis connected with the Vai people as an African American, he experienced a religious disconnect: he was a Christian but Islam was the dominant religion among the Vai. Ellis acknowledged the profound influence of Islam on Vai culture and traditions while fervently hoping that Christian missionaries would convert the Vai people to his faith. This did not happen; the Vai people remain predominantly Muslim today. 

So that is a prompt for me to write tomorrow about a book published by an African American missionary to Liberia, Alexander Camphor, a contemporary of Ellis.

Meanwhile, a wealth of stories and proverbs awaits you in Ellis's book:

Negro Culture in West Africa

by George Washington Ellis