I'm carrying on with the public domain for the month of November, this time featuring a collection of folktales from Namibia, along with a Harold Courlander anthology drawing on that earlier book.
So, here's the public domain book: From a Vanished German Colony: Folklore, Folktales and Proverbs from Southwest Africa by Odette St. Lys, published in 1916.
These stories date back to German colonization of South Africa, prior to the British colonization; you can read more about German colonialism in Africa at Wikipedia, and there is also a specific article about German South-West Africa, in what is now Namibia. And, yes, also the scene of the Herero and Namaqua genocide.
There is a wide variety of folktales and folklore in this book; here's a list of the stories with links to those pages at the Internet Archive edition of the book: The Story of Long Snake /
The Lion and the Ostrich /
A Nursery Tale /
Another Version of a Nursery Tale /
Ulusanana /
Story of Little Red Stomach /
Story of Five Heads /
The Story of a Dam /
The Romance of Unyengebule /
News from Zululand /
Ngangezwe and Mnyamana /
The Bewitched King /
Kgolodikane /
Two Stories told by an Mkipeta Girl. /
Usomamekutyo /
Masilo and Masilonyane /
Umshalishall and Umlomo'sibucu /
Much Searching Disturbs Things /
The Distribution of Animals /
The Ox Which Returned to Life /
The Story of Umkuywana /
Children of Bafurutsi /
Tradition of the Bayeye /
Bushman Folk Lore /
The Son of the Wind /
The Wind /
The Lost Sons of God /
Rafotsibe and Ikotofetsy and Imahaka /
Ikotofetsy and Imahaka /
A True Story /
The Lion and the Jackal: A Hottentot Story /
The Fleeing Girls and the Rock.
And here's the Harold Courlander book: The Crest and the Hide, published in 1982:
It contains these stories: The First Bard Among the Soninke /
A Chief Names His Heirs /
The Crest and the Hide /
The Chief of Agogo and the Chief of Mampo /
The Wonderful Thing /
Kirama and Kankejan /
Kene Bourama, a Manding Hero /
The Hunter and His Medicine Spear /
Peki, the Musician /
Ngunza, Who Outwitted Death /
Too Much Searching /
Famien Does Not Make a Man Clever /
Liongo, a Hero of Shanga /
Musa and Kojere /
The Departure of the Giants /
All Things Are Linked /
The Great Snake of Wagadou /
Moses and Ojje Ben Onogh /
Journey to Asamando /
Chief Khama and the Duiker.
The illustrations are by Monica Vachula, and they are really beautiful; each story has an illustration! Here are two examples:
The Tswana story "Too Much Searching" is the one that Courlander took from St. Lys's book.
I've written about MANY of Courlander's books at this blog previously (and I'll have even more of his books to cite when I move on to African American sources). You can see all the posts with this link: Courlander books.
I'll be back tomorrow with one last post in celebration of the public domain for the last day of November this year. Meanwhile, enjoy today's books!
by Odette St. Lys
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