Africa at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (7)

It's exciting to start a new year with this system in place; you can read about the evolution of this spreadsheet project in the previous updates. There are now over 8500 stories listed from 281 different books and articles, and the end is in sight; I'll keep adding items to this spreadsheet as long as there are more African folktales at the Internet Archive to link to, and then I'll be moving on to a related project: indexing African American and Caribbean stories. 

Meanwhile, as always, you can access the spreadsheet here: African Tales Spreadsheet, and also by the link in the tab navigation above.

In the spreadsheet, you'll find links for each story to the Internet Archive page, plus links to versions of the stories that I've written (more about those tiny versions of the stories here: Africa.LauraGibbs.net).

As I've explained in previous posts, you can do searches and create data filters, and you can also copy the spreadsheet for your own use. Of course you can also create your own spreadsheet of the Internet Archive resources you are curating (for your own use or perhaps for your students), and if you think it will be useful to others, perhaps you will share that publicly also!

I'll be back tomorrow with the round-up of books from this week, and I'll wish everybody a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Africa at the Internet Archive: African Decameron

For today's book, I want to feature some stories from Central Africa: African Decameron: Folk Tales from Central Africa by Peter Fuchs.

Peter Fuchs was an Austrian anthropologist; he was born in 1928 and died just last year, in 2020. The German original, Afrikanisches Dekamerone, was published in 1959; the English translation by Robert Meister was published in 1963. 

The book contains 48 tales from the Hadjerai people of Chad, specifically from a small village named Mukulu on Mount Guéra. 

(Guera region, Chad)

The title alludes to Boccaccio's Decameron, the "Ten Days," with ten storytellers each telling a story each day. Fuchs's book does not get to 100, but there are 48 stories here in the book: Djapando / The Jackal, the Dog, and the Hyena / The Maiden and the Dead Dog / The Crane Wife / The Malogo and the Maiden / The Squirrel and the Hyena / The Death of the Hyena / Murkumbe / The Cat and the Hen / The Man-eater / The Maiden Konara / Rasingu and Kidonanki / The Tree That Was a Lover / Lolo / The Nine Young Men / The Bush Maiden / The Two Beautiful Wives / The Husband's Revenge / The Blind Man and His Wife / The Lustful Wife / The Hunter's Revenge / The Four Lovers / The Neighbor / The Seven Maidens / The Cunning of Women / Mankurtu / The Selfish Man / The Stupid Husband and the Celver Wife / The Cry in the Night / The Gourd / Urra / Garsoli / The Twins / The Child on the Back / God's Daughter / The Maiden and the Boy's Head / Kalbati the Liar / Nidje and Telfan / The Friends / The Strongest Man / The Right of the Stronger / The Elephants / The Young Men and the Old Woman / The Unfaithful Wife / The Skin / The Village of Death / Death and the Hare / Why People Die.

In addition to the stories themselves, Fuchs interweaves information about the village of Mukulu specifically and the culture of the Hadjerai people; Fuchs's commentary is set in italics, and it provides a very welcome addition to the book.

So, this book is a great read on its own merits, and even more so because there are not as many books of stories in English from central Africa compared to other parts of the continent ... and thanks to the Internet Archive, these stories from Chad are just a click away!

African Decameron: Folk Tales from Central Africa

by Peter Fuchs

Africa at the Internet Archive: Girl who Married a Ghost

I have a fun book of folktales from Nigeria for today's book: The Girl who Married a Ghost and Other Tales from Nigeria by Ifeoma Onyefulu, just a click away at the Internet Archive.

In the introduction, Onyefulu writes about growing up in a village in eastern Nigeria and hearing stories from all her family and her family's friends, and you will find words and phrases in Igbo sprinkled throughout the book. Tortoise was the most popular character, so you will find animal stories in this book, but also supernatural stories like in the book's title.

The illustrations by Julia Cairns are very nicely done too! She lived for many years in Botswana and is now based in New Mexico; you can find out more about her art at her website, where she has some truly beautiful prints for sale. 

Here is the illustration for an animal story in this book:

And here is the girl who married a ghost!

In addition to being a writer, Onyefulu is also a photographer; you can find out more at her website.

And there are more of her books at the Internet Archive too!

So if you're looking for a nice introduction to some Nigerian folktales told in a contemporary voice, this book is a great choice!

The Girl who Married a Ghost

and Other Tales from Nigeria

by Ifeoma Onyefulu

Africa at the Internet Archive: Cameos From the Kraal

Carrying on with the theme of lovely artwork from yesterday and the day before, I want to share an old book... one that is about to go into the public domain in just a few days, on January 1, 2002! The book is Cameos From the Kraal by M. W. Waters, published in 1926: 

M. W. Waters was Mary Waterton Waters (1886-1961), who was the daughter and granddaughter of missionaries in the Cape Colony of South Africa. In addition to this collection of Xhosa folktales and anecdotes rendered in English, Waters was the first white writer to compose a play in Xhosa, U-Nongqause (not yet translated into English), which is about Nongqawuse, the prophetess of the Xhosa cattle-killing movement of the 1850s. One of the stories in this book, The Native Doctor, is also about Nongqawuse, and the best source of information that I found about Waters was in this recent dissertation about Nongqawuse: History in the Literary Imagination: The Telling of Nongqawuse and the Xhosa Cattle-Killing in South African Literature and Culture (1891-1937) by Sheila Boniface Davies.

In an earlier post I provided an overview of some of the sentimentalizing South African literature of this type (books by Vaughan, Metelerkamp, and Marais), but Waters' book stands out as rather different from the others. Yes, it is still racist and paternalistic in the extreme, but she does not impose the same kind of narrative frame on the stories; instead of sentimentalizing African household servants, the book begins with her going into the Xhosa people's kraal and asking to listen to their stories. 

Most importantly, unlike the other books, the art here is by an African artist. Sad to say, Waters does not give the name of the artist, referring to them only "a raw native" on the book's title page, followed by this brief note: "The illustrations in this book are remarkable in that they have been drawn by an untrained native who had never received a lesson in drawing."

And the drawings really are remarkable! Here are the illustrated pages; click on each image for a larger view, and here is a list of all the stories and their titles: The Feast of Meats (Jackal and Wolf) / Why Jackal Laughs at Night / Why the Tortoise Moves So Slowly / The Battle of the White Eagle / The Winter's Tale / The Native Doctor / The Mpundulu, or Lightning Bird / Mfene, The Rain Doctor / Why Some Men Are Black, and Some Are White / Why Dogs Sniff at One Another's Tails / The Secretary Bird, Wisest of All Creatures / How the Monkey Got His Tail.

The Mpundulu, or Lightning Bird

Jackal and Wolf

Why Jackal Laughs at Night

Makulu, the Grandmother

How the Monkey Got His Tail

Men and Women at Work (Lazy Monkeys)

So, the book is already available at Internet Archive, and when it enters the public domain on January 1 2022, that means it should start to appear all over the Internet and also in affordable reprints too. I'll be glad to see that: this anonymous African artist will find a global audience at last.

Cameos From the Kraal

by M. W. Waters

Africa at the Internet Archive: Village of Round and Square Houses

The post from yesterday was all about Caldecott winners, and I've got another Caldecott Medal book for today: The Village of Round and Square Houses, written and illustrated by Ann Grifalconi, which won Caldecott Honors in 1987:

The story was inspired by a trip Grifalconi made to Cameroon and a folktale that she heard in a village located in the foothills of one of the volcanoes of Cameroon; you can find out more about the Cameroon line of volcanoes at Wikipedia. 

The "story-within-the-story" of Grifalconi's book is about a volcanic eruption of long ago... and compare the 1986 disaster at Lake Nyos in the same region of Cameroon. In the village of Grifalconi's book, the people survived, but the village was changed forever:

Grifalconi wrote two more books about this same village: Darkness and the Butterfly and Osa's Pride, both of which are available at Internet Archive.

 
She also did the illustrations for James Berry's book, Don't Leave an Elephant to Go and Chase a Bird, which is based on an Anansi story from Ghana.

I really like the way Grifalconi has depicted Anansi in this book! He's not quite human but not exactly a spider either:

Ann Grifalconi was born in 1929, and died just last year, in 2020. You can find out more about her life and career at Wikipedia; here is her obituary in the New York Times. In addition to being an artist and writer, she was also a highly successful business woman and political activist; for example, she was a founding board member of New York Feminist Credit Union in the 1970s. I love her re-vision of Michelangelo: And God Created Woman in Her Own Image.

In this post, I've focused on Grifalconi's Africa-themed books, but she also wrote many other books, including some wonderful books on African American subjects; you can browse the Internet Archive for more:

So, welcome to the world of Grifalconi's art and her words; there is lots of enjoy and learn from here.

The Village of Round and Square Houses

by Ann Grifalconi

Africa at the Internet Archive: Caldecott Winners

Starting off Week 33 (!) of African folklore books that are just a click away at the Internet Archive, I wanted to share a classic children's book: A Story, A Story: An African Tale, written and illustrated by Gail Haley:

This book was published in 1970, and it is a Caldecott Medal winner. You can see why; the illustrations for this Anansi story are beautiful. Haley has opted to depict Anansi in his human form; here he is with Leopard.

In aiming to convey the African storytelling style, Haley also uses ideophones, as here when Anansi is running "yiridi yiridi yiridi" along the path. Ideophones are a widespread and highly distinctive feature of African storytelling performance, but they are often left out of written versions of the stories, so it is really nice to see/hear that here. You can find out more about ideophones at Wikipedia.

So, for both the writing and the art, Haley's book is a great experience, and it is also an excuse to review here some past blog posts about other African-themed books that have also received Caldecott medals or honors:

Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky:

An African Folktale

by Blair Lent

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti

by Gerald McDermott

Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions

by Margaret Musgrove

illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

by John Steptoe

I'll be back tomorrow to share another Caldecott award-winning book that I have not blogged about here yet. Meanwhile, you've got all these lovely books to enjoy!

 A Story, A Story: An African Tale

by Gail Haley

African Folktales at Internet Archive: Week 32

I'll be otherwise occupied Christmas Day, so I'm doing the schedule a bit differently this week, with the round-up today, Friday, instead of Saturday as usual. You'll find this week's books below, and here's the month-by-month list: May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December. Plus I added a tab in the horizontal navigation across the top of the blog with a link that leads to all the round-up posts together. :-)

So, wishing happy holidays to all of you who celebrate; I'll be back on Sunday, and in the meantime... here are this week's books, all just a click away at the Internet Archive:

Mother Crocodile:

An Uncle Amadou Tale from Senegal 

by Birago Diop

Horses and Tortoises and Rabbits and Elephants

and Birds and Hippos and Lions and Sisters

and Frogs and Dogs and Hares and Jackals

and Murder: Stories From Africa

by the Dublin African Women's Network

The Hunterman and the Crocodile

by Baba Wagué Diakité

The Hatseller and the Monkeys 

by Baba Wagué Diakité

 Mee-An and the Magic Serpent

by Baba Wagué Diakité

Dahomean Narrative: A Crosscultural Analysis

by Melville and Frances Herskovits

Africa at the Internet Archive: Spreadsheet (6)

Because I'll be away for Christmas Day, I'm posting the spreadsheet update on Thursday this week instead of Friday (previous updates). There are now over 8000 stories listed (wow!) from 261 different books and articles. You can access the spreadsheet here: African Tales Spreadsheet, plus I've added a new link in the tab navigation to the weekly round-ups also.

You'll find links for each story to the Internet Archive page, plus links to versions of the stories that I've written (536 of those so far; you can find out more here: Africa.LauraGibbs.net).

You can do searches and create data filters, and you can also copy the spreadsheet for your own use. Even better: you can create your own spreadsheet of your Internet Archive resources, and if you think it will be useful to others, perhaps you will share that publicly also!

I'll be back tomorrow with the round-up of books from this week, and I hope everybody is having a good holiday week, and staying safe if you must travel.

Here are book covers of some of the sources that I added to the spreadsheet this week; the links below go to earlier blog posts about the books:

Bascom. African Dilemma Tales

Courlander. A Treasury of African Folklore

Fairman. Bury My Bones but Keep My Words

Scheub. Dictionary of African Mythology

Scheub. The World and the Word

by Nongenile Masithathu Zenani