Africa at the Internet Archive: Where the Leopard Passes

I want to start Week 30 with a post about Geraldine Elliot; I periodically update my listing of African folktale books available at Internet Archive, and I was excited to see that one of her books has been added since my last update: Where the Leopard Passes: A Book of African Folk Tales, which is a collection of Ngoni stories.

You can find out more about the Ngoni people at Wikipedia; traditionally they lived in southern Africa, but during the wars associated with the rise of the Zulu nation during the early 19th century, the Ngoni people migrated north, and Geraldine Elliot heard these stories in Malawi, which has a large Ngoni population now.

The illustrations for the book are by Sheila Hawkins:

One of the stories from this book, "Tortoise Triumphant," was anthologized in a lovely collection, also at Internet Archive: The Kingfisher Treasury of Stories From Around the World edited by Linda Jennings:

The illustrations in the anthology version are by Victor Ambrus; Elliot's story is a version of the classic tug-of-war tale, and here's his depiction of Hippo, whom Tortoise is going to trick into tugging against Elephant:

There are also several stories from the book anthologized in this collection of African folktales: African Folktales and Activities by Louise Orlando.

This fun book from Scholastic, meant for grades K-3, has lots of supplementary materials for teachers to use: facts in context, proverbs, learning activities, etc. The illustrations are by Michelle Hull:

There's also a story from Elliot's book, "The Tortoise and the Osprey," in this anthology: World Folktales, edited by Atelia Clarkson and Gilbert Cross:

The authors of that book have disparaging things to say about Elliot as a children's author as opposed to being an academic folklorist, and it's true: children's books do not follow the practices of academic folktale collection. At the same time, I would argue that a far bigger problem is the Eurocentric bias of the academic world itself, as reflected in the contents of this book where European stories outnumber African stories ten to one. There are just 3 other African stories in the book, out of a total 66, well over half of which are European, despite the book's claim to represent the "world" of storytelling. It is that lack of awareness of African folktale traditions that makes the children's books all the more valuable, in my opinion, because those books create important opportunities for children to learn about African folklore. Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of Clarkson and Cross's book (I have a copy of it on my shelf), but I wish that, instead of criticizing Elliot for writing children's books, they had instead turned that critical gaze on their own practice and been prompted to include more African folktales from African authors in this book.

More about Geraldine Elliot: she was born in India and grew up in England. She was "Aunt Geraldine" for a BBC children's radio program in the early 1920s. She first went to Africa when her husband, who was in the British Colonial Service, was posted to Malawi in 1928. She wrote and published a series of folktale books during her three decades in Africa (first in Malawi, later in Zimbabwe); they returned to England in 1955, and she died in 2003. (I found the biographical information here.)

So, Elliot's book, plus the other books that anthologize her stories from that book, are just a click away for you at the Internet Archive, and I'll be back tomorrow with some more stories from Geraldine Elliot. :-)

Where the Leopard Passes:

A Book of African Folk Tales

by Geraldine Elliot

African Folktales and Activities

by Louise Orlando

The Kingfisher Treasury of Stories

From Around the World

by Linda Jennings:

World Folktales

by Atelia Clarkson and Gilbert Cross