Polly Strong [b. 1938] worked as a missionary teacher in the Central African Republic from 1965 until 2014. This book features 12 stories that she heard told in the Sango language by Mandja and Banda storytellers that she then translated into English.
And here is a list of the stories you will find, linked to their specific page at the Internet Archive: Tere and the Crocodiles /
The Porcupines and the War Ants /
A Woman Who Gave Birth to a Child in a Lion's Den /
Tere and the Leopard /
The Moon and the Sun /
The Snake and the Frog /
The Leopard, the Dog, and the Squirrel /
The Dog and the Chicken /
Ten Orphans /
Tere and Gbongosso /
Baa-Oue, The Father of Fire /
Tere and a Great Woman.
As you can see just from the titles, "Tere" is an important character in the stories, and he is an archetypal trickster. It's hard to say just how the storytellers imagine him: human? animal? sometimes one, sometimes the other? Many of the stories told about him here are likewise told of archetypcal animal tricksters like Spider and Tortoise. There are some helpful cultural notes at the back of the book with reflections on Tere-the-trickster.
The illustrations are by Rodney Wimer [b. 1960], who grew up in the Central African Republic and attended the high school where Strong was a teacher; he is now an artist based in North Carolina. Wimer has chosen to depict Tere as human, and the book's illustrations are very nicely done. Here is Tere tricking the leopard in a story which ultimately explains how the leopard got its spots:
And here are the leopard along with dog and squirrel in a fun animal story about the enmity that eventually arose between the three of them:
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So, I'm excited about today's meet-up at Twitter, and I don't know how I failed to blog about this book originally, but... better late than never! Enjoy!
by Polly Strong
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