ABC 16. Traditional Tales from Namibia

Here we are already at the end of August for the Anansi Book Club, so it's time for the anthology book of the month; here's the August schedule for all the books, and please chime in at Twitter using the hashtag #AnansiBookClub to share your thoughts and ideas. If you joined in at Helen Nde's Twitter Space a couple weeks ago, you already got an introduction to this week's book: The Stolen Water and Other Stories: Traditional Tales from Namibia by Jennifer Davis.

This book contains 25 folktales, and it was published in 1993 in Windhoek, Namibia:

in the acknowledgments, you'll see that the author thanks the many people who helped in gathering these stories, which is a welcome contrast to many older books in which there is no credit given to the people who helped in collecting and recording the stories. Davis explains her purpose in writing the book as follows: “Many old people I visited showed concern about the fact that young people are losing their traditions. They feel that if the youth keep in touch with their past, they will have a greater pride in their identity. For that reason I have collected these stories and retold them for children to read.”

The illustrations are by Libby Costandius, and they are a very nice addition to the book.

So, as usual for the anthology week, I'll be picking out a few of my favorite stories to share, and of course you can jump into the book anywhere and just start reading to see which stories grab your attention.

The first one is a cumulative chain tale, which is one of my favorite folktale types. This one does not have a long chain; there are just three encounters: an old woman, an old man, and some young boys. What makes this one really charming is that the two sisters are always getting into trouble, not because they are wicked but somehow... they just get into trouble, and so do the people they get involved with. Here's the story: The Two Sisters and the Milk. The illustration shows the first encounter of the chain, when an old woman offers to heat their milk for them if they will share it with her:

I won't tell you what happens, but trouble happens again... and again... again. This type of chain tale is popular all over Africa, and is especially associated with the south African tricktster hero Hlakanyana. In this story, though, these are just everyday girls having everyday encounters with the people around them: trouble, trouble, always in trouble, as the refrain of the story goes.

The next story I want to feature is one of the most popular African folktale types: Trickster's Riding Horse. You can find this story all over Africa, and it is also very widespread in the African Diaspora (here's the Brer Rabbit version told by Joel Chandler Harris: Mr. Rabbit Grossly Deceives Mr. Fox). The version here Stolen Water is my FAVORITE of all the many versions of this story that I have read. Instead of a courtship rivalry where the trickster and his dupe are vying for the same woman, here you have Jackal wanting to shame Lion in front of his wives... which is just what he does, not once, but twice! Jackal is one of the great African tricksters, not mentioned often enough in the company of Rabbit, Tortoise, and Spider, and you can see him at his best here: Lion and Jackal.

For today's update, I want to share another animal story and, once again, it is a really elegant presentation of a very widespread folktale type. You can find many stories about how jackal and hyena raid someone's food, and then hyena eats too much and gets stuck as a result. Usually this is because the hyena is greedy and/or foolish, but in this version there is a backstory that adds a new layer of meaning to what happens to hyena and why: Jackal and Hyena (click on the image for a larger view). No sympathy for the greedy, lazy jackal in this story:

Here's another Hyena story, and this time Hyena has no one but himself (and his greedy behavior) to blame for what happens to him in the end; it's an aetiological story about Hyena's body and his eating habits too: The Unfortunate Hyena.

There are several "swallowing-monster" stories in this book, and one of my favorites is The Giant Ant, where some children accidentally create a giant ant that swallows everything and everyone. I especially like the theme of gratitude at the end when the children's father gets help from the animals to defeat the ant:

It was really hard to pick just one final story to write about here, but I chose The Good Farmer, since it is one of my favorite folktale types (this one probably originated in India, and it spread both east and west from there). In this story, a man catches some animals and also a man who are stealing from his farm. He shows mercy on them and lets them go; the animals are all grateful... but the man is not. Here is the snake from that story:

The animals make the story distinctively African: duiker, baboon, leopard, lion, and a snake, plus the evil man. The plot also has some wonderful twists and turns that I have not seen in any other version of this story. If you are curious to read a version of the story from India, here is the ancient Buddhist jataka tale as told by the Buddha: Saccamkira Jataka, in which the grateful animals are a snake, a parrot, and a rat. There's a children's version of that story here: Prince Wicked and the Grateful Animals, illustrated by Ellsworth Young. 

In fact, I like the story of "The Good Farmer" so much that I decided to make it one of my readers theater scripts; you can find it here: The Grateful Animals.

So, those are just some of the stories that are special favorites of mine; meanwhile, take a look for yourself: you might use the lovely illustrations to decide which stories you want to take a look at! You can find the illustrations quickly using the thumbnail view at the Archive:

Enjoy! The book is just a click away thanks to Controlled Digital Lending at the Internet Archive: