African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Carter Woodson

Today's post is a bit different than usual: instead of African American storytelling, I wanted to share a book of African stories which Carter Woodson published in 1928, with the intention of the book being used in schools. It's a remarkable book for 1928 which both documents which sources were readily available at that time, and also the effort to put African stories into the school curriculum. Here is the book: African Myths by Carter Woodson.

The full title from the title page states Woodson's intentions clearly: "African Myths, together with proverbs; a supplementary reader composed of folk tales from various parts of Africa, adapted to the use of children in the public schools."

In retelling the stories, Woodson has relied on the versions in published collections (so in that sense, this is not really African Diaspora storytelling), but he has simplified the language, as he explains in the introduction: "These are presented here without modification of thought but in the simplest language possible to reach the minds of children of the lower grades of public schools." In the back of the book there is a pronunciation guide to help with the African names.

There are 39 stories in the book, along with some proverbs. Here are the titles of the stories: Creation ~ Why the Sun Shines by Day and the Moon by Night ~ How Animals Came Into the World ~ The Origin of Lake Tanganyika ~ The Beginning of Death ~ Why Children Belong to the Mother ~ The Ingrate ~ The Jealousy of the Blind Man ~ The Race for a Wife ~ The Deer and the Snail ~ Ohia and His Sorrows ~ Why Some Women Never Eat Mutton ~ The Fairy Wife ~ The Disobedient Daughter's Marriage ~ Kindness Misunderstood ~ The Dog and the Leopard ~ How the Dog Became the Friend of Man ~ The Cats and Fowls ~ Why Chickens Live With Man ~ Why the Hawk Catches Chickens ~ The Fox and the Goat ~ Why Goats Live With Man ~ The Lion, the Leopard, and the Dog ~ The Leopard, the Tortoise, and the Bush Rat ~ The Lioness and the Cow  ~ Why the Hippopotamus Lives in the Water ~ Why the Bush Fowl Calls Up the Dawn  ~ Why the Cat Catches Rats ~ The Crocodile's Relatives ~ The Reward for Honesty  ~ The Squrrel and the Spider ~ The Toad and the Kite ~ The Antelope and the Jackal ~ The Leopard and the Hare ~ The Rabbit and the Antelope ~ Beware of Bad Company ~ The Partnership of the Elephant and the Rabbit ~ Three Rval Brothers ~ The Legend of Ngurangurane.

The stories are illustrated with original illustrations for this book, but the name of the illustrator is not given. Here's an illustration for the story about why women do not eat mutton; see the sheep there who has come to the dance (this is not your average sheep!):

There is no indication for the source of the stories, which is a definite lack here; there is also no geographical or tribal information provided. If I can find time, I will see if I can provide an index of Woodson's sources for the stories. Since all of his sources would now be in the public domain, it should not be too hard to do with a bit of Googling.

Carter Woodson was an enormously influential historian and writer; you can read more about his life and work at Wikipedia, and of course you can find many of Woodson's books at the Internet Archive, including African Heroes and Heroines, The Mind Of The Negro As Reflected In Letters Written During The Crisis 1800-1860, and probably his most famous book: The Mis-Education of the Negro (a book which has its own Wikipedia article).

So, cast your mind back to almost 100 years ago, and enjoy this school book of African stories, thinking about what such stories would have meant to its young readers then!

African Myths
by Carter Woodson