Tricksters. Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland.

In this first post of this week of royal antelope trickster stories, I shared a photo that was published in a book by George Schwab, and that is the book I will be featuring today: Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland by George Schwab.

You can read about Schwab's career as a missionary and anthropologist based in Cameroon at Wikipedia. In this massive book (over 500 pages), Schwab includes a section on proverbs, riddles, and folktales, including folktales featuring the trickster royal antelope, as well as stories about the trickster spider; as we have seen elsewhere, the spider and the royal antelope are both important tricksters in Liberia. The royal antelope stories come from the Sapa (Sapo) people of Liberia, and in their language he is called Nemo. You will find a story about Nemo and Chimpanzee, Nemo and Tortoise, Nemo and Elephant, and Nemo and Goat.

Schwab also shares some fascinating details about cultural practices; for example, eating the meat of the royal antelope bestows cunning, as does eating the meat of the chevrotain (another very tiny antelope); this is on p. 365. Here is the photograph I had shared earlier from Schwab's book showing a captured pigmy antelope:

Poor little antelope! But he lives on in stories. Although there are only a few stories here in Schwab's book, it is precious evidence for the Mende storytelling traditions of Liberia later documented so carefully by Kilson in Royal Antelope and Spider. 

I'll be back tomorrow with more stories from Liberia; meanwhile, enjoy these stories about Nemo in Schwab's book today! 

Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland

by George Schwab