Trickster. The Tortoise in Zambia

In yesterday's post I shared some trickster Tortoise stories from eastern and southern Africa, and I'll finish up this week of Tortoise stories with stories from The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia [Zambia] by Edwin Smith and Andrew Murray Dale, published in 1920. The book was published in two volumes, and the folktales are in Volume II.

You can read more about the Ila people of Zambia and about the Ila language (a Bantu language) at Wikipedia. Fulwe is the Tortoise's Ila name, and his trickster rival is Sulwe, the hare. Some of the Tortoise stories in this book are part of the Hare cycle of stories: Tortoise and the Fish-Eagle, Why the Cracks in Tortoise's Shell, Hare's Destiny Foretold by Tortoise, Hare is Outwitted by Mrs. Tortoise, and Hare's Last Adventures and Death.

And for a more contemporary book from Zambia, here is The Magic Tortoise: Further Tales From the Forest for Children in Africa by Adrian Storrs, published in Lusaka in 1974. 

These are not traditional Tortoise folktales; instead, this is a book of stories about a wise old Tortoise who helps both humans and animals to thrive and prosper. The illustrations are by Joan Blakeney, and here, for example, the Tortoise helps the farmer to better irrigate his vegetables so that he can grow more and better food for the people to eat:

There is a first volume of stories entitles The Tortoise Dreams, but it is not available at the Archive. Hathi Trust has a copy of that book but, because it is copyrighted, you cannot read it there. Maybe someday Controlled Digital Lending will come to Hathi Trust, and then we'll be able to read another book of stories. Based on the contents of this follow-up book, I suspect The Tortoise Dreams is also a book of stories about developmental efforts in Zambia, with the Tortoise as a kind of wise guide.

So, this use of the Tortoise helps highlight the range of ways in which a trickster character like the Tortoise can function: he can be sly and cunning, and even greedy and dangerous, but he can also be helpful, using his wisdom to benefit others, as in these stories. You can learn more about Adrian Storrs' development efforts in Zambia in this book: A Study of Zambia's Natural Resources: The Story of Zambia's Flora and Fauna and Their Influence on Everyday Life. I'm not sure what path these books by Adrian Storrs followed to end up at the Internet Archive after being published in Zambia, but I am glad they found their way to this library online.