African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Negro Folk Music USA.

Today's post for this week of musical books features a book by an author who will be familiar to readers of this blog: Harold Courlander! The book is Negro Folk Music USA.

The book is organized into the following chapters: The Setting ~ Negro Folk Music in the United States ~ Anthems and Spirituals as Oral Literature ~ Cries, Calls, Whooping, and Hollering ~ Sounds of Work ~ Blues  ~ Ring Games and Playparty Songs ~ Louisiana Creole Songs ~ Performers' Corner: Ballads and Minstrelsy ~ Dances: Calindas, Buzzard Lopes, and Reels ~ Instruments: Drums, Gutbuckets, and Horns.

Courlander's own research specialty was ethnomusicology (you can read more about him at Wikipedia), and you will so many songs in this book, some with music, some just with the lyrics. Here's Lord, My Worry.

Meanwhile, you can find many more of Courlander's books featured at this blog. Here are the titles of his works on African traditions:  A Treasury of African Folklore, The King's Drum and Other African Stories, Ijapa and the Tortoise and Other Nigerian Tales, The Cow-tail Switch: West African Stories, The Heart of the Ngoni, Hat-shaking Dance, Olode the Hunter and Other Tales From Nigeria, Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes, The Crest and the Hide, and  The Fire on the Mountain. And here are the titles of his works on the African Diaspora: A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore, Terrapin's Pot of Sense, The Drum and the Hoe, and The Piece of Fire, and Other Haitian Tales. 

In addition, there is also a biography of Courlander by Nina Jaffe that you can find at the Internet Archive: A Voice for the People: The Life and Work of Harold Courlander.

And for  a great survey of African American music, his book is just a click away at the Internet Archive!

Negro Folk Music USA

by Harold Courlander

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Terrapin's Pot of Sense

And since I wrote about Harold Courlander's big African American Anthology and his Haitian storybooks in yesterday's blog post, I didn't want to neglect this fantastic book of African American stories from the United States: Terrapin's Pot of Sense.

This is actually one of my very favorite African American story collections. It has 31 stories, and the title story, "Terrapin's Pot of Sense," is an American version of the famous African story told about both Tortoise and Anansi where the trickster has decided to gather up all the wisdom in the world and greedily keep it for himself. (Needless to say, this plan does not succeed.) As in Courlander's many African story collections, there are notes in the back about the stories which do a great job of pointing out the African origins of the stories and also world folklore parallels.

Here is a list of the story titles linked to their Internet Archive page; it's a mix of animal stories and also stories about people: Waiting on Salvation / Reform Meeting / Rabbit, Fox, and the Rail Fence / Buh Rabbits Tight Necktie / Terrapins Pot of Sense / Slow Train to Arkansas / Buh Rabbit's Human Weakness / Buh Rabbit's Big Eat / Buh Fox's Number Nine Shoes / Buh Rabbit's Tail / The Well / Rabbit Scratches Buh Elephant's Back / Buh Mouse Testifies / Buh Rabbits Graveyard / Buh Rabbit and the King / The Texas Sandstorm / Hot Times / The Champion / The Skull / Old Master and Okra / The Do-all Ax / The King and Kuffie / Old Boss, John, and the Mule / Crossing the River / Old Boss and George / Devil in Church / Preacher and the Devil / What the Preacher's Talking About / Sharing the Crops / Death and the Old Man / The Moon's a Woman.

The delightful illustrations are by Elton Fax, an African American artist born in 1909 whose great success as an illustrator paved the way for later artists like Jerry Pinkney and others. You can read more about his life and career (he went to high school with Cab Calloway!) in this Wikipedia article. Here's his illustration of Buh Bear and Buh Fox:

You might remember Elton Fax as the illustrator of many of Verna Aardema's early collections of African folktales, like Tales from the Story Hat; just look at Buffalo and Hyena here! 

Harold Courlander and Elton Fax were both giants of their time, and I am so glad that there are LOTS of their books that you can  find at the Internet Archive... and Terrapin is a great place to start exploring!

Terrapin's Pot of Sense

by Harold Courlander

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Harold Courlander

Today just ran away from me, and I'm just now getting around to today's post... and I thought since I wrote about Daryl Dance's anthology of African American folklore last week, I should say something about this anthology by Harold Courlander: A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore.

You can get a sense of the scope of Courlander's book from the subtitle: The Oral Literature, Traditions, Recollections, Legends, Tales, Songs, Religious Beliefs, Customs, Sayings and Humor of Peoples of African Descent in the Americas.

So, what makes Courlander's collection distinctive is all the material he has included from the Caribbean, and especially from Haiti. 

Courlander also published these two books about Haitian folk culture:

The Drum and the Hoe: Life and Lore of the Haitian People

The Piece of Fire, and Other Haitian Tales

And, of course, you might remember the MANY books Harold Courlander wrote about African folklore; you can see a list of all the blogs post about his books here: books by Harold Courlander.

So, if you have a special interest in the variety of African traditions in the Americans, including the Caribbean, then Courlander's books are a great resource, and they are just a click away at the Internet Archive.

A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore

by Harold Courlander

The Drum and the Hoe:

Life and Lore of the Haitian People

by Harold Courlander

The Piece of Fire, and Other Haitian Tales

by Harold Courlander

Africa at the Internet Archive: Fire on the Mountain

Here we are starting Week 31 (!) of the African folktale recommendations, and I wanted to pick up with the topic of Ethiopian folktales from last week with another book by Harold Courlander: The Fire on the Mountain, and Other Ethiopian Stories. 

The book was later reissued under the title: The Fire on the Mountain, and Other Stories from Ethiopia and Eritrea after Eritrea gained its independence in 1991.

This book contains 24 stories, and the illustrations are by Robert Kane, including some full-page illustrations and some two-page spreads:

Courlander's co-author on this book is Wolf Leslau, one of the major African linguists of the 20th century and, together with his wife Charlotte Leslau, the author of a book of African folktales and also a book of African proverbs.

I have written many times about Harold Courlander at this blog, and here's a quick review of his many wonderful books that are available at Internet Archive!

The Crest and the Hide

by Harold Courlander

The Hat-Shaking Dance

and Other Tales from the Gold Coast

by Harold Courlander

and Albert Kofi Prempeh

Olode the Hunter

and Other Tales from Nigeria

by Harold Courlander

and Ezekiel Eshugbayi

Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes:

Myths, Legends, and Heroic Tales

of the Yoruba People of West Africa

by Harold Courlander

The Heart of the Ngoni:

Heroes of the African Kingdom of Segu

by Harold Courlander and Ousmane Sako

The Cow-Tail Switch

and Other West African Stories

by Harold Courlander and George Herzog

The King's Drum and Other African Stories

by Harold Courlander

Ijapa the Tortoise, and Other Nigerian Tales

by Harold Courlander and Ezekiel Eshugbayi

 A Treasury of African Folklore

by Harold Courlander

Africa at the Internet Archive: St. Lys / Courlander

I'm carrying on with the public domain for the month of November, this time featuring a collection of folktales from Namibia, along with a Harold Courlander anthology drawing on that earlier book.

So, here's the public domain book: From a Vanished German Colony: Folklore, Folktales and Proverbs from Southwest Africa by Odette St. Lys, published in 1916.

These stories date back to German colonization of South Africa, prior to the British colonization; you can read more about German colonialism in Africa at Wikipedia, and there is also a specific article about German South-West Africa, in what is now Namibia. And, yes, also the scene of the Herero and Namaqua genocide.

There is a wide variety of folktales and folklore in this book; here's a list of the stories with links to those pages at the Internet Archive edition of the book: The Story of Long Snake / The Lion and the Ostrich / A Nursery Tale / Another Version of a Nursery Tale / Ulusanana / Story of Little Red Stomach / Story of Five Heads / The Story of a Dam / The Romance of Unyengebule / News from Zululand / Ngangezwe and Mnyamana / The Bewitched King / Kgolodikane / Two Stories told by an Mkipeta Girl. / Usomamekutyo / Masilo and Masilonyane / Umshalishall and Umlomo'sibucu / Much Searching Disturbs Things / The Distribution of Animals / The Ox Which Returned to Life / The Story of Umkuywana / Children of Bafurutsi / Tradition of the Bayeye / Bushman Folk Lore / The Son of the Wind / The Wind / The Lost Sons of God / Rafotsibe and Ikotofetsy and Imahaka / Ikotofetsy and Imahaka / A True Story / The Lion and the Jackal: A Hottentot Story / The Fleeing Girls and the Rock.

And here's the Harold Courlander book: The Crest and the Hide, published in 1982:

It contains these stories: The First Bard Among the Soninke / A Chief Names His Heirs / The Crest and the Hide / The Chief of Agogo and the Chief of Mampo / The Wonderful Thing / Kirama and Kankejan / Kene Bourama, a Manding Hero / The Hunter and His Medicine Spear / Peki, the Musician / Ngunza, Who Outwitted Death / Too Much Searching / Famien Does Not Make a Man Clever / Liongo, a Hero of Shanga / Musa and Kojere / The Departure of the Giants / All Things Are Linked / The Great Snake of Wagadou / Moses and Ojje Ben Onogh / Journey to Asamando / Chief Khama and the Duiker.

The illustrations are by Monica Vachula, and they are really beautiful; each story has an illustration! Here are two examples:

The Tswana story "Too Much Searching" is the one that Courlander took from St. Lys's book.

I've written about MANY of Courlander's books at this blog previously (and I'll have even more of his books to cite when I move on to African American sources). You can see all the posts with this link: Courlander books.

I'll be back tomorrow with one last post in celebration of the public domain for the last day of November this year. Meanwhile, enjoy today's books!

From a Vanished German Colony:

Folklore, Folktales and Proverbs

from Southwest Africa

by Odette St. Lys

The Crest and the Hide

by Harold Courlander

Africa at the Internet Archive: Courlander / West Africa

For today's post of stories from western Africa, I want to return to an author I have not written about in a while: the great Harold Courlander, with three more of his books. You can use this link to see all the books by Courlander featured  at this blog.

The first is a collection of Ashanti folktales from Ghana: The Hat-shaking Dance, and Other Tales from the Gold Coast, coauthored with Albert Kofi Prempeh.

Remember Anansi and the beans from yesterday? That's the "hat-shaking dance" story! 

The art for this book is by Enrico Arno, one of Courlander's regular collaborators. Here is his rendering of Anansi the spider and Owoh the snake: 

Next is Olode the Hunter and Other Tales from Nigeria, coauthored with Ezekiel Eshugbayi.

The trickster appearing in many of the stories in this book is Ijapa the tortoise, and Ezekiel Eshugbayi was Courlander's co-author on a book dedicated to tortoise stories:  Ijapa the Tortoise, and Other Nigerian Tales.

Again, the illustrations for this book are by Enrico Arno; here is Ijapa and the Ojola the snake:

The final book is also centered on Nigeria: Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes: Myths, Legends, and Heroic Tales of the Yoruba People of West Africa.

The book also contains appendices about Yoruba orishas worshipped in the Americas and also Yoruba myths and legends in Cuba, and also Yoruba music in the Americas (Courlander was a musicologist as well as being a collector of folktales and mythology). There is a glossary and pronunciation guide in the back. 

There are illustrations by Larry Lurin inspired by Yoruban art (Lurin died very recently, in 2019, and he is best known for his movie posters; he did the posters for Heaven Can Wait, Platoon, and The Natural!).

You could probably spend a whole year just exploring the many books of Harold Courlander (and I've still got a couple more coming in future posts); here are today's Courlander books from western Africa:

The Hat-shaking Dance

and Other Tales from the Gold Coast

by Harold Courlander

and Albert Kofi Prempeh

Olode the Hunter

and Other Tales from Nigeria

by Harold Courlander

and Ezekiel Eshugbayi

Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes:

Myths, Legends, and Heroic Tales

of the Yoruba People of West Africa

by Harold Courlander

African Folktales at Internet Archive: Kelefaa Saane / Ngoni

I've focused so far this week on the Sunjata epic and the Mwindo epic, and today I've got different epic books I wanted to share. The first is The Epic of Kelefaa Saane performed by Sirifo Camara, just a click away at the Internet Archive!

This is a Mandinka epic, and the story of "Kelefaa baa," "Kelefa the Great," is an integral part of the griot tradition in the Senegambian region. The version presented here is a transcription of a performance by the griot Sirifo Camara as recorded in Dakar, Senegal in 1987, a performance that lasted about three hours. This book contains the transcription and a translation into English by Sana Camara. You can find out more about the Mandinka language at Wikipedia. Here is a map showing Senegal and Gambia:

The other book that I want to share is another contribution by Harold Courlander (see all of Courlander's books at this blog on a single page): The Heart of the Ngoni: Heroes of the African Kingdom of Segu by Harold Courlander and Ousmane Sako.

This book is a collection of heroic traditions from the Bambara people of West Africa; the Bambara language and Mandinka language are both members of the Mande family. Today, most Bambara people live in Mali, but they also live in  Guinea, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, and Gambia. You can find out more at Wikipedia. This map appears in the book (so Burkina Faso is still labeled Upper Volta here):

The "ngoni" of the title of the book is a musical instrument used by the jeli, the singer-historians who preserve the stories of the ancestors (more about the words griot and jeli). This photo shows Bassekou Kouyate, a musician from Mali, performing on a ngoni:

Although books like these cannot convey the performance of the singers, they are a way to learn about these heroic characters and their adventures, and both books await you at the Internet Archive.

The Epic of Kelefaa Saane

translated by Sana Camara

The Heart of the Ngoni:

Heroes of the African Kingdom of Segu

by Harold Courlander and Ousmane Sako