African Folktales at Internet Archive: Animals Mourn for Da Leopard

Finishing up this week of story collections from western Africa, I chose this beautiful book: Animals Mourn for Da Leopard, and Other West African Tales by Peter Dorliae, just a click away at Internet Archive.

Peter Dorliae was a writer and folklorist from Liberia, and Chief of the Yarwin-Mehnsonoh district. The stories he tells here come specifically from the Mano people; you can read more at Wikipedia. They live primarily in Nimba county in the northeast of the country.

There are 10 stories in the book — Animals Mourn for Da Leopard; Mr. Spider Smokes Out the World's Hole; We Oppose President Stomach; The Monkey and the Snail; Farmer Zia, the Hard-luck Man; The City Mortician and Dr. Spider; Mr. Spider and the Death Eggs; Greedy Turtle and the Blue-wings; The Hated Dog Gban; Guinea Hen's Children — plus some proverbs too!

The illustrations are by Solomon Irein Wangboje, an artist from Nigeria. Here is his illustration for the title story about Leopard:

And here is Monkey challenging Snail to a race:

There are illustrations for all the stories which await you at the Internet Archive:

Animals Mourn for Da Leopard,

and Other West African Tales

by Peter Dorliae

African Folktales at Internet Archive: The Cow-Tail Switch

I knew I could not let this week of story collections from western Africa go by without a book by the great Harold Courlander, so here it is: The Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories by Harold Courlander and George Herzog, just click away at the Internet Archive:

The title story is a dilemma tale, put into narrative form: a hunter, who had been killed by a leopard, was revived through the supernatural powers of his many sons. Now the father is going to give a beautiful switch made from a cow-tail to the son who most deserves it: would that be the one who found the tail that led to their father's body in the forest? the one who put the bones back together? the one who covered the bones with sinews and flesh? or the one who gave him the power of movement? the one who put blood back into the veins? the one who restored their father's breath? There is an ingenious answer to this question, which also yields a proverb... but I am not going to give it away here: you can snag the book from Internet Archive and see the answer for yourself.

As usual with Courlander's books, you will find helpful notes about each story in the back of the book. For example, the note explains that the cow-tail switch story is one of the tales that was collected in Liberia by Courlander's co-author, George Herzog, who was also an ethnomusicologist as was Courlander; more about Herzog at Wikipedia.

The illustrations are by Madye Lee Chastain, a children's book illustrator active in the 1940s and 1950s (this book was originally published in 1947). Here is her illustration of the sons going into the forest to look for their father (it's also the illustration on the cover of the book):

You might recognize Courlander's name from previous book recommendations; with this link you can access all the books by Courlander that I've written about so far, and there will be more to come!

The Cow-Tail Switch

and Other West African Stories

by Harold Courlander and George Herzog

African Folktales at Internet Archive: Limba Stories and Storytelling

You might remember when I shared Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa back in June, and I knew I would want to share her book of stories from Sierra Leone, which fits in perfectly with this week of stories from western Africa: Limba Stories and Storytelling. There are almost a hundred stories in here, plus riddles and proverbs too, all just a click away at the Internet Archive:

Finnegan recorded these stories in the early 1960s before it was feasible to do video recording, but her audio tape recordings have been digitized and put online as part of the World Oral Literature project, which means you can listen to them here: Ruth Finnegan: Limba Stories and Songs.

So, in addition to reading all the stories in Finnegan's book, you can get a sense of the oral performance by listening to the recordings from what is now sixty years ago in Sierra Leone. And Ruth Finnegan is still with us! You can read about her life and career at Wikipedia: Ruth Finnegan; she was born in Ireland in 1933, making her 87 years old... and she has a wonderful website also: RuthFinnegan.com.

You can read more about the Limba people at Wikipedia: Limba,  for fans of Anansi stories: there is a whole series of spider stories found in Chapter 3, stories about animals:

So, there is all kinds of goodness here: Finnegan's book is a work of serious scholarship written for an audience of anthropologists, but it also has wonderful stories here for you to read and enjoy!

Limba Stories and Storytelling

by Ruth Finnegan