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AFRICA - AFRICAN STORIES, FOLKTALES, MYTHS, LEGENDS, FAIRY TALES and more... Scroll down or click on your choice below • SOS - Searching Out Stories/Info about Africa Advice/References - Storytellers, Teachers, Librarians |
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SOS - SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION ABOUT AFRICA
Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)
Book titles, movie titles and online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them to get more information.
Story and song titles are in quotation marks.
To retell any stories, obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Posts are added chronologically as they are received by Story Lovers World.
1) Too Much Talk: A West African Folktale
When the yam he is digging up talks back, the farmer can't believe it. His fisherman neighbor is equally skeptical until his catch gives him some lip. The pattern is repeated with other members of the community. However, when the group tells its collective tale to the chief, he dismisses it until he is taught a lesson by his talking throne.
2) See "Talk" in Jane Yolen's Favorite Folktales from Around the World (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)
p. 246. (1988)
Storytelling, the oral tradition that springs directly from folk archives, is well served in this one-volume collection culled from Pantheon's folklore series. The 160 tales are grouped thematically in 13 chapters; e.g., "The Very Young and the Very Old," "Fooling the Devil"; taken from a variety of cultures: Eskimo, Irish, American Indian, Afro-American, Chinese, etc.
There is a Harold Courlander version in Childcraft.
3) "Talk, Talk" retold by Deborah M. Newton Chocolate from Talk, Talk: An Ashanti Legend (Legends of the World)
Jumaani thinks he's heard a yam talk, and now he's off to the village to tell the chief in this delightful Ashanti legend.
The Legends of the World opens readers' minds to the diverse cultures of Native America, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and the Americas through enchanting tales passed down through countless generations. Each book in the series features geographical, historical, and cultural information. Illustrated in full color.
4) The Book of African Fables (Studies in Swahili Languages and Literature, 3)
There are stories from Bambara, Mali.
5) Rene Guillot's African Folk Tales 
Aziza
Black Doe (The)
Blood Pact (The)
Caravan that was Cursed (The)
Children of the Wind (The)
Death and his Friend Amika
'Do-Good' Genie (The)
Gift of Fire (The)
Hare, the Hyena and the Guinea-Fowl (The)
Hyena and the Dead Ass (The)
Leopard (The)
Little Iron Violin (The)
Marriage of the Rain (The)
Messengers in the Sky
Revenge of Prince Rabogo (The)
Road, the Daughter of God and the Spider (The)
Small Boy with Big Ideas (A)
Story of a Pumpkin (The)
Story of the Wind (A)
Tokko's Louse
Tree, the Mask and Hammadi (The)
Twins (The)
Voices Inside the Crocodile
6) You can have them design kente cloth and actually weave strips of the different colors through black paper, design an African mask, collect leaves and put them in a plastic bag overnight, dew or water sets on them and shows how the humid weather makes some moisture on the leaves for them to suck, science experiment I found in Susan Millard book. Story I like best is "Why Frog and Snake Don't Play Together." Be careful about asking them if they could think of another ending. Last time I told it someone said the frog could jump on the snake and bite off the snake's head. See what TV message gets to the kids.
7) I am not sure if any of these will work for your needs but take a look.
SCORE Teacher Guide: African Folktales
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/afolk/afolktg.html
Activities for African Folk Tales (Lesson Plan)
http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-3721.html
CIMC Integrated Units: Anansi the Spider
http://libweb.uncc.edu/cimc/integration/Units/Anansi.htm
Ghana: Welcome to KidsGardening! Garden Resources, Gardening for Families, Teacher's Garden and Shopping for Gardening
http://www.kidsgardening.com/ambassador/ghana00/theme5.asp
9) There is a brief reference to a story called One Stick, Two Stick in Women Who Run With the Wolves. It is an African story (what country it does not say). Basically an old king calls all his people together and has them each take a stick, then try to break it. Alone each person can be easily broken. Then each person takes another stick, then puts them together in bundles of 2 or 3. Of course, no one can break them. When we stand together we cannot be broken.
RESPONSES:
a) Basically, an old king calls all his people together and has them each take a stick, then try to break it. Alone each person can be easily broken. Then each person takes another stick, then puts them together in bundles of 2 or 3. Of course, no one can break them. When we stand together we cannot be broken.
b) Chaucer uses a version of this tale in "Troilus and Cressyde" but I can't remember how much of it he uses. Doesn't Aesop use it as well? I seem to recall he does. And of course Ben Franklin was frightfully fond of it, as I seem to remember Maybe it's one of those universal stories!
c) Eh, that's a good one, Johnny, but it ain't the way I heard it.... Three sons stood around the deathbed of their father. Just as he knew he was to die, he sent his servant to get the family goblet. This goblet was made of gold, jewel encrusted and had been passed down through the generations for hundreds of years. The father ordered the goblet to be filled with wine and signaled his sons to come closer to his bed. "My sons," he said in a voice barely above a whisper, "this goblet is the pride of our family. When you drink from it, always drink from here." He feebly indicated the point closest to his lips. "But father," the oldest son asked, "why would you have us drink only from that side of the goblet?" "Did I raise fools? You drink from this side because if you drink from the far side the wine will spill down your shirtfront!" And so it is and so it will ever be.
10) The story of "The King's Drum" from The King's Drum and Other African Stories
As far as compilations of oral literature from subsaharan Africa goes, this is one of the best. The problem is there aren't very good ones to compare it too.
Also, the colonial mentality of the author, though not as severe as his European contemporaries in the early 20th century, shines through. Thus even by around 1972, when this compilation was completed it was largely based on stories collected and written by the author and other European oral collectors decades earlier, during colonialism.
Bones of "The King's Drum":
The King wants to hold court, but it takes everyone a long time to get there - the news spreads too slowly. Anansi's idea is to make a special drum. When the royal drum is heard, everyone must come at once. Work squads are formed, and everyone has a turn at making the drum. But Anansi sees that Monkey is shirking. When the drum is made, none of the animals want to be the one who has to carry it. Everyone suggests someone else. Anansi suggests that since no-one wants to carry it, that the laziest of all should carry it. All eyes gradually turn to Monkey. Monkey states emphatically that under no circumstances would he ever carry the drum. "But no-one asked you to..." Monkey's own refusal revealed him to be the laziest, so it's his own fault that he now has to carry the drum. Serves him right, the little tyke.
Created 2005; last update 6/30/09
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