Originally published in 1931, this book collects tales told to the author by agricultural labourers and hunters in what was Togoland in the 1920s. A rare and valuable resource of oral history, the book also contains the history of the Dagomba from Northern Ghana.
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Originally published in 1931, this book collects tales told to the author by agricultural labourers and hunters in what was Togoland in the 1920s. A rare and valuable resource of oral history, the book also contains the history of the Dagomba from Northern Ghana.
Read Less
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Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. African Ethnographic Studies of the 20th Century . In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
If you are a storyteller or care about African folktales and the origins of Anansi you want to read this book. An English "District Commissioner of the Gold Coast" wanted to preserve the stories he heard in Togoland when England was allotted trusteeship over a former German colony. The author believed that this should be the work of an anthropologist, but in lieu of one he "merely recorded the tales and legends and myths as they have been related, contenting myself with the interesting task of their coordination." Cardinall is no disciple of the "white-man's burden' view of Africa. He describes what he learned in a remarkably nonjudgmental way from the history and migration of the peoples to sexual taboos relating to hunting or gathering.
Not all of the stories and incidents go well with 21st century sensibilities. For example, Anansi gets his name and his reputation by bragging to the sky god, Wulbari (sometimes Nyame) that he could bring back 100 slaves for the god if Wulbari would give him a single corn cob - and this he does by tricking a number of people in a number of unpleasant ways. The idea of slavery was thoroughly African even in the 1920s, not only an aberration imposed by European imperialists.
Returning to Anansi, he doesn't just bring stories into the world as in Gale Haley's A Story A Story, he also brings blindness. Still, the book is filled with a host of fascinating tales and cultural facts. Cardinall explains, for example, how the Moshi kingtoms of Northern Nigeria had "firm but kindly government," but one where the chiefs could not be unseated. Their tales often put the lowly protagonist up against the chief. The more southerly Ashanti or Fanti tribes had a "King or Omanhin [who] is a personage raised almost democratically to his high position." Their tales tell of how the peasantry triumphed over their god.
This is not a collection of stories. The storyteller reader, however, is rewarded with far more tellable tales per chapter than in most ordinary books of stories. Worth the whole price of the book and more is the tale of the little eleventh child, Edubiaku, and how he saves his brothers, tricks the sky god and others who are trying to kill them and brings agriculture to the people. In the end he turns each of his brothers into something good for the people, plantain, bananas, yams, cocoyams, cassada, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, onions maize, okros, and "as for himself he became the small red chillie pepper, so that when men eat him they will cry as the peppers burn their mouths and tongues, and then they will remember Edubiaku with all his medicine."
