African Folk Tales (Andrew Lang)

Week 8: African Traditions - Assignments - Reading - Resources - Images


Resources

The readings for this week are taken from the Andrew Lang fairy book series, and you can find a list of other African folktales Andrew Lang listed in the "Africa" section at this Andrew Lang Fairy Books website.

Sacred Texts Archive contains several African collections:

Jens Finke's Traditional Music and Cultures of Kenya contains fables and legends from different tribes in Kenya (click on the "Index" link in this site to see a list of all the materials you will find).

Dan Ashliman's Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts contains some African sources: The Jackal and the Farmer, Kabyl Creation and Origin Myths, Human Sacrifice in Legends and Myths, The Hippopotamus and the Tortoise, Why Dead People Are Buried, The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull, Trading Up, Cat and Mouse, The Monkey's Heart.

You will find eight traditional Zulu tales at CanTeach (told for elementary school-age children).

The Afrrican Proverbs, Sayings and Stories website contains a collection of African tales.

There are some Central African and Ethiopian tales included at the Tales of Wonder site.

African folk tales online at AFRO-American Almanac (no sources are provided for the tales, and there are no bibliographical references).

There is an enormous collection of African Proverbs (daily proverbs since 1999) published online by the Roman Missionary Service News Agency.

There is a large collection of Nigerian Proverbs at MotherlandNigeria.com. There are also Nigerian folk tales at this site.

There is a small collection Kanga (Swahili) Proverbs (in both Swahili and English) available online.

There is a collection of Akan Goldweight Proverbs (Ghana and Ivory Coast) which are illustrated with samples of Akan metal casting.


Modern Languages / Anthropology 3043: Folklore & Mythology. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You must give the original author credit. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.
Page last updated: October 9, 2004 12:52 PM