Author: Robert H. Nassau (1835-1921)
Year: 1912 [public domain]
Internet Archive: Always available.
Stories (61): Do Not Trust your Friend / Leopard's Hunting-Camp / Tests of Death (2 versions) / Tasks Done for a Wife / A Tug-of-War / Agenda: Rat's Play on a Name / Nuts are Eaten Because of Angangwe / Who Are Crocodile's Relatives? / Who Is King of Birds? / Njiwo Died of Sleep / Which is the Fattest: Manatus, Hog, or Oyster? / Why Mosquitoes Buzz / Unkind Criticism / The Suitors of Princess Gorilla / Leopard of the Fine Skin / Why the Plantain-Stalk Bears But One Bunch / Swine Talking / Crocodile / Origin of the Elephant / Leopard's Marriage Journey / Tortoise in a Race / Goat's Tournament / Why Goats Became Domestic / Iguana's Forked Tongue / What Caused their Deaths? / A Quarrel about Seniority / The Magic Drum / The Lies of Tortoise / Death Begins by Some One Person / Tortoise and the Bojabi Tree / The Suitors of Njambo's Daughter / Tortoise, Dog, Leopard, and the Njabi Fruit / A Journey for Salt / A Plea for Mercy / The Deceptions of Tortoise / Leopard's Hunting Companions / Is the Bat a Bird or a Beast? / Dog and his Human Speech (2 versions) / The Savior of the Animals / Origin of the Ivory Trade (2 versions) / Dog and His False Friend Leopard / A Trick for Vengeance / Not My Fault! / Do Not Impose on the Weak / Borrowed Clothes / The Story of a Panic / A Family Quarrel / The Giant Goat / The Fights of Mbuma-Tyetye / A Snake's Skin Looks like a Snake / Candor / Which is the Better Hunter, an Eagle or a Leopard? / A Lesson in Evolution / Parrot Standing on One Leg / A Question of Right of Inheritance / Tortoise Covers His Ignorance / A Question as to Age / Abundance / An Oath: With a Mental Reservation / The Treachery of Tortoise / A Chain of Circumstances. I have included two stories below: Tests of Death and A Chain of Circumstances.
Style: Very simple English mirroring the oral style of the storytellers.
Frame: There is no framing, although the author does provide notes and a list of characters for each story.
Storytellers: The storytellers and storytelling settings are described, but not named, section by section: Mpongwe stories, Benga stories, and Fang stories.
Additional Information: Robert Nassau spent over 40 years in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Cameroon as a missionary, arriving in Africa in 1861 after he completed his theological and medical training, and then returning to retire in the United States in 1906. He published this book in 1912, and he published many other books based on his work in Africa (bibliography). You can find three of his other publications at the Internet Archive: Fetichism in West Africa (1904), and Bantu Sociology (1914), and Batanga Tales (1915). The stories in Where Animals Talk come from Mpongwe, Benga, and Fang storytellers, and in the introduction to the book and also the prefaces to each section, Nassau provides useful information and insight into the storytelling performances and his own efforts to represent the stories in English. Mpongwe, Benga, and Fang are all Bantu languages, and Nassau provides the names of the animals and other characters in the stories in a useful listing at the start of each story. The Mpongwe people live in what is now Gabon, and the Benga people live in Gabon and in Equatorial Guinea. The Fang, who are the largest of the three groups, live in Equatorial Guinea, in northern Gabon, and in southern Cameroon.
Frame: There is no framing, although the author does provide notes and a list of characters for each story.
Storytellers: The storytellers and storytelling settings are described, but not named, section by section: Mpongwe stories, Benga stories, and Fang stories.
Additional Information: Robert Nassau spent over 40 years in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Cameroon as a missionary, arriving in Africa in 1861 after he completed his theological and medical training, and then returning to retire in the United States in 1906. He published this book in 1912, and he published many other books based on his work in Africa (bibliography). You can find three of his other publications at the Internet Archive: Fetichism in West Africa (1904), and Bantu Sociology (1914), and Batanga Tales (1915). The stories in Where Animals Talk come from Mpongwe, Benga, and Fang storytellers, and in the introduction to the book and also the prefaces to each section, Nassau provides useful information and insight into the storytelling performances and his own efforts to represent the stories in English. Mpongwe, Benga, and Fang are all Bantu languages, and Nassau provides the names of the animals and other characters in the stories in a useful listing at the start of each story. The Mpongwe people live in what is now Gabon, and the Benga people live in Gabon and in Equatorial Guinea. The Fang, who are the largest of the three groups, live in Equatorial Guinea, in northern Gabon, and in southern Cameroon.
Story Title: Tests of Death
Tradition: Mpongwe story from Gabon
Notes: Nassau provides this useful note to the story: "All of a neighborhood go to a mourning for a dead person. Failure to go would have been regarded, formerly, as a sign of a sense of guilt as the cause of the death. Formerly, at funerals, there was great destruction. Some of a man’s wives and slaves were buried with him, with a large quantity of his goods; and his fruit trees adjacent to the houses were ruthlessly cut down. All, as signs of grief; as much as to say, “If the beloved dead cannot longer enjoy these things, no one else shall." I did just light editing the story, especially in the mix of the Mpongwe and English names for the animals. Nassau doesn't give the name for the Ox, so I left him out of the list of animals killed by the leopard. I've also smoothed out some phrases like "what time" to "when," "a rod distant" to simply "at a distance," etc. Nassau also has another version of this story featuring just the leopard and the rat here: Tests of Death.
Parallels: The "sham funeral" is one of the most popular African folktale types. Compare, for example, Spider's funeral in a Hausa story from northern Nigeria: The Spider Has a Feast, or Wildcat's funeral in an Ewe story from Ghana: Why Monkeys Live in Trees.
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