Genets and genesis (Following folktales around the world 122. - Democratic Republic of Congo)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Tortoise and Crocodile
and other folktales from the Komo People of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Barbara Thomas
Amazon Kindle Services, 2011.

The twenty tales in this book were collected from the Komo people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The collection is intended as a children's book, but it does contain stories that might be "sensitive" for Western readers. These have been marked with parental guidance warnings. The book notes the names of the original storytellers, but doesn't assign them to the tales, and the introduction is mostly just a foreword about sensitive content.

Highlights

I was fascinated by the tale of Motondo, the Magic Carpet, in which sisters went fishing and wanted to leave their little brother behind. He followed anyway, and when at night Father Spider stole the eyes of the girls (repeatedly), he stole them back. Eventually he warned his sisters of danger, and they wove a magic carpet and flew away to safety. The same moral (don't leave at home someone who wants to go with you) showed up in some of the Ashanti folktales in Ghana as well.

I was delighted to find a tale featuring one of my favorite feline creatures, the genet. The story was fairy simple; Rooster tricked Genet, and Genet died as a result, so his children have been revenge-hunting poultry ever since. The tale of Ingee's betrothal was one of the "parental warning" tales - a man heading out to find a wife took a dump where he was not supposed to, and his feces kept rolling after him everywhere as an ever-present reminder of shame. Needless to say, he did not get a wife.
Tortoise, the resident trickster, appeared as a fairly questionable character in many of the stories. In Tortoise and his friends, he invited animals along on a journey, then tricked them out of their food and weapons, framed them for theft, and had them killed. He did so with Endo, the red antelope (a symbol for death), and many others, until Mboko, the white antelope turned the tricks against him. In another tale Tortoise pretended to be a midwife for Crocodile's wife, and ate up all her eggs - that's why crocodiles have been hunting tortoises ever since.

Connections

I was reminded of Adam and Eve by the story of Abha-Betombetombe, Father of the Forest, where he warned fisherwomen not to eat from his sacred plantains. Of course they did, so he cursed them with monthly bleeding. After last week I once again encountered the story about why hens scratch the ground, looking for tasty morsels. The tale of Kaunga and Tombai was an all-devouring type folktale where a monster ate up everything and everyone, until a wild man named Kaunga had himself swallowed and rescued everyone by cutting the monster open from the inside, and staring a new world.

As I said before, the local trickster is Tortoise. I was reminded of Anansi and his moss-covered rock by the tale where Tortoise tricked animals into climbing a tree and being eaten by Leopard, until Mboko, the white antelope, once again came to the rescue. There was also another trickster figure, He-Spider, who tried to copy elephants and got hurt in the process, as tricksters sometimes do.



Where to next?
The Republic of Congo!

Animal friendships, animal enemies (Following folktales around the world 121. - Central African Republic)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Central ​African Folk Tales
An Imaginative Collection of Wisdom for Children
Thomas G. Schaefer
XLibris US, 2014.

This book features twenty short folktales collected by a Peace Corps employee in the 1970s. Before violence broke out in the country, the oral tradition was still uninterrupted and stories could be gathered. Schaefer used these tales to teach English and show children that their own stories were just as valuable as the foreign literature used to teach French. He published a larger collection for educational purposes; this current ebook is a short selection from those stories. All tales are included in English and French, and accompanied by cute little drawings.

Highlights

Out of the origin stories, the one about the origin of rivers was the most intriguing. It claimed that in the beginning people lived without water, drinking juices of fruit and animal blood, until a hunter found a well, and released the first rivers into the world.
The strange and eerie tale of Birds, birs, and more birds was included in the book in two slightly different versions. This story said that originally there was only one bird in the world, the Bird of God. A hunter trapped it and ate it, despite the warnings of his wife, and was punished: In one story his stomach burst and birds flew out, in another he himself transformed into thousands of birds.
Among the animal tales my favorite was the story of Pig and Tortoise. Tortoise lent his shell to Pig, who forgot where he put it, and has been rooting around in shame ever since, trying to find it and give it back. The scratching of hens was similarly explained in a tale where Dog and Hen shared a meal, but the impatient hen ate the top of the rice, and left the choice parts in the bottom of the dish. She has been scratching ever since to make sure she gets the best bits of food.

Connections

Image from here

Animals sometimes helped, and sometimes tried to outdo each other in the stories. Bee and Pigeon saved each other; Elephant and Hen had an eating contest (which hen won, on account of number of items consumed), and Lion and Mosquito fought for the throne of the jungle (Mosquito won). There was also once again a tale where a hunter was rescued from a lion by a mouse that pretended to be a lion-hungry monster.
I was reminded of all the sky-raising myths by the tale that explain why there is rainfall. It was a story of war between earth and sky; earth tried to shatter sky with mountains, while sky tried to melt earth with rain, even though the moon tried to bring them to peace.
There is not one famous trickster in residence here, according to the collector, but rather many tricky animal characters. Still, there was a mention of a mischievous character named Tere, but only in one tiny story.

Where to next?
The Democratic Republic of Kongo!

The story door (Following folktales around the world 120. - Cameroon)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

The Sacred Door and Other Stories
Cameroon folktales of the Beba
Makuchi
Ohio University Press, 2007.

The thirty-six tales in this book were recorded between 1979 and 1989 by a lady from Cameroon who emigrated into the USA. Makuchi is Beba, and she grew up in a living oral tradition with regular storytelling in the evenings (children were told that if they told stories in the daylight, the ghosts would take their voice). She also wrote her master's thesis on folktales she collected and translated, but she only started working on this book when she began sharing the stories with American children, to bring Beba culture closer to them. Each story comes with useful footnotes, and they are peppered with proverbs and wisdom. From the Afterword we can learn about the history of Cameroon and the Beba, as well as the Beba oral tradition, and we even find a collection of riddles to open storytelling sessions with.

Highlights

I really enjoyed the story of the curious and brave little girl who saved herself from a man-eating lion. I also encountered women who turned down all suitors in favor of a handsome stranger who turned out to be a cannibal spirit; this should be under the Connections category, but all of them were so unique that I wanted to mention them here. In one of them a bunch of fish disguised themselves as suitors (they even borrowed a car!), while in another the girl was rescued from the spirit world inside the belly of a toad, with a straw in her mouth so that she could breathe. The storyteller explains that these stories were supposed to warn young people that a marriage unites two families, and you should not run off and marry strangers.
I was also thoroughly entertained by the most R-rated story of the book, about the friendship of Penis, Testicles, and Vagina.Or rather, the friendship of Penis and Vagina, because Testicles offended Vagina, and she has been refusing to have anything to do with them ever since.

Connections

There was yet another story about why bats fly at night (in this case, due to their quarrel with the sun, because the latter did not shine long enough for bat's mother's funeral). The story of the feast in the sky was also familiar from both sides of the ocean. Tortoise joined in with the help of borrowed feathers, but when he ate up all the food, his bird-friends took the feathers back, and he had to jump and crack his shell. Another traveling story motif that made an appearance is "a bundle of sticks is harder to break than a single one."
I was reminded of Aesop's tales by the story of the monkey and the bee, whose friendship was tested when they tricked each other out of shared meals. In this case, however, they made up in the end and became friends again. There are also Aesopic parallels to the story of the flutes, where a boy lost her flute, and the spirits offered him a golden one instead that he humbly refused, earning a reward. Another boy was not so humble, and got punished. These "kind and unkind" type tales appeared in quite a few versions in the book, both with boys and girls. Out of the latter kind, the best one was the story where the two sisters were hosted and tested by a mysterious drum-maker who did everything - talking, cooking - with his buttocks.

Cameroon has a good football team

The story of Sense-Pass-King was a variant on the Clever Maid story with a male hero, while the unhappy stepchild was a straight up male Cinderella story, where they even tried the shoe on his foot. It was accompanied by a female Cinderella as well, called Dance in the Sky, where the girl had crocodile skin, and wings in her armpits. Mbaka and the magic ring was a classic dog-and-cat Aladdin type tale, except here the magic ring brought success to the hero's soccer career...
The evil predator that got tricked back into the trap was Leopard, defeated by Monkey and Cow. The trickster in residence is Torokee the Tortoise; he did the tug-o-war trick with Elephant and Hippo, and ran the infamous race against Hare with the help of his family.

Where to next?
The Central African Republic!

Spirits and tortoises (Following folktales around the world 119. - Nigeria)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria 
Elphinstone Dayrell
Longmans, Green & Co., 1910.

This is a fairly old book from British colonial times. It contains forty folktales from Southern Nigeria, collected by a colonial officer. The introduction was written by Andrew Lang himself, who also made notes for some of the stories, comparing them to European fairy tales. Many of the tales come with footnotes explaining certain cultural and historical elements, and sometimes they even come with an expressed moral at the end - although the moral is not always what one would expect from the story.

Highlights

Among the more mythical tales my favorite was the one that explained why Sun and Moon live in the sky. According to the story, they invited their friend the Sea over as a guest, but when the Sea appeared with all of his volume and residents, Sun and Moon had to flee to the roof first, and then to the sky, where they have been ever since.

The long and elaborate story of The king and the ju ju tree was especially great. In it, a king tried to cut down a magic tree to clear space around his favorite bathing place, but a splinter got into his eye, causing horrible pain. A man appeared to cure him, but asked for his daughter in exchange - of course the man was a spirit, planning on eating the girl. The princess, however, managed to get away from him with the help of a talking skull, and after many adventures found her way out of the spirit world and back home.
As for the animal tales, the one that stuck with me the most was the ominous story that explained why worms live underground. It was the story of a great battle between the worms and the terrifying driver ants, obviously won by the latter.
The story of the fat woman who melted in the sun, despite the strange title, was a story of beauty. Women were traditionally fattened up before marriage, and this one big beautiful lady was very popular - but also made of oil, so she was forbidden from going out in the sun. A jealous co-wife, however, tricked her into going to the fields, and the lady melted, down to her big toe. Luckily, she managed to pull herself together after a while.

The story of the king and the 'nsiat (weaver) bird, on the other hand, was a tale of breaking with traditions. The king married the beautiful daughter of the bird, despite the warning that women in her family give birth to twins - and offense traditionally punished by death. When the twins were born, however, the king loved his family so much that they ended up moving to the wilderness together to live with the bird family - and they have been living as weaver birds ever since.

Connections

I was reminded of the Cajun story of Marie Jolie by the tale of the disobedient girl who married a skull. The skull came from the spirit world, borrowing body parts from other spirits to form the perfect man, and the girl was helped by a friendly old woman in her escape back home before the spirits would have devoured her.
The pretty stranger who killed the king carried the internationally popular motif of a beautiful new wife (in this case, an old witch in disguise) beheading a king while he was asleep, thus bringing down the entire kingdom.

This Nigerian tortoise is more than
 300 years old!

The local trickster is, once again, Tortoise. He had many adventures, such as finding out the hippo's secret name (and thus exiling him into the waters), or playing tug-o-war with Elephant and Hippo. The latter story had a nice twist in the end: both animals decided they wanted Tortoise to be their friend. Tortoise moved to the water with Hippo, and sent his son to live with Elephant - that's why we have turtles and tortoises now. Tortoise also played the leading role in the story of the king's magic drum that created food out of nowhere. The trickster managed to get the drum from the king, but broke the taboo associated with it, so instead of food the drum now summoned people who beat everybody up. Using this new ability, Tortoise managed to get a second deal, and acquire a tree that grew foo-foo... until his sons broke that taboo as well, and the entire family had to move to the prickly bushes out of shame.

Where to next?
Cameroon!

Dawn to Dusk (Following folktales around the world 118. - Benin)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Dawn to Dusk
Folk Tales from Benin
Iro Eweka
Routledge, 1998.

This book is not just any folktale collection: It was written by a member of the Edo royal family. Iro Eweka, author, poet, psychologist, belonged to the last generation of the family that had the chance to listen to the traditional storytellers in the original context of court entertainment. While working on his doctorate in the USA, he had the inspiration to write the stories of his childhood down to preserve them. He arranged them in a sort of mythical chronology, from Creation to the fall of the Edo Empire in the 19th century. Each chapter opens with a quote (most often an Edo proverb). At the end of the book there is a whole chapter of Edo wisdom and proverbs, and another one that tells about the origin of Benin's name. The stories themselves are retold in beautiful, poetic language, which made this book a truly amazing read.

Highlights

The book begins with a creation myth. I especially liked how all animals and plants, once they were created with the strike of a whip, greeted the Creator and introduced themselves by their own name. So did men, women, and children. The mythology around birth was especially fascinating: according to Edo belief, everyone decides what they want their life to be before they are born, and they tell it to the Creator. Then they are sent down to Earth with their invisible twin, live their lives, die, then return to heaven, and make modifications to their life based on their experiences. Then it's the invisible twin's turn to be born, and so on and so forth, for 14 cycles. Prayers made during a lifetime are added to the modifications for the next round. The story also pointed out that this is why parents have to be grateful to their children, because the child chooses them and not the other way around.

The story of creation was followed up by the Great Debate, when arguments first arose between plants, animals, and humans. Ósánóbuá, the Creator was called down from the sky to do justice. The Debate was mostly carried by the wise trickster Tortoise, who listed the problems with the current state of things (especially with how humans behaved). In the end the Creator decided to put more rules in place, and give each creature their own language so they wouldn't understand each other anymore.
I really enjoyed the historical legend of Prince Ogun, who was exiled from his kingdom and lived in the jungle for seven years. He made friends with plants and animals, learned all the healing arts, saved a lion, an antelope, and a tree. When he was told that he would regain his thorne if he sacrificed a tiger, he refused, saying he would rather stay in the jungle than kill an animal. In the end, of course, he fulfilled his destiny and became king (but didn't kill a tiger). He was the one that named Edo after a slave who saved his life. 
Among the folktales I liked the one that explained why leopard has spots. It featured the Mother of all animals, who one day accidentally broke leopard's clay pot, angering the creature. She was defended by Ram, with the help of wise Tortoise (who helped him protect his large testicles in the fight). The wounds that Leopard received in the fight became his spots. Tortoise played similarly important roles in many other stories, as the trickster-advisor to the sacred kings. I especially loved the story where he warned the king to only declare plans with the caveat "barring any obstacles." When the king said no obstacles can ever derail his plans, Tortoise climbed a tree and tossed roasted nuts at the king's workers - who immediately abandoned their job to eat all the delicacies.

Connections

Once again there was a myth about the raising of the shy. In this one, people did not have to gather their own food at the beginning of time, because they could just take pieces of the low-hanging sky to eat. One day a frantic mother tore off too much sky, and threw out the leftovers. The sky got so offended that it asked for the Creator's permission to rise higher, out of reach. Humans were lucky that Tortoise already knew how to cultivate crops, and he taught them.
I was reminded of the story of the lion and the mouse by the tale of the spider and the deer. Spider asked Deer to carry him across a river, promising to return the favor one day. He did, by the classic spider trick of weaving webs to conceal Deer's footprints when hunters wanted to trap him, making it look like the prints were from many days earlier.

Where to next?
Nigeria!

Tricksters and more tricksters (Following folktales around the world 117. - Togo)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Tales told in Togoland
A. W. Cardinall
Oxford University Press, 1970.

This book contains folktales and legends from Togo, collected by the author in the first half of the 20th century from hunters and farmers. Cardinall admits that he is not an anthropologist, he merely wanted to record the stories in fear that a trained collector might not get to Togo in time before they disappeared. There is a detailed introduction about the country's geography, cultures, and history. The stories themselves are grouped into thematic chapters, in which they follow each other without sub-titles, connected by information on customs, beliefs, and folklore. The last chapter is taken up by the oral history of the country from the times before colonization. The book is a very enjoyable read, and while the text is occasionally dated (referring to some things as "primitive"), it contains a whole lot of really great stories.

Highlights

I found the first cool story right in the Introduction. According to local beliefs, animals could only be killed with bullets specifically crafted for that species. A man went to the blacksmith for buffalo bullets, and when he returned to pick them up, a hunter followed him into the bush - and saw the man turn into a buffalo. He shot at the animal, but the bullets bounced off, since the buffalo used the magic of the buffalo bullets to protect himself from harm. How cool is that?
Since there were many, many trickster tales in the book, I also found some new favorites. I loved the one where a chief had a competition with a boy about who can trick the other - and when the chief lost, he turned into a spider in his shame. It was an Anansi origin story! I also liked another story that explained why Anansi hides in shame - in that one, he tried to trick Chameleon, but ended up being tricked himself (with the help of a cloak made of living flies). In yet another story it was Nyame who punished the spider for his pride, burning his house down; Anansi only managed to save his pillow, which is why even today you can find small, white pillow-like nests in spiderwebs. I also enjoyed the tale in which a kind-hearted hunter found food with the help of a chichiriga, a forest spirit, but when Anansi tried to copy the trick, he did not treat the spirit well enough, and thus received nothing.
Last but not least, there was a fun story explaining the origin of wasps. A girl called her mother a witch, and the furious mom started chasing her to punish her. Various animals tried to help the girl, but they were all intimidated by the mother, until the wasp swallowed her whole. The wasp tied a rope around its waist so that the old woman could not come out (hence the tiny waists) - and since she went in face first, her sharp tongue became the wasp's stinger.

Connections

Since we are deep into West Africa here, many stories were familiar not just from other African countries, but also from the Caribbean and the USA. I have already heard the creation story in which the sky was raised as a punishment for people annoying the Sky God. Dilemma stories continue to be popular, similar to other African countries - there was the one about the three wives who saved their husband together and argued over who did the most (the husband declared they were all equally important), and another about four men saving a child from a snake, and then arguing about who deserved the snake's skin the most. In fact, dilemma tales had half a chapter to themselves.

After Mali I once again encountered a story about animals trying to take revenge on a hunter. He revealed almost all his secrets to his animal-wife, except for one, which helped him get away when she lured him unarmed into the bush (honestly, I was rooting for the animals). Another man had a similarly lucky escape from a crocodile, when he helped the animal and it wanted to devour him instead of a thank you. The man was helped by the clever little red-flanked duiker, a distant relative of the famous Southeast Asian trickster Mouse Deer. A third daring escape featured a man about to be devoured by a hyena that was about to be devoured by a leopard that was about to be devoured by a lion, and then all of them scared off by a rat that claimed he was about to devour them all (I knew this story from another African collection, with a muskrat as the hero). And while we are on the topic of hunting, I found a variant of the tale about the hunter's son from Ghana, in which a lion tried to take revenge on the boy when it saw the trophies of his kin.
There was a story similar to tales I know from Brazil, in which a hunter wounded an antelope and chased it into the village of the kulparga (little people, "fairies"), where he discovered that all animals are kulparga in disguise, and he had to watch the young antelope-man die. These little creatures, by the way, were similar to European fairies in that they also hated iron, and played the main role in the story where a hunter joined their celebration and sang the days of the week with them ("gift of the fairies" tale type). In this case, their gift was a large amount of cowrie shells.

Kép innen

The two main local tricksters were Anansi the Spider and Soamba the Hare (both of them traveled to the Americas from here). Next to such classics as the tar baby story there were also some familiar from Ghana, such as Anansi and Wisdom, or Anansi trading things up until he got a hundred slaves for one ear of corn. I was also already familiar with the "bring me something" tale, in which Anansi spied on Nyame in the disguise of a bird to find out what the deity wanted him to bring; as well as the one where Anansi killed the chief's sheep and tried to blame another spider for it, but then in his greed gave himself away.
I noticed some European parallels in the story of the Golden Twins (here Nyame's five wives competed in doing the best for their husband; the youngest gave birth to a silver and a gold child who were stolen by the others, but wise Anansi figured out the truth) and the Twin Princes (who were two friends that looked alike, and ended up saving each other). There was even a Bible parallel in the Ashanti myth in which Tano, younger son of Nyame, tricked his father into giving him the blessed lands he intended for his eldest son.

Where to next?
Benin!

Anansiland (Following folktales around the world 116. - Ghana)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Akan-Ashanti Folk-tales
R. S. Rattray
Clarendon Press, 1969.

This is a fairly old collection, from sometime in the 1930s when Ghana was still referred to as the Golden Coast. It contains 75 tales collected straight from the oral tradition, both in the original language and in English. They were transcribed by the author himself, who believed that asking locals to write stories down would result in losing the best phrases of oral language. This, and some other fascinating topics are discussed in the Introduction - for example, the question of the origin of Ashanti tales, why there are so many vulgar stories among them, and why most characters are named after animals. The book is illustrated by the drawing of local artists who tried their hand at making spoken stories visible for the first time (and apparently had arguments over whether Anansi should be portrayed as a spider or as a man).

Highlights

Since the book is full of Anansi stories, obviously I had a lot of favorites among them. We find out a lot about the spider-trickster from these tales: why he is bald (because he tried to hide cooked beans under his hat and it burned his hair off), how he won Aso for his wife (with trickery, although the end of that story is fairly tragic, since their first, illegitimate child is killed), or why he runs on the surface of the water (because he is afraid of crocodiles).

Among my favorites was How Anansi distributed wisdom among people - he had all the wisdom in a gourd and he tried to climb up a tree to hide it, but he had a gourd hanging on his stomach and he could not climb. When his son told him to put the gourd on his back instead, Anansi got angry that all the wisdom in the world could not teach him that, so he shattered it to pieces. This was not the only thing Anansi was responsible for; there were many others, such as How white people got hoes (Anansi set off a magic hoe, that kept hoeing until it reached Europe), Why children play in the moonlight (because Anansi made peace between Sun, Moon, and Night), How illnesses came to be (Anansi scattered them around when Nyame took his wife), How disagreement was born (when Anansi defeated a man in a lying contest), or Why there is toothache (because a giant bird kept stealing people's jaws, and Anansi got them back, but got them mixed up). And of course the book contains the most famous Anansi story about How Anansi got all the stories in the world (with the help of his clever wife Aso), and why they are now called anansesem. Sometimes, however, it was Anansi that got the short end of the stick - in one story, when Anansi looked for a fool, it was Crow who turned the spider's own greed and laziness against him.

There was a great, although a little dark chain story about Why children should not be left alone. In it, a Leopard visited the lonely child of a hunter, and asked about all the trophies, and the boy chanted the names of all the animals his father had killed. When they got to the Leopard trophy, the boy got scared and started again, and his father got home just in time to kill the vengeful Leopard. On the other hand, in the story about The origin of friendship it was a human child and a leopard child who swore brotherhood to each other, and when bigoted people killed the leopard, the human man died too. On a lighter note, there was a lovely tale about Why the colobus monkey's tail is white, in which animal ing courting beat the poor monkey up and left him on a garbage heap - but a girl fell in love with him anyway.
Another tale I really enjoyed talked about how No one is useless in a tribe. A family chased a "foolish" boy away, but when they were later invaded by a mischievous spirit, it was the fool who managed to chase it away. Another tale had a very similar moral about how If a relative wants to go with you, you should not refuse - in this, two older brothers tried to leave the youngest behind, and on the way to the market they tricked him into buying useless things, but the boy managed to turn all of them into something profitable.

Connections

I once again encountered the tale of the husband and wife who understood each other from symbols. From Caribbean countries I was also familiar with the story of shapeshifters (in this case, pigs) who leave their animal skins behind, until people rub salt and pepper on the inside so they can't put them on again. In the Aladdin tale type where a cat and a dog bring back a boy's stolen magic ring the thief was, obviously, Anansi. I was also familiar with the story type where Anansi brought an entire village of people to Nyame, by repeatedly tricking people into trading him more valuable things.
There was an interesting "kind and unkind girls" variant that explained Why one should not ask payment for something that was lost. In this case, there was no evil stepmother, the two sisters sent each other out for impossible tasks, only one of them knew how to be polite, and the other didn't. Also, once again, there was the well-known dilemma tale about the girl rescued by three suitors together.

Where to next?
Togo!

Brains over brawn (Following folktales around the world 115. - Burkina Faso)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!



Folktales from the Moose of Burkina Faso
Alain-Joseph Sissao
Langaa RPCID, 2010.

The book contains forty-two folktales from the Moose people of Burkina Faso, collected from the oral tradition. We get a short introduction to Moose culture and storytelling, as well as a bibliography at the end of the book. The stories have been translated to French, and then to English, keeping their original wording. This is a folklore collection, definitely not a children's book, and some of the tales sound strange even to adult European ears. However, some of the strange tales were really interesting and enjoyable.

Highlights

In the tale of The warthog and the lion, the king of the animals wanted to kill the warthog because others claimed he was stronger. Hare helped the warthog to get away, with a lot of cunning and some frustration, but the lion has been hunting his kind ever since. In another, more adorable escape story, a hunter picked up a hedgehog and her children. The mother kept telling the little ones "if God does not kill, the chief cannot kill either." Eventually the hunter set his bag down to kill an antelope, and the hedgehog family got away.
There was a fun chain story about a Beautiful girl who was kidnapped by a crocodile, and rescued by a turtledove. The dove began to sing, and the crocodile left the girl with a lizard to go listen to the music. The lizard wanted to listen too, so he left the girl with a frog, and so on, until she was finally left alone, and she could escape.
My favorite clever solution in the book, however, was for the dilemma of The chief, the hawk and the turtledove. In this one, a dove fleeing a hawk found refuge in a chief's pocket, and in return promised him whatever he wished for. The hawk promised he would have many children. The chief did not know which one to pick, but luckily a child came along, and asked what the matter was. His solution was simple yet great: he asked the hawk if he was trying to kill the dove specifically, or was just hungry. Since it was the latter, the child told the chief to bring some meat, and feed the hawk. Both birds got away content, and both of them gave their gifts to the chief.
There is always a third option.

Connections

There were also some familiar tale types in the book - for example, two variants of the Kind and Unkind Girls, both of which had an orphan girl for a protagonist. She returned home covered in gold or riches, while the lazy stepsister only got death and scorpions. On the other hand, the "clever maid" character who solved a chief's impossible tasks in this case was a boy.
There was yet another fun "dangerous rock" type trickster tale: in this case, everyone had to go A year without criticizing, because anyone who uttered a criticism would die. Hare pretended to plant a garden on a rock, and collected the possessions of the animals that made a critical comment on his foolish behavior. Eventually Guinea Fowl turned his own trick against him.
The trickster-in-residence is still Hare, who steals fruit from the chief's tree and collects impossible gifts (e.g. djinn brains). There was also a boy who was a great liar, making a fool of the chief and the whole village (gold-shitting donkey, stick that the revives the dead, classics), and swapped his punishment with someone else.

Where to next?
Ghana!

Great mothers, questionable husbands (Following folktales around the world 114. - Ivory Coast)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Some Gold, a Little Ivory
Country tales from Ghana and the Ivory Coast
Edythe Rance Haskett
The John Day Company, 1971.

The book contains 24 folktales, out of which 14 are from the Ivory Coast (and the rest from Ghana). They have been collected and re-told by an African-American teacher, who spent years in the countries of West Africa. Since I will have a whole other post for Ghana, in this one I will only focus on the tales from the Ivory Coast. The stories were told in an enjoyable style with an audience of children in mind, and the book has some colorful illustrations, but I found it interesting as an adult as well.

Highlights

In the tale of Mahda and the Bull Elephant, an evil elephant devoured the three children of a widow. She set out, tracked the elephant down, followed her children into his stomach, and saved everyone, people and animals alike, who had been trapped there.

In another story, Mongoose accidentally killed the king's favorite (but very annoying) goat, and tried to frame Dog for the murder. Dog's wife figured out a way to save her husband, and in the end, it was Mongoose who got sentenced to death by snake pit. This is why, according to the story, Mongoose is so good at killing snakes.
Once again, there were some dilemma tales in the collection. In one of them, a warrior loved two girls equally, and could not make up his mind about which one to marry - so he killed himself. One girl died after him in grief, while the other found a way to bring both of them back to life. The storyteller poses the lover's riddle: How should the warrior decide now?
In a short, fun pourquoi story, God entrusted Bat with a basket full of darkness, to deliver it to the Moon. On the way Bat fell asleep, and curious monkeys opened the basket, letting the night loose. Ever since them, Bat has been frantically flying around at night, trying to collect the darkness.

Connections

Binyoka, the Old Woman of the Water helped a girl named Hallah when she made a mistake and threw herself into a lake in her shame. She sunk down into the land of water spirits, where she met the Old Woman. Binyoka rewarded the girl's patience and kindness with gemstones, and made sure she found a good husband. This story reminded me of that of Frau Holle, without the "unkind girl" repetition. There was also a tale very similar to the European "handless maiden" stories - here, a girl was mutilated and chased away by her evil brother. When she was exiled into the wilderness for a second time, her father's blessing and the friendly forest snakes helped her turn her fate around.
The story of The Three Prayers reminded me of all the "three wishes" tales - a husband first wished his ugly wife to be pretty, then, when she was taken from him, he wished her to be a monkey, then when he got her back he wished her to go back to her original self. In the end, however, he concluded that he could be just as happy with an ugly wife.
As for tricksters: I was reminded of the Tar Baby stories by the tale in which a lazy thief was captured with the help of a bowl of fu-fu (and hot peppers). In the end, the thief was chased out of the village, and his wife, who wished for a better husband, became the second wife of the fu-fu's owner. There was also a version of the classic story in which a boy rescued a crocodile, and it wanted to eat him in return. Everyone they asked claimed that it is usual for good deeds to be rewarded with bad, until a chief came along and saved the boy.

Where to next?
Burkina Faso!

Humor and hard lessons (Following folktales around the world 113. - Liberia)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Grains of Pepper
Folktales from Liberia
Edythe Rance Haskett
The John Day Company, 1967.

The book contains twenty-five folktales collected and retold by an American woman for American children, so that she could show a glimpse of the storytelling tradition of Liberia. In the introduction we can read a little about the country's history, and at the end there is a list of Liberian proverbs. The colorful illustrations are pretty neat, and I found a lot of fun stories in this collection.

Highlights

In the tale of Sima and the crocodile, a crocodile kidnapped Sima's wife and daughter - he, in return, stole the animal's skin when it went to play cards in its human form. The story had some fun rhyming dialogues. Similarly fun, although with a dark ending, was the story of the Catfish, whose bird friend lent him some feathers so they could fly up and steal palm wine from trees together. Sadly, when the owner of the trees appeared, the bird took its feathers back and escaped, leaving the catfish behind. This was not the only fun-and-dark story in the book either. Another one explained Why yam and cassava grow underground - apparently because they used to march around villages, making rude noises and disturbing people with their "frisky dancing", until people found out they are edible, and they had to go into hiding. Similarly, we got to learn about how Leopard bullied Dog about his noisy eating habits at an animal feast - and that is why dog lives with the humans now.

I liked the underlying message of The dicot tree and the deer - the tree refused to hide a deer, saying it was not his problem, even though the deer pointed out that whatever could kill him would also kill the tree. He turned out to be right: After killing the deer, the hunter wanted to make a drum from the skin, so he chopped the tree down as well. As far as morals went, the most adorable was that of The king of the monkeys, in which an ugly bird hid underground in a hole, and made the monkeys believe that it was a terrifying monster. It was the baby monkeys who found out that their leader is in fact nothing but an ugly, thieving creature. (Ahem.)
I liked the genderswapped dilemma tale of The four wives, who all saved their husband in their own way - one ran away with him, one fed him, one led him out of the woods, and one protected him. At the end of the story, the teller asks the audience: Whose help was the most important?
I liked the local beliefs about The Wuuni who ate nine evil spirits. The Wuuni is an invisible creature that can be summoned by magic that devours bad spirits. The interesting part of the story was when they put the spirit on trial, and figured out why it turned evil after its death, due to its family's bad treatment.
The most unexpected turn happened in the story of Disobedient Hawa. She was warned not to fish in a certain river - but she did anyway, and managed to escape the bad spirits dwelling in the water. The story set an unexpected moral: The girl's disobedience to the old rules was what saved her starving family's live.

Connections

There was a beautiful variant for the tale type of the handsome suitor (here titled Tola and the Sea Monster). Here the monster pretended to be perfect by borrowing the sea goddess' smooth skin. The girl was saved by her ugly yet clever magician brother, who turned into a fly and followed her into the underwater realms.
I found a more complete version of a tale I read from Guinea-Bissau. A father could not decide which one of four suitors should get his daughter, so he made three copies of her out of a dog, a cat, and a rooster - they became the ancestors of different personalities.
There was, yet again, a Magic Flight story, and also a version of Cinderella with a male protagonist.
The resident trickster was definitely Hare. He asked for wisdom from Man (I have seen this type in Africa and the Caribbean before), but when he fulfilled all set tasks with trickery, he was told he already has enough wisdom to go around. There was also the classic story of Hare riding Leopard like a horse to win the hand of Miss Deer. In another tale it was the monkeys who fooled Leopard, who tried to trick them into being his dinner.

Where to next?

Ivory Coast!

When birds talked and trees walked (Following folktales around the world 112. - Sierra Leone)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Tales from Sierra Leone
Mohammed Yassin
Oxford University Press, 1967.

The book contains fifteen folktales, probably retold, but no introduction or notes of any kind. It has black-and-while illustrations, which are pretty. Most of the tales are short, and they usually end with morals that are sometimes surprising to the European reader, but I found many of the stories delightful.



Highlights

There was a surprisingly chill and optimistic love story in the book, from the time when birds could talk. A young warrior fell in love with the favorite wife of a chief; when the affair came to light, he fled into the woods. Listening to the chatter of birds, he found some treasure, and started a new life - and he simply waited until the chief died before he married his love.
There was a fascinating tale about how a village lost its treasures that were given to them by the spirits who lived in a nearby lake. Every year, in exchange for sacrifices, the spirits piled pots, clothes, weapons, etc. on the lake shore - provided no musicians came near them. A proud priest broke the rule when he went to the lake with a full entourage of musicians - and the spirits took all their gifts back.

I also liked the story of the ram and the leopard, mostly for its moral. The leopard, right-paw man to king lion, tried to ruin the ram's reputation at court with lies. Ram was supported by his friend hyena, who kept encouraging him to stand up for himself. In the end, it came to a fight, and ram defeated leopard, although hyena held him back in the last minute to keep him from actually killing leopard. The moral of the story stated that it is foolish to dislike someone just because your superior likes them...


I was surprised and delighted by the motif of the walking tree that elected village leaders by walking in front of them. When the appropriate candidates were not present, the tree waited motionless until they showed up.

Connections

The tale type of the "three magic objects" appeared in its original dilemma tale form here. It featured four twins who set out to see the world, and learned magic skills in another village - next to the usual far-sight, flight, and healing, the fourth brother learned how to make lands fertile. After saving their father's life and wealth together, the storyteller posed the question: which brother deserved the most praise?
The story of the lion and the mouse (rat) had an unusual ending. Here, the rat did rescue the lion from a trap, but in return the lion roared at him and stomped away. The moral of the story was that the strong can often be ungrateful.

Where to next?
Liberia!

The epics of the Mande (Following folktales around the world 111. - Guinea)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Once again, it was really hard to locate stories from Guinea (at least in the languages I speak), so I went looking for epics, and found some excerpts in this book. The book contains two epics recorded in Guinea, both from the Mande tradition, and while it did not give the whole text in either case, it did have some intriguing scene selections, and background information.


Almami Samori Touré

The eponymous hero of the epic was a 19th century warrior chief who resisted French colonization, and conquered his own empire in the region of modern day Guinea. His epic was narrated by a Mande story-singer named Sory Fina Kamara, who focused on the conquest, rather than the resistance.
Much like in the epic I read for Senegal, the hero here also had an active childhood, leading other children into trouble. Djinn also once again made an appearance - in this case, twin djinn women, who gifted a musket to the hero. They turned into snakes and wrapped themselves around him, extracting a promise that he would not attacked people who were served by their djinn relatives. The epic also featured a female hero: One-breasted Demba. She fell in love with Samori's brother and kept sending him food, which made Samori suspect that his brother was betraying him. To prove his innocence, the brother marched into battle unarmed, and was killed. Demba then put on her brother's clothes, and marched into battle herself, to take revenge for the death of her lover.

Musadu

Musadu is not a hero, it's a city, founded by a slave named Zo Musa, and later conquered by a Mande hero named Foningama. The founding of the city happened sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries, while the hero lived in the 16th, so it is likely that the two epics were combined into one later on. The epic was recorded from a university professor named Moiké Sidibe, himself a descendant of Foningama.
The epic opens with a familiar trope: Foningama is his father's youngest child, and yet his father selects him to receive his blessing and medicine. This angers his older brother's, who try to get rid of him.

Where to next?
Sierra Leone!

Classics and morals (Following folktales around the world 110. - Guinea-Bissau)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Sadly, Guinea-Bissau is another one of those countries that I could not find a story book from, so I delved into the Internet, and used my knowledge of Spanish and Latin (and some Google Translate) to find as many folktales as I could.

The hyena, the hare, and the holly (From this book)

A classic tar baby tale. Hare keeps stealing fish from Hyena's fish trap, replacing them with toads. Eventually, hyena becomes suspicious, and creates a stick figure covered in sticky holly (?) syrup - and Hare, like every other trickster ever, falls for the trick.

I was born in the fire (From this book)

Hare keeps stealing from Hyena's peanut plantation, until Hyena manages to construct a trap that catches him. However, when Hyena wants to throw Hare into the fire, the thief insists that he is fireproof, because he was born in it (showing his red eyes as proof). He begs the Hyena not to throw him in the tall grass instead, and Hyena falls for the deception.

The legend of African drums (Bijago tale, from here)

The spot-nosed monkeys decide that they want to go to the moon. They stand on each other's shoulders, until the smallest monkey reaches the moon. However, the pile topples, and the little monkey gets stuck up there. Moon gives him a drum to keep him entertained, but eventually he becomes homesick, and wants to return to earth. Moon lets him down on a rope, telling him to strike the drum when he's arrived. The bored monkey begins drumming halfway down, Moon lets go of the rope, and monkey falls, landing among some humans. He hands the drum to the humans - and we have had drums ever since.

The hunter and the crocodile (From here)

Classic tale about a hunter that rescues a crocodile, and it wants to eat him in return. They go to various animals for justice, and they all side with crocodile - except for Hare, who tricks the beast into going back into the trap, and saves the hunter's life.

The race between monkey and tortoise (From here)

Another classic, an animal race tale: here, tortoise leaves bananas along the road, and monkey keeps getting distracted.

Vulture and falcon (From here)

Falcon makes fun of vulture because he doesn't hunt. Later on, however, falcon flies into a tree, and is suddenly grateful that vulture doesn't eat live animals. Once he is dead, vulture eats him, getting the last laugh.

Tedungal Djamanu (From here)

A very honest young man sets out to find a wife. He is starving along the road, so he eventually steals a mango - then he feels so bad about it that he finds the owner of the tree, and offers compensation. The owner demands that the young man marry his deaf, mute, blind, leper daughter. The young man agrees to keep his promise - and it all turns out to be a test.

The curious bird (From here)

The owl forces a bird to serve him by threatening it with his "horns" (feathers). One day, he gets drunk and passes out, and the curious bird finds out the truth.

Two borthers (From here)

An Ali Baba type tale, with a clever and a stupid brother.

The shoemaker king (From here)

A kingdom selects its ruled based on exactly how tall the candidates are. A poor shoemaker fits the height perfectly.

A promise kept (From here)

A man sets tasks for the suitors of his daughter. They have to cross a river without getting wet. All three suitors solve the problem in miraculous ways - and since the father can't decide between them, he creates three daughters out of one, so that they each win a wife.

Nafa Munharé (From here)

A king has two beautiful but mean wives, and he is told that he will only have children when he marries an ugly woman. The three sons eventually grow up and set out to seek their fortune, but the two older ones torture the youngest until he is left alone to die. Listening in on the conversations of vultures, he learns important secrets, becomes rich, and lives happily ever after.

Mam Tamba and the buffalo (From here)

Mam Tamba, the hunter, kills a buffalo. The calf of the buffalo sets out to avenge his mother, turns into a human, and moves into the hunter's home as a guest. As he watches the hunter and his children, slowly he takes a liking to them, forgives them, and before returning home, reveals his secret to Mam Tamba.

The two rivals (From here)

Kind and unkind girls, with a snake.

I also found some criole anecdotes.

Where to next?
Guinea!

Hare and trickery (Following folktales around the world 109. - The Gambia)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Folktales from The Gambia
Wolof fictional narratives
Emil A. Magel
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1984.

The book features 45 Wolof folktales, collected in The Gambia between 1973-74. They are organized by structure, which was kind of fascinating (e.g. "statement-parallel-conclusion" type stories), although less useful than organizing by tale types. The Introduction talks about Wolof history, culture, storytelling, story structure, and other interesting topics. Each story came with ample end notes, and there is also a bibliography.

Highlights

One of my favorite stories in the book was featured in two variants, under the awkward title The marriage of two masters of the Wolof language. It was about a girl who was so clever and eloquent that she confused all of her suitors - and a young man smart enough to understand her. They communictaed through references and metaphors, and she even rescued him from bandits in the end, thanks to a mysterious message he sent.

Wolof warriors

I also liked the story of the young man who was searching for a friend. He met another chief's son and they became best friends - however, our hero started an affair with his best friend's stepmother, the youngest wife of his father. When the father discovered the affair, the friend came to the rescue with a clever lie.
There were many tales with morals, where the wrong behavior was duly punished, such as the story of a greedy father, who hid food from his hungry family. He even pretended to be dead, so that he would be buried near the food. He was eventually found out by his son, and turned into vines out of shame.
I also enjoyed the fun tale of the donkeys of Jolof. Their king turned into a man and started a human family, until all the donkeys turned into people too, and went drumming and singing, looking for their ruler to bring him home.

Connections

There was once again a snake husband (Handsome suitor) tale; I read one of these from Mali, and while these variants lacked the helpful little sister, they still had the warning message about things that look too good to be true. Another familiar African motif was the wife who was secretly a beast (in this case, a hyena). I remember an African-American folktale similar to that of the Eternal lovers - a ram and an ewe. The ram was captured by a king, cooked, and eaten, but it kept singing to his wife all along, even from the king's stomach, until they eventually cut him out of there. I also knew the tale type of Hare seeks endowements from Caribbean traditions - the hare trickster wanted more cunning from Allah, but once he completed all the tricky tasks in exchange, Allah decided he had plenty of cunning to spare already.
Of course, there was yet another "kind and unkind girls" type tale, here it was the Mother of Wild Animals who doled out gifts and punishment. Kumba, the orphan girl, poked the wild animals with needles at night, so that they would think there were fleas in the bed, and leave her alone.

The trickster in residence was definitey Hare, who usually tricked Hyena - rode him like a horse, saved a helpful hippo from him, or got him punished for stealing ostrich eggs from inside a tree (a very popular tale among story therapists, the Secret Heart of the Tree, is very similar to this one). I knew the story of the Bearded Rock as an Anansi tale from Ghana, but this one was a bit darker: any animal that said "that rock has a beard!" died immediately, and Hare gleefully used up all their meat.

Where to next?
Guinea-Bissau!

The Epic of Kelefaa Sane (Following folktales around the world 108. - Senegal)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Since, despite my best efforts, I could not find a book of folktales from Senegal, I decided to read a folk epic instead.

The Epic of Kelefaa Saane
Sirifo Camara
Indiana University Press, 2010.

The Mandinka epic that is presented in this book in Mandinka and English mirror translation is about the great 19th century hero, Kelefaa Saane, who protected the kingdom of Kaabu (currently parts of Senegal and Gambia) from a foreign invasion. The epic is more than 3200 lines long (took two and a half hours to sing), and was recorded from a griot (jalóol) named Sirifo Camara in Dakar in 1987. The storyteller passed away in 2003, but he expressed his wishes that his story be made available in print to a wider audience. This is the longest version of this epic recorded so far. Kelefaa Saane is presented as a great and powerful warrior - he is a historical character, but we don't know much about his life from historical sources.
The book has a detailed Introduction with maps, photograps, and historical-cultural context about African epics. We can also read about the life of Sirifo Camara, who sang various hero epics, and performed on the radio for decades. This performance of his was being sold on casette tapes at the market. The translator admits that he could not reproduce the original alliterations, rhymes and rhythms. The book comes with pronounciation guides and notes for the Mandinka text.

Highlights

I really enjoyed the scene where djinn visited the newborn hero in the shape of various animals, to give him powers - the chameleon djinn gave him the ability to change (which he used later to hide from a shapeshifting enemy), and the monitor lizard gave him the power to live both in water and on land. I also liked the part where Kelefaa met a pack of hyenas, and convinced them (and their female leader) he was not afraid of them, so they elected him as their leader, and gave him magical gifts in the hopes of getting a lot of meat under his leadership.
One of my favorite moments of the epic was when a djinn girl fell in love with the young hero while he was herding sheep in the woods. She asked him if he'd fear her if she showed her true form, and he asked her to show herself in any form she wanted. After a series of shapeshifting, Kelefaa told the djinn that he was not scared of her. They got married.

Connections

Like in the case of many other heroes around the world, the father of Kelefaa Saane doesn't live to see his son grow up. Fulfilling a prophecy, he dies before he can name his son (this reminded me of Fionn Mac Cool's father). There is also a magic weapon featured in the epic - in this case, in a modern fashion, a magic gun with a magic tracking-and-returning bullet, taken out of the mouth of a crocodile (or rather, a sorcerer turned into a crocodile). Shapsehifting was an important part of the story; Kelefaa defeated his own uncle, the king, in a shapeshifting fight.

Where to next?
The Gambia!

Tricksters and oceans (Following folktales around the world 107. - Cape Verde)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Folk-lore from the Cape Verde Islands
Elsie Clews Parsons
American Folk-Lore Society, 1923.

Elsie Clews Parsons was a very prolific collector; I read a lot of her books for the Caribbean countries. The 133 folktales in this book were collected by her from Cape Verde immigrants settled in the US. At the beginning of the 20th century, they formed closed communities, often separated by island even in their new home. Parsons collected the tales with the help of a Cape Verde interpreter, who first translated them to standard Portuguese, and then to English. Storytelling was a community event that Parsons participated in. She recorded variants for most of the stories, and each one comes with abundant footnotes and comments, pointing out the variations in plot and motif.

Highlights

One of my favorite stories in the book was the tale of The girl who would dance. I liked it for its symbolism: A girl was chased away from home because she wanted to dance all the time and do nothing else. She allowed a seven-headed dragon into her new home, who kidnapped her. She sang a desperate song, asking for help from her parents, godparents, and friends, but everyone told her to give in, this was the fate of women. Eventually, her olderst friend rescued her when she asked, and she ended up sharing his house, living together "as brother and sister." Another favorite was The magic ship and the three temptresses. In this one, the middle son (!) was the hero; he was also mute, and communicated with everyone in writing. He set out for Australia on a ship, got into a naval battle with a mysterious vessel that surfaced from below the ocean, traveled to the underwater realm, found a wife, lost her, rescued her again, and even got his voice back.
Among the many trickster tales in the book, I enjoyed the one about Uncle Caramba, and how he made a transatlantic trip by tricking people into thinking he was an excellent sailor, champion swimmer, and fortune-teller - while he didn't actually do any work. 
Good Maria and Bad Maria was a fascinating variant of the Kind and Unkind Girls tale type. Here, Good Maria was rewarded with the power that "her smile summoned clouds, and her laughter brought rain", while Bad Maria was punished so that "her smile summoned wind, her laughter brought a storm." I'm not sure which one is better or worse.
One of the most amusing stories in the book was that of The things that talked - namely, a fig tree, a dog, and a stick, effectively freaking out some humans just for fun.

Connections

Parsons points out in the introduction that the Cape Verde folktale repertoire mostly features internationally known tale types, and many of them are familiar to the European reader. The book features many classics such as Ali Baba (and the Seven robbers), the Seven Kids (although there were only three of them, and an ant saved them from the wolf's belly), Three kidnapped princesses (here rescued by a hero raised by a donkey), Treasures of the giant (Frigajonsi), Extraordinary helpers (three of them, who rescued a girl who married a serpent), Three gifts (with a mirror that showed the past, very useful), Magic Flight (several variants), Fish lover (last time I encountered this was in the Caribbean), Brementown musicians, Fortunatus (who killed off the whole royal family in the end), King's hares (the very adult version), Golden-haired hardener (raised by a shark), Dancing princesses (rejected by the hero, but one of the tales actually listed all the dances!), Man in search of his luck (or rather, a woman, visiting the Mother of the Sun), and Magician's Apprentice.
Of course this book did not lack animals running a race - one variant featured a mollusk and a dolphin, while another had turtle and gazelle.
The resident tricksters were Wolf and his Nephew - Wolf was usually tricked by his clever nephew, although in some cases he was the smart one. A human trickster (and liar) named Little John also appeared in multiple stories. There were many classic trickster tale types, such as the Tar Baby, and the one where Rabbit got Elephant and Whale (or Elephant and Wolf) to play tug-o-war.

Where to next?
Senegal!