Title: The Cow-Tail Switch: And Other West African Stories
Author: Harold Courlander, Madye Lee Chastain, and George Herzog
Pages: 160
Finished: November 3, 2018
Summary: A collection of folktales from West Africa ranging from the thoughtful to the ridiculous.
Thoughts: A couple months ago, I read the book Redemption in Indigo which is based off a Senegalese folk-tale. Of course, the book didn't say which tale it was based on, so I had to do some hunting. Which led me to a tale called Ansige Karoumba The Glutton that was in this book.
Turns out, Ansige Karoumba is only the first quarter of Redemption in Indigo. But I did read the rest of the stories. And wow.
First of all, stories like this are interesting to read. West African has a lovely oral story tradition usually accompanied with music. So to write the stories down immediately changes them. (It's also why most Grimm tales might feel stilted. They're essentially edited transcriptions of oral tales.) Of course you had the trickster tales with characters such as Anansi. There were tales explaining the reaosn why things are the way they are. And there were the tales to make you think abou tthings. At times, I felt there was a culture gap. Some of them just seemed downright ridiculous, but I don't know how much of that was due to a culture gap or due to the fact that it was an oral story stuck on a page.
Overall, I'm glad I was able to add some new stories to my repertoire.
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