Author Description

An eminent folklorist here presents a rich repository of materials on the theory and practice of African folklore studies. This volume opens with an extended essay by Richard M. Dorson, 'Africa and the Folklorist,' in which he indicates the potentialities for investigating African cultures through the concepts of folklore. The second part includes sixteen papers by leading Africanists in the fields of folklore, literature, linguistics, and anthropology. They deal with such topics as folktales, myth, epic songs, proverbs, tongue-twisters, story tellers, folk drama, and drug visions. Part III consists of folktales and other verbal folklore in translation, from the Sudan, Liberia, Ghana, Malik, Cameroun, Gabon, and South Africa. All but two tales were tape recorded in the field by contributors to this volume.