One review per month. At least.

A Reviews section has been added to the site. I've started off with two reviews:

• Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale by Verna Aadema, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon
• Sikulu and Harambe by the Zambezi River: An African version of the Good Samaritan Story, by Kunle Ogunneye and illustrated by Bruce McCorkindale

Since I'm so busy - my perennial excuse for not updating this site - I won't be surprised if you wonder if I will keep up the reviews. So I'm setting a goal and I'm doing it publicly.

I will do at least ONE review per month

A modest goal. Almost too simple. So I must not disappoint. Right? In fact, I feel it's a goal I can exceed except I remember that I planned to begin the reviews last November... Still, an easy to meet goal. I only hope I will not run out of material to review too quickly.

Girl in drum, gourd seeds, do these ring a bell?

Do you recall a folktale about a greedy boy, his sister and gourd seeds? Or one about a monster who traps a girl in a drum? A reader, Mary, is looking for some folktale volumes she had read as a kid. Here's her note and my response.

Mary said: I learned to read from a series of collected fables African fables,
Aesop's fables, etc. They were old rebound volumes in 1978. they were short
children's stories and had black/white wood cutting illustrations. I would love
to find out if these texts are still available. As far as the stories: I remember one about a girl whose parents died and her greedy brother took all the family goods and left only the hut. She found a gourd seed in the hut, planted it, and made a living selling gourds. The brother came back and was enraged that she "stole" from him and took the gourds, even cutting off her hand when she tried to protect them. I can't remember how it ends. I also remember a story about monster who traps a girl with a beautiful voice in his drum and makes her sing whenever he beats the drum. A prince found out about the girl and helped her escape, putting bees in the drum. When the monster beat the drum and it didn't sing, he opened it to beat the girl but instead the enraged bees flew out and stung the monster to death. Ringing any bells?

I said: Do you recall the title of any these books? I'm not familiar with the stories you mentioned. However, the one about the girl trapped in a drum does ring a bell. But it's a different version of the story. I recall a story where Ijapa (Tortoise) traps a boy with a beautiful singing voice in a drum. I can't remember how the boy came to be trapped in the first place or the rest of the story but I'm sure Ijapa suffered for his deceit as usual. I'm sorry I'm unable to help but I really appreciate you sharing these tidbits. Who knows, perhaps another reader recognizes these stories.

If these stories do ring a bell for you, please share your memories. Thanks.

Take a 5 minute survey

A short 5 minute survey is up at surveymonkey to help provide some insight into reader's needs.

I've wondered, ever since the first visitors trickled into allfolktales.com, "who visits my site?". Are they kids reading folktales for fun? Or are they reading for an assignment? Are they teachers? Are they parents? What are they really looking for when they stumble on this site?

I've received hints through readers who send me notes to ask questions or just to encourage my efforts. But I've never sought to get complete answers. Now, some 2 years and 10 months later, it finally occurs to me to ask. Just ask. So I headed over to surveymonkey.com and created a survey. And I'm asking you, allfolktales readers, to please participate in the survey.

What to do with survey results
You may be wondering, "what do you intend to do with the information"?

I mentioned in my last blog post that I have dreams for allfolktales.com. I'm ready to take this site to the next level. I'm overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I'm dreaming of, but intend to take it one step at a time, closer to that dream. While figuring out how to take the next big step, I intend to work on all those little details that I have ignored - a tweak here and a tweak there.

While tweaking here and there, I want to be sure that I keep you in mind. What do you need from this site? What do you use today? How can this site serve you better? How can I know if I do not ask? So I'm asking you to please take the survey and let me know allfolktales can serve you better?

Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to help. And thank you for visiting allfolktales.com

- Omowunmi

Putting my vision out here

For months now, I've been thinking about where I want to take this site, what I want to do next. I'm having a hard time recalling more stories, so is that it? Does that signify the end of this project? "No no no." It can't end like this. Something in me rebels against that thought. But what to do? I don't know. Or, I didn't know.

In the past few weeks, my thoughts are beginning to crystallize into a clearer vision. But it is a vision greater than myself. Greater than my limitations. "What are my limitations?" I decided I will not let those, real or imagined, hamper my vision. I will go about making it happen.

I started allfolktales.com because of my daughter. I wanted to share these stories with her. She's turning five now and reading on her own. I want her to read the stories. I have a son who's one, and soon, I want him the site to be a resource for him too. I want kids to be able to read folktales on the site.

That's the essense of my vision. You can't write for kids and not have pictures. But alas, I don't know how to draw! This inability had loomed large from the onset. Back in June 2006, I cited a lack of colorful illustrations as one of the primary reasons I found it difficult recalling the folktales I heard and read when I was young. That statement should have informed my vision. I thought about it, I wished it, but concluded, "I cannot draw". I decided to focus on what I could do - collect the stories. Collection will be ongoing, for as long as I can find a new story, but it's time to shift my focus. Except, did I already mention, I cannot draw?

But I have now decided, my vision will not be limited by me. In the past, I was reluctant to publicize my goals for the site because I thought to myself, "what if I can't do it?", "what if I don't have the time?" etc. Those thoughts still plague me, but I'm ignoring them. And I'm taking the next step, one step at a time, to go where I need to go. And hopefully, if I find myself giving up, someone will read this post and set me straight again.

Now to my next step - figure out how to find an illustrator.

Lyrics to the story of the three brothers and pot of porridge

I am very excited to receive an email from a reader, Enitan. She (I'm assuming she) sent me an email with lyrics to the story of the three brothers and the pot of porridge and she says the name of the youngest brother, yeah, the culprit, is Tegbe. The song goes like this:

`To ba se pe emi ni mo je koko arugbo (If I ate the koko yam)
Ko'kun o gbe mi, (Let the ocean take me)
K'Osa ko gba mi, (Let the sea take me)
Ke ma ri Tegbe ko ku o.
Tegbe.`(chorus)

In the version on the website, I interpreted okun as sea. Enitan interpretes it as ocean. I didn't have osa. Enitan interpretes that as "sea: as in Lagos". Could it also mean Lagoon since Lagos is surrounded by those?

I speak Yoruba but I'm no literary expert in the language. It isn't easy translating from one language to another. My feeble attempts on this site has given me a healthy dose of respect for Wole Soyinka's translation of D.O. Fagunwa's Ogboju ode ninu igbo irumale into A Forest of a Thousand Daemons.

Enitan, thanks for stopping by and dropping a note.

Collective amnesia on folktales

There's an African folktale that tells the tale of how all the stories in the world were lost, and then recovered. I can't recall this tale in detail but think one of the Magic Cellar episodes was based on it. Or maybe I read the story somewhere.

Perhaps the story illustrates an actual event - one where the entire (village?) populace forgot their stories or history and needed a concerted effort to recall the lost memories. Perhaps it illustrates a fear that the oral histories can get lost and served to reinforce the importance of passing on the stories. (Too bad it didn't drive the development of some sort of writing.)

Today, there's a collective amnesia around the African folktales I grew up with. I thought it was just me...I almost remember the stories but they're just out of my grasp. I think if I think deeply enough, they will come back. So I throw out the little bits I remember and ask others to fill in the holes. I see eyes light up as they remember the story...they think they remember but then the story is just out of their grasp.

I've observed this often enough that I now expect it. "Oh, I will remember that one!", they say. "Shoot me an email to remind me. I will write it out and send it to you." End of story.

Stories from Alawiye

Phetolo wrote to ask "May u pls send me the origin of the story about how the chimpanzees bottom got swollen and red."


Well, this was one of the stories that I remembered just a small fragment of, but I clearly remember where I knew the story from. It was one of the stories that I learned from Alawiye (by J.F. Odunjo), the textbook that we used for Yoruba when I was in primary school. I can't remember if it was from apa kini, apa keji or apa keta (part 1, part 2 or part 3). But all I could remember from the story was Su dundun which my best effort translated to "Give me sweet feces."


One of the first books I intended to get were the Alawiye series, so I asked my sister in Nigeria to get them for me. She told me that the books she saw did not have "all those stories". I still haven't obtained a copy and I haven't verified that statement.


Someone else eventually refreshed my memory of this story. Thank you Id.


As far as story origin, it's from the Yoruba people of West Africa (that's why it was in a Yoruba textbook, right?)

Alu Jon Jonki Jon

One of the earliest stories I posted is the story about how Dog hid his mother in the sky during a famine. There's a song that goes with that story and I can't remember why I left it out. I've now updated the story to include the song.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti (late Nigerian Afrobeat musician) used it in one of his songs and you can listen to that clip on BBC. The story is narrated on that page, but it is the Tortoise who hides his mother in heaven. Perhaps this is a different version but Fela and I both agree that it was the Dog who hid his mother in heaven. He sings "Aja gbe ti e, o d'orun" (meaning "Dog has taken his mother to the sky.") Oh, don't ask me what "Alu jon jonki jon" means. I have no idea.

Not quite slow and steady

The Aesop story of the Tortoise and the Hare is a very popular one and it teaches us that "Slow and steady wins the race". However, when I was growing up, there was another version that was also popular where Tortoise won by tricking Hare.

I tried to come up with a short phrase/adage/wise words that perhaps explains the moral of this 'win by trickery' version (which I also think predates the Aesop's version). So I've got,

"Never say never"

"It's not over till it's over"

"It's not brawn but brains"

"Cross all your 'T's and dot all your 'I's" (obviously running out at this point)

Mosquito and Ear

I was told the story of why mosquitos buzz in people's ears over a year ago but I didn't want to post it until I read the book that goes by the same title (by Verna Aardema). After all, I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism in case the stories were the same. Well, how could they be the same? I ordered the book and read it and it's a very interesting story but completely different from my mine. Oh well, except for the title.

Just like the multitude of stories about the tortoise's broken back, I wonder if there's a similar multitude about the mosquito and its ferocious habit of buzzing in people's ears. (Perhaps the habit can be logically explained: the mosquito's buzz is only heard when it's near the ears. But this is a folktale site - logic out.)

I forgot to ask the person who told me this story who Ear married after ridiculing Mosquito. If you know, please share.

Sikulu and Harambe

Sikulu the spider and Harambe the hippo are two characters developed by Kunle Oguneye. The first book in the series, Sikulu and Harambe by the Zambezi river: An African version of the Good Samaritan Story should be published in July 2008.





Now, I haven't read the story, but I'm already won over by the cover illustration. I hope it is representative of illustrations throughout the book. One of the reasons I believe I cannot remember many of the folktales I heard growing up is because the stories were not reinforced
with images (pictures or movies). Most of the books on African folktales lacked visual appeal so it is exciting to see that changing.

I wish Kunle Oguneye all the best with his book. I would love to be able to preview a few pages of the book but the "click here to read the book" link did not quite work for me. If you visit the site, check out the video of the author - he explains his inspiration for the characters - and I really like his concept. If the stories are well written, I easily see those characters becoming a hit with children.

Note: In my last post, I referred to a third email that I would address in another post...this is it.

A short note to say I will be back...

It took about 5 months for me to quit feeling guilty about not even trying to post a new story or say something on the blog. Initially, I blamed the site inactivity on various things - laptop crashed and I replaced it with a desktop instead of another laptop, then I moved to a new city, have a new 'busier' job and now a new baby. When SOLOMONSYDELLE said "Haba, update nah!", I was long gone. And I chose not to respond because I thought it was better to be gone than to make up more excuses. I had excuses (perhaps), but maintaining this site is something I continued to think about.

For a while, I checked emails from the website and it was a chore because it became all about deleting spam. So I stopped. And the longer I went without checking, the more I dreaded the spamfest I would encounter if I did. Last Friday, I decided to log in and do some mass deletes, but some emails caught my attention. One from Soyini was very encouraging. Soyini said

I have just discovered your website, and I have read your reasons for not submitting more stories.
I love the ones you posted so far...they remind me of the stories my grandfather use to tell us from his rocking chair on the front porch of his big house down in Americus, Georgia.
Please continue the stories...I read them to children in my youth program.
Some of us are called to do whatever we do...think about it...following your calling, you will not regret it.

Who wouldn't want to continue posting stories after reading that? Thanks Soyini!

To Ezinwoke who wanted to know if he could contribute stories...your stories would be most welcome. Just email me the story and I'll post it to the site. To your second question about reusing stories...the stories are 'public domain' AFAIK. The stories have been retold over and over in different fashions and you can retell in your own words. But if you reuse a story 'as is', then you need to cite the source - allfolktales.com. Note that this only applies to the stories written by me. If it was contributed by another author, their own rules will apply.

There's a third email that I will address in another blog post. If I missed your email in my mass delete frenzy, I apologize. And I thank you for writing.

The tortoise shares his igbako

I posted a new story last night - The tortoise and the igbako. In line with other tortoise stories, the tortoise gets greedy and is subsequently punished. But I feel the punishment is unfair in this case since the tortoise was trying to feed every animal during a famine - an admirable act even if his goal was self-aggrandisement. The water goddess who supplied the magic igbako didn't give a reason why tortoise should keep igbako secret, so the need to feed fellow animals would have trumped obeying the goddess's wish.

In case you're wondering, the igbako is a Yoruba word for a food utensil traditionally carved out from a calabash (there are plastic equivalents now). It's used to serve local dishes such as eba, iyan and amala - they all have a consistency like stiff mashed pototoes.

Working up the will

I've been away from allfolktales.com for 2 months now. And even before that there was a dwindling down of activity. Well, moving did take more energy than I expected but I'm way past that. Already settled into the new job and new environment for some time now...but yet I found it difficult to work up the energy will to post a new story or comment. It wasn't for lack of energy or lack of time, I just did not feel like doing it. And yet I felt so guilty (not sure why). It's like exercising (at least, for me). I start a regimen, maintain the pace and energy for weeks, then miss some days and the frequency will begin to dwindle until there's exercise no more...and I'm left with guilt...until I work up the will to begin again.

I thank everyone who's stopped by to read stories or leave comments (in the blog and through email) and I apologize for responding so late.

Now, I hope this post here will break me out of my writing stupor.

Away...moving

I've been away from this website for a long while now but for a good reason. I have been very busy rounding up at work, packing, getting ready to move to a new city and a new job. Exciting. But stressful.

So before I pack my computer in a box, I thought I should explain why I have been silent...especially since a few people have posted comments on the blog. I'll be responding to those (and emails) once I'm all settled down. (In less than 2 weeks I hope).

Back to packing...

New stories: Olomuroro and stolen aroma

I am trying to catch up on writing folktales I have been told and have just posted two new ones. The first is about Olomuroro and the second about a woman who stole the aroma from her neighbor's soup.

Olomuroro is a Yoruba word that literally translates into 'one with droopy breasts' but I have no idea what that has to do with the story. Olomuroro is a monster who stole a boys meals while the boy grew thinner. The name is perhaps a visual of what this monster supposedly looked like. I had never heard this story before but the person who narrated it to me said she always pictured of an ugly creature with huge breasts that dragged on the floor. As I wrote the story, I also wondered if perhaps this monster represents a disease that afflicted children. One that stumped the child's growth and caused the child to get emanciated. I also couldn't help wondering if the name is descriptive of an afflicted child (or person/woman - maybe it's not even about children). Anyone know a disease that causes such an appearance i.e droopy breasts. If the name meant distended stomach, then the story may have been referring to kwashiorkor.

I also never heard the second story before and I find it to be funny and lighted-hearted. A woman seeks a 'court order' to keep her neighbor from 'eating' the aroma from her soup. I guess the moral of that story is "do not be petty."

One thing I must had on my mind as I wrote both these stories was Egusi soup. Egusi is the seeds from a melon plant. The seeds are dried, shelled, ground and cooked in palm oil with vegetables and tomatoes. Delicious.

Orunmila vs. Orisa Nla in the creation of the world

The creation myth of the Yoruba people is one of the earliest stories I posted to this website as it was one of those I 'remembered'. I always loved the story - the climbing down from heaven on a rope, the chicken (or lizard or chameleon - I have probably heard versions with these) spreading the earth which was contained in a calabash and especially one of the creators (Orunmila) getting drunk on the way and Oduduwa, his helper taking over his responsibilities. But do I have the participants in this creation myth wrong? I would like to thank the reader who wrote today to point out that possibility:

About your creation myth, I've heard this in several variations both in Nigeria and the diaspora, but never has Orunmila been involved, always Orisa Nla. As a bababalwo, I understand that Orunmila is Eleri Ipin (witness to creation), witness, but not the actual creator himself. I'm fair positive you might want to modify this story to reflect that. Can I ask where you heard this version?

In answer to that question, I am unable to cite a source. I wrote the story as remembered from numerous tellings and retellings (with slight variations) from many years ago. It is quite possible that I have the characters in the story switched up. He also suggested a book on the subject:

From a scholarly standpoint, a very good english version is in the book called "Olodumare: god in Yoruba belief" by Prof. E. Bolaji Idowu the former head of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria AND fomer head of the Methodist Mission in Nigeria. Though a christian, he was very interested in traditional thought/practices and did a very good job in the book of presenting the stories without a christian bias.

I will have to update the story as soon as possible and hope I have not mis-educated too many people in the interim. If you know other versions of the Yoruba creation myth, I would love to hear them - you can post in the comments here or send me a note.

One year of allfolktales.com in review

The first two stories were posted on allfolktales.com on February 13, 2006 and twenty-two other stories have followed. So it’s been one fun year of allfolktales.com and time to look back at the year.

The Beginning
I wanted to share folktales I heard while I was growing up with my daughter. I planned to buy folktale books during a trip to Nigeria in 2005 but did not find any. Don't get me wrong, there are quite a number of published folktale collections/storybooks, but I did not run into any at the few bookstores I visited. I was always directed to one of the larger bookstores in Lagos, but my cramped schedule (lots of family to visit) did not permit a deviation for this purpose. I was disappointed though that these smaller bookstores (which were conveniently located) were teeming with Western fairytale books and novels while African folktales genre seemed to be relegated to a specialty category.

I got back from Nigeria and decided I was going to write all the folktales I could remember. I was going to type them up in Word until I had a big collection then make my daughter her very own collection of folktales. I didn't. But the moment it occurred to me to post them online as opposed to a Word file, I got to work. Obviously, there's a better motivation mechanism at work online than there is offline. Whatever satisfaction I may have derived from sharing the stories collected with my daughter, I now enjoy multiples of it from sharing it online with everybody.


Gathering Stories
I created the site and it was time to post a few folktales. Then I hit a snag - I couldn't remember most of the stories. That slowed things down. Then I started to bug every Nigerian friend, demanding they tell me what they knew. But many are just like me. Initial response was often "Oh, Ijapa and co? I know lots!" and I get excited (digging out my pen and notepad) until I hear "Goodness, I can't remember!" Of course everybody remembers the Tortoise and the Hare, but I think that is thanks to Aesop. In fact, the Tortoise and the Hare was the first story I wrote, but I never posted it on the site because I was confused about its origin - Aesop or Africa? I will talk more about that later.

The first few months of allfolktales.com saw me being a pest. I talked about it all the time, I quizzed people on their folktale knowledge. Almost no folktale on the site is a complete recollection from me. Many have contributed - family and friends. And to you all, I say a big THANK YOU! Most of the stories were narrated to me and I did the writing, but some were fully works of others. There are two stories by Caxton Olumide Ohiomoba and two Ananse stories by Reverend Peter Addo. I truly appreciate those contributions.

Ads by Google
You will notice ads near the top of allfolktales pages. These ads are served by a program called Adsense. It's easy to sign up for one, so I did. They are contextual ads which means the program selects ads matching the content of page (by analyzing the words on the page), which is why it may offer ads to buy tortoise shells or buy a wig to someone reading How the tortoise became bald. Early on I thought of getting rid of the ads altogether but every now and then they do serve up relevant ads. Barring any other issues with the ads, I'll leave them in and perhaps I will receive a first check from google sometime in 2008 - something to reimburse some of my hosting costs.

Visitor Tracking
At the beginning, I would stare at weblogs almost every hour wondering why nobody was coming to read my stories, why I wasn't showing up in yahoo and google. MSN was the first to index alfolktales.com. I submitted the site to several free directories and eventually got indexed.
In April, I added analytics code to the site and was able to learn a lot about where people were coming from, what they were looking for (search strings) and what they did on the site. I have quit worrying about getting people to visit my site because, let's face it, not too many people out there looking for African folktales. And something analytics can't tell me is "who are allfolktales.com readers?". And why are they interested in African folktales? Storytellers? Kids? Africans in Diaspora? If you're a reader, please drop me a note.

Existential Confirmation
I read about Magic Cellar - first 3D animation based on African culture - and made a comment about it. The producer, Firdaus Kharas read it and sent me some episodes in response to my wish to see the program. I saw it, loved it, my daughter loved it and I wrote a review. This communication from Mr. Kharas was my first confirmation that somebody read my stories or blog as I would often wonder if any of the few visitors who trickled into my site read any of the stories or the blog or if anyone was interested in West African folktales.

There were a few other communications afterwards which I will expand upon in future posts. Be on the lookout for a post about Ijapa and who he really was - I received a mail about Prof Yemi Ogunyemi who has conducted studies on this popular Yoruba character.

Library
I now own a couple of books on African folktales and will discuss these in another post.

Plans for Year Two
Expect things to be slower around here. No, I do not mean your internet connection, but the frequency of updates to the site and blog. As I mentioned in an earlier post, personal and professional goals for 2007 are taking center stage in my life right now. I still have a few stories that were told to me and are waiting to be written and posted and hopefully soon.

There will also be some spring-cleaning site-cleaning. This will include reading through pages to correct errors (that's something I haven't done), adding songs (where they're missing); include aami (Yoruba accent marks) where the belong etc.

The Folktaler
Me,the folktaler who discovered she could not remember her folktales continues to have fun rediscovering these 'lost' tales along with others she never even knew existed.

Do we have big bad wolves?

Every fairytale lover is only too familiar with the big bad wolf. I had never come across this character in West African folklore though…at least, not until recently when I was told two separate stories by two separate people that involved ‘creatures’ which swallowed people who were later rescued by being cut out of the ‘creatures’ stomach.

Here is the first of those stories – the monster who had fire – and it was unclear in the original telling if this monster was a man with severe deformities and anger management issues or just a monster. In the story, I say he was the only one in the village who had fire but it wasn’t told to me that way. However, the villagers risked their lives to get fire from this man/monster/creature, so it must have been their only option. In which case, killing him must have put the villagers in a bad position…but it’s really fruitless (sometimes) to analyze these folktales.

Happy New Year, but it’s February

Happy New Year everybody! It’s already February and I am just making the first update in 2007 to this site. After my bunch of excuses for slow/irregular updates late last year and promises of many new stories to post, that seems pretty lame. I apologize.

The new year is a time of reflection and reprioritization, and that’s what I did. The result? Updating allfolktales.com dropped several notches in my priority rankings. Other personal and professional activities need more of my attention at this time and so be it. But allfolktales.com is still here, it will still get updated now and then, I still have those new stories I promised and I will still post them but just not as quickly or as often as I had intended.

Again, I wish everyone a happy new year and success in all your plans for 2007 and beyond.