Tale
Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales
Robert Sutherland Rattray · 1930
Synopsis
Seventy-five Akan tales, collected at evening gatherings across most of the Ashanti country and as far as Kwawu, given in Twi with an English translation as literal as possible. The spider Kwaku Ananse is their most frequent hero: one tale tells how the stories of the sky god, Nyame, came to be called “spider stories”. Others explain an animal trait, a custom or a proverb, and the preface recalls that these tales, which were told only at nightfall, also served to mock a chief or the king under the names of animals.
Context
The collection appeared at Oxford, from the Clarendon Press, in 1930, illustrated by young Ashanti, Fanti and Ewe artists whom a certain Stevens encouraged, author of a note on the pictures. In his preface, Rattray criticises earlier collections for having been written by educated men trained in mission schools, who left out the coarse passages; he says he heard most of the tales three or four times, in distant places, and each evening wrote down the best one at the dictation of its teller. He compares the spider stories, which the Ashanti also call Nyankonsem, to the parables of the Gospel.
Who it is for
Short tales, in Twi with the English translation; the original text is printed without diacritical marks.
Prizes and reception
Robert Pelton drew his Ananse stories from it in 1980; Rattray considered his transcription unique among the printed texts in the country's language.