Tale
Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef
Synopsis
Tales from the Temne country, set within scenes of life in the country, a night gathering, initiation, slash-and-burn clearing and harvest, where the young Konah listens to the storytellers. Cunnie Rabbit, who is not a rabbit but a little mouse-deer, usually wins by cunning, while Mr. Spider multiplies tricks and troubles; there one reads how the Spider won a wife, how the Tortoise made the Leopard his mount, the story of Goro the prodigious wrestler, that of the Chameleon changed into a boat and that of Cunnie Rabbit and his well.
Context
The collection appeared in London in 1903 at Swan Sonnenschein, illustrated by Gerald Sichel. Of one hundred and twenty-five tales collected at Rotifunk, the authors kept only a few; they say they changed neither the spirit nor the content of the tales, transcribed in the Creole English in which they were told to them, but acknowledge that another category of tales, which the missionary would not have liked to hear, escaped them. Their preface recalls that before them only seven Temne tales had appeared, in 1861, in a collection by Schlenker.
Who it is for
Short tales, transcribed in an English approaching Krio, which takes some time to get used to.
Prizes and reception
Presented by booksellers as the first printed collection of West African tales; it is now freely accessible.
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