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Title: A Selection of Nigerian Folktales
Author: Bukar Usman
Publisher: Klamidas Communications, Abuja
Year: 2018
pages: 787
Reviewer: Henry Akubuiro
Except you haven’t listened to one before, you can’t but agree with Dr. Bukar Usman on the benefits of folktale, in the introductory chapter of A Selection of Nigerian Folktales: Themes and Settings: it promotes a sense of community, teaches ethical and practical lessons, and entertains the audience.
In Nigeria, like most parts of Africa, tales by moonlight were a given back in the days. They are now a thing of the past. For one, electricity and new media have brought different entertainment to our doorsteps. However, Usman doesn’t believe we can do away with our cultural heritage because of the incursions of western civilisation. No! He is relentless in his pursuit of intrinsic gems replete in our culture.
A Selection of Nigerian Folktales: Theme and Settings, edited by Dr. Usman, is a 787-page weighty tome, featuring 700 folktales from the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, is the second in the series of Treasury of Nigerian Tales. It is a testament to the bank of folk narratives we mustn’t wish away. I must confess, most of the tales here are unfamiliar to me, which goes to tell how enriched an average reader would be after devouring this well-produced whooper. Credit, of course, must go to the Bukar Usman Foundation for sponsoring the nationwide research that birthed this and other collections with folkloric bent.
The folktales in this collection are divided into 17 parts according to their thematic preoccupations. The book contains boomerang tales, contest tales, enfant terrible tales, explanatory tales, fisherman tales, fortune tales, friendship tales, heroic tales, hunter tales, magical tales, marital tales and moralising tales.
The collection also has old woman tales, orphan tales, trickster tales, war tales, and miscellaneous tales. The settings range from the land of the living to the land of the dead; from the aquatic world to the mountainous; from the bush to the forest where animals, humans and ghosts commingle in a peculiar universe. In each chapter in Part B, the editor explains the unifying theme of the folk narratives.
Impressed by the efforts of the author, Prof Tunde Okanlawon, in his Foreword, acknowledges that Usman has found a place in the pantheon of treasurers of narratives that include the Greek, Aesop; the Italian, Boccaccio; the French, La Fontaine and Perrault; needless to say, the Grimm brothers from Deutschland.
Whetting your appetite without offering you a folkloric porridge will be hard to forgive. Some of the animals in these collected folk narratives never forgave anybody. For instant, in “Boomerang upon Boomerang”, the first tale in the book, collected from North Central Nigeria, the wolf got the tiger irate by making noise around his house, compelling him to attack and kill the smaller cat. The lion was angry that the fighting duo raised a lot of dusts around his neighbourhood, and he killed the tiger. There is always a payback time.
In contests, the strongest or the wittiest earn the bragging right. For sure, you have to distinguish yourself to be on top of the totem pole. Take for instance, the hero in “Crossing the Twin Rivers”, a contest tale story collected from North Eastern Nigeria, Karamanda, who steered his boat ahead of his elder brother with only few yards to go, having endured unfriendly waves all the way, during a boating competition organised by the king, to claim the ultimate prize: the princess. Who says hard work doesn’t pay? Don’t be lazy! Even the Tortoise married a king’s daughter in another tale. The wily one doesn’t require brute force to beat all-comers, yes.
In the third chapter, enfant terrible rule their world. They remind us of the small-but-mighty super stars. Take a look at “Iguato and His Mother’s Grave”, an enfant terrible tale from South Southern Nigeria, whose stepmother turned him into a slave following his mother’s death, even denying him of food. However, Iguato turned to his late mother’s grave for succour, and sang eureka!
While explanatory tales in this collection offer reasons or details that reveal why or why certain things happen –like “Why the Frog Croaks” or “Why the Mosquito Fights the Ear” –the fisherman tales in the fifth chapter make the most of amphibious phenomenon. Man has to fish in the river to eke a living. Man also has to swim or fetch water from the river. These, inevitably, throw up interesting encounters and grim harvests.
“The Mermaid and the Fisherman’s Boat” is one of such stories. Collected from South Southern Nigeria, a fisherman was helped by the mermaid to catch lots of fishes in the sea, but when he refused to marry the mermaid who wanted his hand in marriage, the mermaid gave him a scare which sent him away from fishing forever.
“The Orphan and His Magic Drum” is a fortune tale collected from South Eastern Nigeria. It is emblematic of stories in this chapter where fortunes are struck with unexpected turns in events. Obinna the orphan defied every stumbling block on the way to meet the great Ugodo, the god of blessings, who gave him a magic drum, which, when beat, produced nice things. His destiny changed afterwards.
In the remaining stories in this rich collection –from friendship, heroic, magical, marital to miscellaneous tales – A Selection of Nigerian Folktales and the Bukar Usman Foundation deepen our knowledge of our past while celebrating untapped profundities in unembellished folk narratives native to Nigeria.
