A Treasury Of Afro-American Folklore Book

It's hard to review this book. On the one hand I think it's really important. My daughter wanted my attention as I was trying to finish this book and I told her as a compromise I would read her the book, but she might think it's boring. She asked me what it was about to make up her mind. I told her it was written about something interesting, but it wasn't written in the most interesting way. I asked her if she knew where Africa is. I told her that Africa is full of countries, as she knows, but that before those countries were there, there were different countries. I told her that Europeans came to Africa and changed the boundaries of all of the countries, and changed the rules, but before the European countries came there were different countries with different rules. I told her these are the stories of those people and their countries. Walking through this explanation with my daughter told me that this book is important. I was grateful for the conversation with my daughter that was sparked just because I was holding this book in my hands. At the same time, the quality of the retellings--as these are all basically retellings of retellings--varies greatly. Some of the stories are told with regard to literary conventions, some are heavy-handed in their translations. There is a lot of variety in quality of retelling that leaves plenty of room for improvement.

As far as the content that was chosen--I appreciate the variety in this regard. There are epics, fairy tales, poetry, song, proverbs. I like the variety of selection. I like that there is historical information and biographical-so-to-speak information introducing each collection of work. I appreciate the extensive bibliography and that each reference and the format of citations that allowed for a smooth reading experience. I really enjoyed the proverbs and the explanation of the proverbs. I think proverbs are one of my favorite things to learn about different cultures.

Having said all of this, this is evidently a European construction. This appears to be a book constructed for and by Europeans--based on the source material and on the quality of the introductions to each collection. The material as written, is multiple degrees from it's origin, and each degree is primarily European. On the one hand I feel grateful to Europeans who cared enough to make cultural observations and record cultural details of African people, because it is better than having the culture completely disintegrated and erased. On the other hand, it is difficult to sit comfortably in the knowledge that these histories were obtained parallel to bullying and abuse to African cultures through colonialism, and the nature of the re-tellings is of one European to another confiding, "Let me tell you what these natives are about." Whereas the relationships between Europeans and Africans being what they were in the time these narratives were collected, perhaps this is as much as can be hoped for--I do not know enough personally about how these stories were acquired. At the same time, given the copywright date of 1996, given the knowledge that Africans are capable of speaking for themselves, it makes hearing the stories through a European lens uncomfortable to say the least.

So, in conclusion, I'm happy to have read this Treasury of African Folklore. I'm grateful that as an American, whereas American culture predominantly erases Indigenous history, agency, and even presence, I'm grateful that this book offers me a way to deprogram the nationalistic agenda supplied by American culture. I'm glad that it's offered me a bridge to hear stories of non-European, Black Africa. I'm hoping to find something of comparable breadth that transcends the European filters on which this book depends.