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A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller

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Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
List Price: $35.00
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In this marvelous collection of hundreds of fascinating, mysterious, and revealing tales, Harold Scheub captures the immense sweep and diversity of African mythology.
Scheub offers an unprecedented collection of 400 stories, arranged alphabetically, that touch on virtually every aspect of religious belief. Here are gods and goddesses, epic heroes and divine tricksters, along with epics of the world's origins, the struggle between the human and the divine, and much more. Scheub covers the entire continent, from the mouth of the Nile to the shores of the Cape of Good Hope, including North African as well as sub-Saharan cultures. Here, for example, is the tale of Abu Zayd (from the Bani Hilal of Tunisia), an epic hero who battles a jinni; and here too is a myth of how the moon and the toad created the first man and woman, from the Soko of Congo. Scheub not only retells each story, but provides information about the respective belief system, the main characters, and related stories or variants. Perhaps most important, Scheub emphasizes the role of mythmaker as storyteller--as a performer for an audience. He explores various techniques, from the rhythmic movements of a Zulu mythmaker's hands to the way a storyteller will play on the familiar context of other myths within her cultural context.
In A Dictionary of African Mythology, Harold Scheub has constructed an invaluable bridge to the richly diverse oral cultures of Africa. In this magnificent collection, he not only provides hundreds of fascinating myths, but recaptures their cultural contexts--in which story and storyteller, tradition and performance, all merge.


DESCRIPTION:

Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 299.6203
EAN: 9780195124569
ISBN: 0195124561
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2000-02-24
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA


SIMILAR ITEMS:

• African Myths of Origin (Penguin Classics)
• Essential African Mythology: Stories That Change the World
• Healing Wisdom of Africa
• African Mythology
• African Mythology


CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

Customer Rating:
Summary: An Essential Guide to African Mythology
Comment: Most people today are familar with the mythologies of Greece, Rome, Egypt and possibly the Norse, but how many people can name people or places from sub-Saharan African mythology? Despite the continuation of many indigenous religions in Africa, to say nothing of the proliferation of African religions in the New World (such as Voudon, Santeria and Candomble), few people know much about the gods, heros and legends of Africa.

Set up as a dictionary, with entries in alphabetical order, this book is starts to change some of that. After a short introduction that explains the background of African myths and the storytelling traditions, this book goes on to give hundreds of different African myths. Each entry explains the myth and gives a story, along with the culture group and what country or country the story comes from. Included are countless important stories from across the continent, taken from everyone from the Zulu of South Africa to the Berbers of Morocco. Tunisian stories of the Arab hero Abu Zayd are included, alongside the Khoi story of how Heitsi-Ebib parted the waters and how the Egyptian sun god Ra created the world. Yoruba stories about Shango, the Orisha of thunder and lightning, stand beside tales of the epic Swahili culture hero Liongo. There are entries about Abuk, the first woman to the Dinka of Sudan who caused the fall of man, and entries about the Mpaca forest spirit of the Nyanga from the Congo and the Hausa folklore about the bull who supports the world on his horns.

Hundreds of different stories from across Africa are included, mostly focusing on gods, spirits and culture heros. Scattered throughout the book are a couple of essays about African storytelling traditions, and some traditional African proverbs (both in the original languages and translated into English). There are also some pictures of African art, and a map. A very thorough work of scholarship, as could be seen from the bibliography (which includes sources for each story). Even better, the end includes an index which lets you search for myth by country and culture, so if you want to find something from, say Cameroon or perhaps the Tutsi people, you can easily find it by going to the index. There is another appendix which includes myths sorted by category, such as creation myths, myths of seperation between man and god, and myths of the origin of death. This is great if you ever want to do a cross-cultural survey of myths.

All in all, this is an essential book for anyone interested in mythology and storytelling, especially in the context of Africa. While it is far from being a comprehensive guide to African myth, if such a thing is even possible, it does give a very good survey of pan-African mythology, and it makes it easy to search myths by theme, culture/language group and country. That makes it a great starting point and source of reference, even if it doesn't incldue every single African myth. So do yourself a favor and check this book out. It will certainly expand your cultural knowledge, which is a good thing.

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