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Africas Origin Stories
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Book Synopsis African Myths of Origin by : Stephen Belcher
Download or read book African Myths of Origin written by Stephen Belcher and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathering a wide range of traditional African myths, this compelling new collection offers tales of heroes battling mighty serpents and monstrous birds, brutal family conflict and vengeance, and desperate migrations across vast and alien lands. From impassioned descriptions of animal-creators to dramatic stories of communities forced to flee monstrous crocodiles, all the narratives found here concern origins - whether of the universe, peoples or families. Together, they create a kaleidoscopic picture of the rich and varied oral traditions that have shaped the culture and society of successive generations of Africans for thousands of years, throughout the long struggle to survive and explore this massive and environmentally diverse continent.
Book Synopsis The Origin of Life and Death by : Ulli Beier
Download or read book The Origin of Life and Death written by Ulli Beier and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 1966 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of creation myths from West, East, Central and North Africa.
Book Synopsis Africa's Origin Stories by : Charles River Editors
Download or read book Africa's Origin Stories written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading By the dawn of the 17th century, Portuguese influence in Africa fell into decline, and the occasions of European contact with Ethiopia became very few and far between. It would be another three centuries before another European would venture into the holy precincts of Lalibela as part of a British military expedition mounted in 1867. Thus, the "rediscovery" of the remarkable churches and the story of Christianity in Ethiopia would only be recently written. As that indicates, the modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. When they began to arrive in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 16th century, Christian missionaries replaced established animist practices with the tenets of Christianity. This was particularly true for the Catholics who offered a faith promising eternal paradise upon the simple confession of sin. In an age of slavery, disease, and inter-tribal warfare when life was unembellished, brutal, and usually short, this was a particularly seductive message. Add to this the ritual inherent in Catholic worship, the drinking of blood and the eating of flesh, and the susceptibilities of a society defined by elaborate religious rituals, and the conversion succeeded with extraordinary ease. It is also true that the Catholic spiritual hierarchy reflected the structure of African spiritual life. The first line of African worship is composed of the spirits of passed ancestors whose relationship with the living remains direct and active. This overlapped with the idea of a host of saints endowed with specific functions and responsibilities. At a higher level, the more remote ancestral spirits, those of more than three or four generations past who have merged into the overall spirit of the nation, formed a less definable but powerful presence in day to day life. These spirits easily translate to angels, while the almighty creator, too vast and remote to be understood, conforms to the notion of the one God. The embrace of Christianity and Islam, even today, is not necessarily to the exclusion of ancestral spirits, nor the essentials of witchcraft and sorcery. The precarious security of albino people in east and central Africa, whose body parts are sought after in traditional "medicine," is testimony to the fact that these superstitions are alive and well throughout Africa. Africa's Origin Stories: The History and Legacy of the Ancient African Stories that Sought to Explain Life examines the various legends, how they formed, the evolution of African beliefs, and how they've affected countless cultures. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about African mythology like never before.
Book Synopsis African Mythology by : Sandra Giddens
Download or read book African Mythology written by Sandra Giddens and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2006-01-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the role of mythology in African culture and religion and presents several myths.
Book Synopsis African Religions by : Jacob K. Olupona
Download or read book African Religions written by Jacob K. Olupona and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.
Book Synopsis A Dictionary of African Mythology by : Harold Scheub
Download or read book A Dictionary of African Mythology written by Harold Scheub and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of fascinating and revealing tales captures the sprawling diversity of African mythology. Four hundred alphabetically arranged entries touch on virtually every aspect of African religious belief, from Africa's great epic themes (dualistic gods, divine tricksters, creator gods, and heroes) to descriptions of major mythic systems (the Dogon, the Asante, and the San) and beyond. 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. His retellings provide 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 studies 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. An invaluable bridge to the richly diverse oral cultures of Africa, this collection uncovers a place where story and storyteller, tradition and performance, all merge.
Book Synopsis African Europeans by : Olivette Otele
Download or read book African Europeans written by Olivette Otele and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent One of the Best History Books of 2021 — Smithsonian Conventional wisdom holds that Africans are only a recent presence in Europe. But in African Europeans, renowned historian Olivette Otele debunks this and uncovers a long history of Europeans of African descent. From the third century, when the Egyptian Saint Maurice became the leader of a Roman legion, all the way up to the present, Otele explores encounters between those defined as "Africans" and those called "Europeans." She gives equal attention to the most prominent figures—like Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of Florence thought to have been born to a free African woman in a Roman village—and the untold stories—like the lives of dual-heritage families in Europe's coastal trading towns. African Europeans is a landmark celebration of this integral, vibrantly complex slice of European history, and will redefine the field for years to come.
Download or read book African Myths & Tales written by and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa south of the Sahara is a land of wide-ranging traditions and varying cultures. Despite the diversity and the lack of early written records, the continent possesses a rich body of folk tales and legends that have been passed down through the strong custom of storytelling and which often share similar elements, characters and ideas between peoples. So this collection offers a hefty selection of legends and tales – stories of the gods, creation and origins, trickster exploits, animal fables and stories which entertain and edify – from ‘Obatala Creates Mankind’, from the Yoruba people of west Africa, to ‘The Girl Of The Early Race, Who Made Stars’, from the San people of southern Africa, all collected in a gorgeous gold-foiled and embossed hardback to treasure.
Book Synopsis The Origin of Life on Earth by : David A. Anderson
Download or read book The Origin of Life on Earth written by David A. Anderson and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retells the Yoruba creation myth in which the deity Obatala descends from the sky to create the world.
Book Synopsis Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky by : Elphinstone Dayrell
Download or read book Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky written by Elphinstone Dayrell and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1968 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sun and Moon must leave their earthly home after Sun invites the Sea to visit.
Book Synopsis Imagining Creation by : Markham (Mark) Geller
Download or read book Imagining Creation written by Markham (Mark) Geller and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining Creation is a collection of views on creation by noted authors from different disciplines. Topics include creation accounts and iconography from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and cosmologies from India and Africa. Special attention is devoted to creation in the Scriptures (Bible and Koran) and related oral traditions on Genesis from Slavonic Europe, as well as Kabbalah. Some of the creations myths are earlier and some later than the Bible, while a number of the discussed texts offer alternative approaches to the beginnings of the universe. The contributions provide many new perspectives on the origins of man and his world from diverse cultures. The volume is the proceedings of a symposium on creation stories held at University College London.
Book Synopsis The Annotated African American Folktales (The Annotated Books) by : Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Download or read book The Annotated African American Folktales (The Annotated Books) written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 1437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner • NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction) Winner • Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award Holiday Gift Guide Selection • Indiewire, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis Star-Tribune These nearly 150 African American folktales animate our past and reclaim a lost cultural legacy to redefine American literature. Drawing from the great folklorists of the past while expanding African American lore with dozens of tales rarely seen before, The Annotated African American Folktales revolutionizes the canon like no other volume. Following in the tradition of such classics as Arthur Huff Fauset’s “Negro Folk Tales from the South” (1927), Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men (1935), and Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly (1985), acclaimed scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar assemble a groundbreaking collection of folktales, myths, and legends that revitalizes a vibrant African American past to produce the most comprehensive and ambitious collection of African American folktales ever published in American literary history. Arguing for the value of these deceptively simple stories as part of a sophisticated, complex, and heterogeneous cultural heritage, Gates and Tatar show how these remarkable stories deserve a place alongside the classic works of African American literature, and American literature more broadly. Opening with two introductory essays and twenty seminal African tales as historical background, Gates and Tatar present nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like “The Talking Skull” and “Witches Who Ride,” as well as out-of-print tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman. Beginning with the figure of Anansi, the African trickster, master of improvisation—a spider who plots and weaves in scandalous ways—The Annotated African American Folktales then goes on to draw Caribbean and Creole tales into the orbit of the folkloric canon. It retrieves stories not seen since the Harlem Renaissance and brings back archival tales of “Negro folklore” that Booker T. Washington proclaimed had emanated from a “grapevine” that existed even before the American Revolution, stories brought over by slaves who had survived the Middle Passage. Furthermore, Gates and Tatar’s volume not only defines a new canon but reveals how these folktales were hijacked and misappropriated in previous incarnations, egregiously by Joel Chandler Harris, a Southern newspaperman, as well as by Walt Disney, who cannibalized and capitalized on Harris’s volumes by creating cartoon characters drawn from this African American lore. Presenting these tales with illuminating annotations and hundreds of revelatory illustrations, The Annotated African American Folktales reminds us that stories not only move, entertain, and instruct but, more fundamentally, inspire and keep hope alive. The Annotated African American Folktales includes: Introductory essays, nearly 150 African American stories, and 20 seminal African tales as historical background The familiar Brer Rabbit classics, as well as news-making vernacular tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman An entire section of Caribbean and Latin American folktales that finally become incorporated into the canon Approximately 200 full-color, museum-quality images
Download or read book African Myths written by J.K. Jackson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sub-Saharan Africa is a land of colourful contrasts and diverse cultures. Despite the destructive influences of colonialism and the slave trade and the lack of early written records, Africa has persevered with its powerful tradition of storytelling, with tales of its history passed down in songs and stories through the generations. Because of the huge diversity of lifestyles and traditions, no real unified mythology exists in Africa, but broadly speaking, a number of beliefs, ideas and themes are shared by African peoples. So this collection offers a selection of descriptions and tales, often those recorded faithfully by some of the first to put them to paper – tales of the gods, creation stories, trickster adventures, animal fables and stories which amuse and teach – from Olukun’s Revenge, from the Yoruba people of west Africa, to The Story of the Glutton, from the Bantu-speaking peoples of east Africa, all brought together with the aim of providing an insight into the boundless and vibrant world of African myth. FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and myth, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.
Book Synopsis Things Fall Apart by : Chinua Achebe
Download or read book Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1994-09-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe.” —Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
Download or read book A Story, a Story written by Gail E. Haley and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1970-02-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many African stories, whether or not they are about Kwaku Ananse the "spider man," are called, "Spider Stories." This book is about how that came to be. The African storyteller begins: "We do not really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true. A Story, a story; let it come, let it go." And it tells that long, long ago there were no stories on earth for children to hear. All stories belonged to Nyame, the Sky God. Ananse, the Spider man, wanted to buy some of these stories, so he spun a web up to the sky and went up to bargain with the Sky God. The price the Sky God asked was Osebo, the leopard of-the-terrible-teeth, Mmboro the hornet who-stings-like-fire, and Mmoatia the fairy whom-men-never-see. How Ananse paid the price is told in a graceful and clever text, with forceful, lovely woodcut illustrations.
Book Synopsis Iyanu: Child of Wonder Volume 1 by : Roye Okupe
Download or read book Iyanu: Child of Wonder Volume 1 written by Roye Okupe and published by Dark Horse Comics. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a Cartoon Network/Max/Lion Forge Animation animated series! Part of the YouNeek YouNiverse! Extraordinary fantasy and superhero stories inspired by African history, culture, and mythology—created by the best Nigerian comics talent! Iyanu, a teenage orphan with no recollection of her past, suddenly discovers that she has abilities that rival the ancient deities told in the folklore of her people. It is these abilities that are the key to bringing back an "age of wonders," as Iyanu begins her journey to save a world on the brink of destruction! The Corrupt—cursed wildlife and strange, divine beasts—are determined to destroy humanity, unless Iyanu can stop them. "Our mission is and always has been about empowering African creatives and storytelling while bringing both to a global audience." — Roye Okupe, Founder/Creative Director at YouNeek Studios
Download or read book Genesis written by Alisa LaGamma and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2002 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventy-five masterpieces presented here, drawn from public and private American collections, are among the most celebrated icons of African art, works that are superb artistic creations as well as expressions of a society's most profound conceptions about its beginnings. All are reproduced in color and are accompanied by entries that illuminate the distinctive cultural contexts that inspired their creation and informed their appreciation."--BOOK JACKET.
