Discussion
I could use some book recommendations. I am looking for folk tale collections which are
1. from cultures outside of Europe, and
2. were written by people _from_ that culture.
Ideally, they should also be translated into English (or German) by people from that culture as well.
It would also be a plus if they contain a lot of "local legends" which incorporate local geography and history (as opposed to "fairy tales" which take place at indeterminable places and times).
The German folk tales I translate are often tied to highly specific locations. A specific house, rock formation, lake, ruined castle, and so on and so forth - and frequently local history is tied into the tale as well. That's why I think such local legends are more interesting than fairy tales, because you can actually visit the places where they allegedly took place.
Of course, the same narrative tropes are often recycled elsewhere with a different regional context. But that doesn't make such local legends any less interesting - the folk storytellers tried to turn their own hone region into a magical landscape.
And that's the kind of thing I hope to see in tales from other countries.
How do the tropes you are translating step outside of the frameworks I have mentioned for location specific tales?
The frameworks I’ve mentioned are haunted house type- a horrible thing happened HERE. A strange creature, an odd person lived HERE. The geography HERE creates odd sightings?
Not that the place itself creates the story as much as acts as a suitable setting. The best Tavern in the area, the oldest restaurant, the chair factory, the cobblers home…
@juergen_hubert I am enjoying The Essential Akutagawa which was just published last month.
Eastern Heathens: An Anthology of Subverted Asian Folklore tics off all your boxes. I published a review of it when it came out, and loved it. The stories are steeped in Asian folklore--but with wonderful twists.
Not precisely what I was looking for, but this looks interesting enough in its own right.
@juergen_hubert
Maui and other Maori Legends by Peter Gossage.
@juergen_hubert Ahmed Artan Hanghe's "Folk Tales from Somalia" springs to mind, though I don't think many of those are localised to coordinate-style locations (in part because the whole culture was historically semi-mobile).
This may not be for you, but 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' by Tom Wolfe covers the mythos of my youth growing up in California. It is about Ken Kesey and the hippy movement in San Francisco.
@juergen_hubert I’ve had this book snd enjoyed since I was a teen and have read it’s stories to my kids.
2 Editors - one a Native American anthropologist
@juergen_hubert Arthur Parker, a Seneca Archaeologist and historian, published two books of Seneca Folk Tales, both of which are interesting, if products of their time (early 20th century)
@juergen_hubert Myths and Legends of the Bantu and other Africans was originally compiled by Alice Werner, and had a number of problems given that provenance. @dilmandila edited and modernized the racism and outdated parts, and his edited volume is available for free as a newsletter subscription magnet. https://www.ododopress.com/non-fiction/myths-and-legends-of-the-bantu-and-other-africans/
@ljwrites @juergen_hubert A couple other books you might enjoy, Twilight Tales of the Black Baganda (very misleading title) was written by two Ugandans, but the translator, white woman, claimed ownership, though in her introduction she acknowledged their writing. Skip chapter 1-5 for racist texts!
https://archive.org/details/twilighttalesofb00fishrich/page/n11/mode/2up
The other book by a Ugandan in the 1900s and translated by another in the 1930s is Customs of the Baganda, has little of folk lore https://archive.org/details/customsofbaganda0022sira/page/n7/mode/2up (I can email pdf)
@ljwrites @juergen_hubert Hare and the Hornbill is mostly folk tales by one of Uganda's most famous writers, Okot p'Bitek https://archive.org/details/harehornbill0000pbit/page/82/mode/2up
I intend to sometime read The African and Baganda Oral Traditions: An Introduction, by Immaculate N Kizza, got it a while back but haven't sat down to it, but looks like it fits what you are looking for.
Also Keep My Words (not sure you can get it in Europe, though https://textbookcentre.com/shop/keep-my-words-eaep/ ) one of my best entertainments growing up
Here are two from Guatemala. They contain very local tales from the villages around Lake Atitlán. All of the tales originate from speakers of Mayan languages.
The book on the left is Spanish-English. The other one has Mayan languages-Spanish.
They have a lot of traditional elements, but since they come from communities with 500 years of Spanish influence, there’s no doubt some borrowed elements mixed in.
@juergen_hubert from my distant culture of origin, there are folktales from the Akan people of West Africa centered on a trickster character named Anansi who is an anthropomorphic spider. [1]
There are similar stories told about a rabbit that trace back to other African peoples. Those stories came to America with the slave trade and became Brer Rabbit stories. [2]
In both cases, the most authentic versions are spoken, not written:
@juergen_hubert from my distant culture of origin, there are folktales from the Akan people of West Africa centered on a trickster character named Anansi who is an anthropomorphic spider.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi
There are similar stories told about a rabbit that trace back to other African peoples. Those stories came to America with the slave trade and became Brer Rabbit stories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br'er_Rabbit
In both cases, the most authentic versions are spoken, not written.
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@juergen_hubert @doktrock
I’m not even sure urban legends get specific to locations. That is what makes them l er tends, that the story and folktales can be applied universally within that culture. Are their Appalachian folktales? Forest folktales mountain folktales, ocean folktales? Sure. A city, a place? Ghost tales, hauntings. A specific cursed place.