Ikom Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria

About this book

Elphinstone Daryell [1869-1917] was a British colonial administrator in southern Nigeria who had an interest in anthropology and folklore. This book contains 34 folktales that he collected in the Ikom district of Cross River State in southern Nigeria. You will find some nature stories here ("How the River Came into Existence," "Why the Mist Rises from the Water," etc.), animal stories ("The Cunning Hare," "Why a Python Never Swallows a Tortoise," etc.), along with stories involving human drama, both natural and supernatural. Dayrell reports the final story of the book in Latin, a common practice by anthropologists of the time for sexually explicit material; that Latin text, "Quomodo Evenit ut Penis Primum cum Vagina Coiit," is available in English translation at the Internet Archive. This book is a sequel to Daryell's Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, which you can also listen to at LibriVox. (Summary by Laura Gibbs)