Talking Animals
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Authors
Hambly, Wilfrid D.
Porter, James A.
Issue Date
1949
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
This hundred-page book was originally published in 1949 and then reprinted in 1985. Hambly brought back from West Africa many objects for the Field Museum in Chicago. He published some of the stories he heard there, but he also enjoyed telling the stories to children who came to the museum. This is the book of those stories; they seem a standard collection of African tales. A number of them are aetiological. Thus the antelope encounters seven different tortoises at different points along his straight seven-hundred-yard path. This story does not have the usual double-back feature of the standard Aesopic race between hare and hedgehog. Dejected at the end, the antelope tries to commit suicide by putting his head into the fork of a tree. When a leopard growls, he starts and thus elongates his neck (11), One whole section is about the mutual attempts of tortoise and hare to trick each other. Tortoise seems to be the regular winner. I find Tortoise Loved a Girl (37) a touching story. Tortoise alone was kind to her and so received her in marriage. Another touching story is that of the abused lioness who finally beats and takes her son away from her husband while he has a pot stuck around his head (78). Hambly's introductions to the sections sound politically incorrect now after fifty-five years, as when the introduction to Boys and Birds (43) contains this statement: I am afraid that boys often rob the nests of birds, but we must remember that Negro boys have some excuse for this since they have to use every kind of food available, and the eggs are appetizing. I find the stories to be expanded fables; they are about two full pages each in length. The expansion lies in details of color and history behind the story. The expansion serves especially to create a character out of the animal involved.
Description
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Publisher
The Associated Publishers, Inc.
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Identifier
5154 (Access ID)