Originally I was thinking about Tricksters in the African diaspora (brainstorm), building on what I have learned about Brer Rabbit, Anansi, and Tortoise in the Americans and Caribbean... but now I think I want to use this project to start building up a collection of stories from African traditions themselves, directly, to go along with the stories I have been working on in the Americas and Caribbean. So, here are my three:
Anansi. Obviously a page of Anansi stories will be part of the project, and I can rely on the Anansi stories in the West African unit for starters... the pot of wisdom is in there, plus quest for endowments (told as a "why the stories are Anansi stories), plus the magic cooking pot, and more.
Kalulu the Hare. I don't have any Kalulu stories as such in the UnTextbook, but I have two fantastic Kalulu books I can use as sources: Savory's The Little Wise One and Worthington's Kalulu The Hare.
Tortoise. There are some trickster tortoise stories in the UnTextbook Nigeria unit, plus I have some book resources also: Todd's Tortoise the Trickster: And Other Folktales from Cameroon and Baumann's Ajapa the Tortoise: a Book of Nigerian Folk Tales.
Three pages plus an Introduction should make for a good project, although I will probably just write a placeholder Introduction for now and jump right into the stories, and then write up an Introduction where I can show specific American/Caribbean parallels for the African stories.
I am excited to get started! :-)
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