Week 6: Famous Last Words... 69 days

The past couple of weeks have been busy with too much stuff, and the same is true for the weeks to come, so I made a big decision this week: I'm not going to try to keep working on the Brer Rabbit book during the semester, at least not doing the writing. For the writing, I'll just stick to my African Tricksters project in this class, and then I'll get back to writing for the Brer Rabbit book after the end of the semester. That was a hard decision, but I've got over 100 Brer Rabbit stories written, so I think it's safe to take a pause, and then I'll jump right back into it when the semester is over and still be able to finish the book in early July, and the African rabbit trickster book in early August, so that sounds good: a summer of rabbit tricksters!

My countdown clocks says 69 days right now... so, that is how long till the end of my OU teaching career, but also the beginning of my new writing career. Yay for endings that are also beginnings! I decided to do one of the Tech Tips and put a countdown here in my blog post.

Mission AccomplishedCountdown

And I did some good writing today, even if it is just a short story-cycle: it's Tortoise and the King's Magic Drum from Nigeria. It was really exciting to come to this material after having worked so much on African American stories in the U.S. and the Caribbean: now I feel so much more confident about recognizing distinctively African folktale motifs and seeing how they appear in both African and African American stories! 

And, of course, since I am currently learning to drum, it was exciting to have the magical food object be a drum! For an illustration, I found this whole webpage about an iyaalu bata drum which is an important drum in Yoruba musical performance and rituals, and the webpage also explains that the Yoruba people credit Eshu with the creation of drums, and Eshu is also associated with trickster traditions being a kind of trickster-god. So that was exciting to learn about!

from the

Grinnell College

Musicial Instruments Collection

website

Week 6 Story Lab: Tortoise Research

It's still just Week 5 for me here, but I wanted to take advantage of some time today to do some trickster tortoise research! I have a stack of books I can use, but I'd rather work with public domain materials I can link to in the author's notes, so here is a quick run-down of some stories I might look at when I get to the trickster tortoise stories (so far I have done one page: Trickster Hare!).

(African pancake tortoise)

Here are some tortoise story possibilities based on my Diigo bookmarks; I'll add notes here for the ones that are likely candidates:

1 THE TORTOISE WITH A PRETTY DAUGHTER. Nigeria. These stories from Nigeria are ones I can use for storytelling coming up in Week 7! There are eight here, which will be plenty for a nice story post next week.

4 The King's Magic Drum: Nigeria. Interaction with royal family again here.

12. Why the Bat is Ashamed to be seen in the Daytime: Nigeria. This story is really more about the bat.

14 THE ELEPHANT AND THE TORTOISE: This is one of the stories I wrote up last summer: why elephant has small eyes.

22 The Affair of the Hippopotamus and the Tortoise; or, Why the Hippopotamus lives in the Water: Nigeria. This is a fun one where the tortoise learns the hippo's secret name. 

25 Concerning the Leopard, the Squirrel, and the Tortoise: Nigeria. A story about saving mothers/grandmothers.

27 The Story of the Leopard, the Tortoise, and the Bush Rat: Nigeria. This is a follow-up to the previous story; the leopard is angry at the tortoise.

29. How the Tortoise overcame the Elephant and the Hippopotamus: Nigeria. A tug-of-war story! YES!

I'm going to stop here because I can tell that there are plenty of great Nigerian stories to get me started, and I can come back later and add notes for the stories below, starting with the South African stories which come next here in the list. When I get around to doing Tortoise research for the project assignment maybe in Week 8, I'll fill in more notes and start choosing which stories will actually go into the Storybook. :-)

28: Elephant And Tortoise: ___.

29: Tortoises Hunting Ostriches: ___

3: The Story Of The Leopard Tortoise.: ___

32 TORTOISE AND THE KING: ___

33 TORTOISE AND MR. FLY: ___

35 THE THREE DEATHS OF TORTOISE: ___

36 TORTOISE AND THE COCK: ___

37 TORTOISE AND CRAB: ___

38 TORTOISE AND PIGEON: ___

39 TORTOISE AND THE WHIP-TREE: ___

40 TORTOISE AND THE RAIN: ___

40. The Great Tortoise: ___

2. The Cunning Hare; or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell: ___

13. Of Chief Amaza, His Wife Achi, and the Tortoise: ___

29. Why a Python Never Swallows a Tortoise: ___

12. Why the Tortoise has no Hair on.: ___

14. The Elephant and the Tortoise: ___

15. The Giraffe and the Tortoise: ___

16. The Tortoises Hunting the Ostriches: ___

(I) The Hare and the Tortoise: ___

4. The Hare and the Tortoise: ___

27. The Princess and the Tortoise: ___

4 A Tortoise and a Fowl: ___

6 A Tortoise and a Buffalo: ___

2. The tortoise and the elephant: ___

11. The tortoise and the monkey: ___

12. The tortoise and the leopard: ___

13. The tortoise and the leopard (another version): ___

14. The tortoise and the leopard quarrel about their villages: ___

17. The tortoise and the leopard and the python: ___

24. The tortoise who waited for toadstools: ___

8. The Hare and the Tortoise: ___

5. Sigo and the Tortoise: ___

6. Tortoise and the King's Mute Daughter: ___

7. The Tortoise and the Elephant: ___

8. The Woman Named Adun and Tortoise: ___

9. Tortoise and the Slender Maiden: ___

10. Tortoise and Lizard: ___

4. The Hare and the Tortoise Farming: ___

17. Leopard and tortoise: ___

16. The Tortoise And The Antelope: ___

22. The Tortoise And The Baboon: ___

23. The Tortoise And The Lemur: ___

17 Stealing fire from the Creator: Why Chameleon and Tortoise are respected: ___

28 Tortoise as diviner for animals: ___

29 How Tortoise got his shell: Tortoise becomes diviner: ___

1. The Swallow and the Tortoise: ___

18. The rabbit and the leopard: ___

8 The Spider Outwitted by the Tortoise: ___

3. Ingomo (The Animals): ___

5. The Tortoise and the Baboon: ___

11. The Blind Man and the Tortoise: ___

1. Mr. Tortoise and Mr. Hare: ___

E21 Tortoise, Because of the Way She and Fish-Eagle Deceived Each Other, Does not Eat Meat: ___

H1 Why Hare Had His Destiny Foretold by Tortoise: ___

H15 Hare is Outwitted by Mrs. Tortoise: ___

The Hare And The Tortoise: ___

A5. Tortoise and Omemamoni: ___

A9. The Tortoise and the Eggs: ___

A11. Snail and Tortoise: ___

Edo7. The Tortoise: ___

Edo26. Dog and Tortoise: ___

S4. Tortoise and Snail: ___

A3. King and Tortoise: ___

B5 Tortoise in a Race: ___

F6 Tortoise Covers His Ignorance: ___

F10 The Treachery of Tortoise: ___

B12 The Lies of Tortoise: ___

B14 Tortoise and the Bojabi Tree: ___

B16 Tortoise, Dog, Leopard, and the Njabi Fruit: ___

B19 The Deceptions of Tortoise: ___

6. The Eagle Leaves the Tortoise in the Lurch: ___

7. The Kite Breaks His Promise to the Tortoise: ___

The Clever Tortoise: ___

3 The Tortoise and the Hyena: ___

5. The Tortoise and the Fish Eagle: ___

4. The Son of the Tortoise: ___

17 Tortoise and Hornbill: ___

18 Tortoise and His Father-in-law: ___

19 Tortoise and Bush Cat: ___

22 Tortoise and Blind Man: ___

28 Tortoise and Daughter: ___

29 Tortoise and Elephant: ___

30 Spider and Tortoise: ___

2 Tortoise and His Children: ___

6 Tortoise becomes King: ___

15 Tortoise and the Blind Man: ___

38 Story of the Tortoise and the King: ___

Elephant, Hippopotamus, and Tortoise: ___

The Tortoise and the Pig: ___

8. How The Tortoise Helped the Animals: ___

9. The Tortoise and a Man Named Tela: ___

10. A Dog and a Tortoise: ___

11. The Pig and the Tortoise: ___

118 Strained friendship: Friend as hostage: Why Frog is in the water and Tortoise gives fire: ___

119 Why Tortoise lives in the bush: ___

16. How the Tortoise Got the Cracks and Bumps on His Back: ___

26. How Obassi Osaw Proved the Wisdom of Tortoise: ___

13 How the civet and the tortoise lost their friendship: ___

17 How the tortoise was punished for his deceit: ___

XIV. The Little Red Tortoise: ___

The Tortoise and the Bat: ___

4. The Hare and the Tortoise: ___

THE HUNTER AND THE TORTOISE: ___

TESTS OF DEATH, v. 2: ___

HOW THE TORTOISE GOT ITS SHELL: ___

TASKS DONE FOR A WIFE: ___