African Mythology: Captivating Myths of Gods, Goddesses, and Legendary Creatures of Africa

by Matt Clayton

If you're looking for a captivating collection of African myths, then keep reading... The continent of Africa is home to fifty-four countries that together harbor over three thousand cultures, each with their own ways of life and each with their own stories. Some of these stories have their origins in the folk beliefs of people native to their particular region, while others were imported from or influenced by cultures from elsewhere who settled in Africa. A great number of African folktales have been transmitted orally from person to person down through the ages, but since the nineteenth century, many stories have been written down and transmitted to audiences beyond the boundaries of the cultures that created them. One important—and tragic—conduit for the transmission of these stories beyond African shores was the European slave trade. Captured Africans who were brought to the Americas and the Caribbean fought to keep alive what they could of their home cultures, and this included their folktale traditions. African folktales come in many different types. Some are myths explaining the origins of things, while others are tales of heroes with supernatural abilities. Animal stories are many and varied, and they usually involve some kind of trickster who uses his wiles to get out of sticky situations and sometimes into them. There are also cautionary tales explaining why it is important to behave well and treat others with respect, while other stories have a style and shape similar to that of a fairy tale. In African Captivating Myths of Gods, Goddesses, and Legendary Creatures of Africa, you'll find the following African myths and topics covered Animal TricksterssHero TalesCautionary TalesThe Influence of IslaAnd much, much more!So if you want a captivating collection of African myths, click the “add to cart” button!

Genres: Mythology, History, Africa, Audiobook, Folk Tales, Nonfiction

106 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 23, 2019

Reviews

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Folklore!

I love history and anything historical. I also love reading about mythology and folktales.

Well, last summer, Captivating History had a ton of these books for free and on-sale! Probably a hundred of them. I grabbed as many as I could and have put some on my reading list.

There are biographies of people and the history of cultures and countries. Stories of just about every place and everything! I don’t know if they are still free or on sale, but if you are a history lover, go ahead and grab some from Amazon!

This book is about African folktales. The author mentions that there are over three thousand tribes in Africa. However, despite this, he only chooses ten tribes for his book.

The good news is the stories are enjoyable. In fact there are two l am very familiar with. I grew up reading about Anansi the Spider Man. And the story about the ogre, is also one that l know.

Another great thing is the author leaves a bibliography in the back of the book. I hope that I will be able to find some of these books, and get more of these old mythologies to read.

[Jerry Jares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the books I've read this year, this has to be the most unique.  I did not know that there are 54 African countries and over 3000 different cultures there.  The author has taken 10 African folktales to share with the reader.  Most of these stories have been transmitted orally for many generations.

The tales are of differing kinds:  animal tricksters, hero tales, cautionary stories and stories that show Arab and Islam influences.  I was fascinated to learn that in Africa, they have the concept of owning stories and one must get permission to tell another's story.  Thank you to the author for offering helpful explanations before each story.  Because other cultures have differing attitudes about life and death, those explanations are critical to understanding what is offered.

[Anthony O'Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing much here

Sounds good. But actually pretty short and vacuous. A few myths slapped together. A tiny amount of background and commentary. Not much of an excuse to throw together a short and reasonably useless book.

[Janet B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic,literally

I do not know how to respond to these myths. They are wonderful stories with clever animals,especially the spider. One wonders the underlying lessons people of these cultures gleaned from them .As for me I enjoyed them greatly. By all means you should too.

[N.W. Moors · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a charming little book of African folklore stories. I found it amazing how alike some of the stories are to Aesop, Celtic stories, and other fairytales. There was one that was very close to Jack-and-the-Beanstalk.

[Stephanie Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction with some fun myths. Wish it had more myths, but I will look into other books from bibliography.

[Rory Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a short and simple collection of stories, but it left me feeling a little disappointed. Some of the stories were so simple that they seemed to barely hold together enough to actually constitute stories. In one of them, for example, we hear how an enemy attacks a field and 2 girls run away. They hide in a hole, and the person watching it goes to get a drink, and thus they slip away to escape. End of Story.

In another story we hear how a cannibal captures someone and takes him home to cook. The person tells the cannibals’ mother that they should each take a turn in the cook pot, and then he cooks her instead. End of story.

And so on. The stories just seemed a bit overly simple, like they were incomplete.

Perhaps there is an issue of cultural expectations, that a Western reader expects stories to conform to certain criteria and when an African story fails to do so, then the reader will be disappointed? Possibly, but when we think of books like Christopher Booker’s 2004 ‘the Seven Basic Plots’, he outlines commonalities across cultures. And the stories presented here do have the beginnings of basic elements of schemas such as ‘the seven basic plots.’ We see hero tropes, and journey themes. We see brothers disagreeing and self discoveries. The problem is that the stories are just very basic: more like a sketch outline for a story, rather than the actual story itself.

I can imagine that the stories were more engaging when told orally, with a talented ‘teller’ who can add inflection and mood to the words, creating a pathos of suspense and fear in an audience; so perhaps part of the issue is that we are encountering the stories in a flat written medium that they were just not originally intended for?

Overall a disappointing read which I struggled to finish.

[TaniaRina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though this book is well under 100 pages, the author still broke it down into sections. There are tales of creation stories, giants & monsters, damsels in distress, and clever heroes. The author also concentrates more on human beings rather than animals.

I grew up on Egyptian stuff then turned mainly to Western European mythology, fairy, and folk tales (Viking & Greek). I have a lot of catching up to do with other cultures. This book is a great introduction for readers who want to start.

[Anisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I thought this was a good book with some stories I've never heard. I think the stories in Part IIII and Part IV were the best. I also like the brief historical descriptions of the people from which the stories originated.

[Yayati Ashvapati]

Eye opener for a Dark Continent

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just read Scott Lewis' Egyption Mythology book and was eager to read more old stories right away. I can see that Matt Clayton also writes mythology books for layman readers that are made into audiobooks. There are quite a few authors writing these books about the same cultures with nearly the same titles and surely the same myths. They likely copy a lot from each other as these stories are not copyrighted and often only a few still exist.

This one is a step down from the Egyptian Mythology book. These stories are not ancient. They may be a few hundred years old or maybe older, but then experienced changes. They are also not intellectual. The Egyptian stories felt deep and morally illuminating. These stories on the other hand are purely African tribe stuff and don't come from societies with great thinkers or big ideas. Simple, bareboned, crude humor, and very stupid characters. In one story a savior needs to tell his fiancee that his plan to escape the castle is to use the rope she swung down to him and he used to climb up into the castle in the first place. All stories are simple-minded like this. The great plans people make are all so silly and obvious that the stories feel lazy. This wouldn't even cut it in a modern melodrama or even a Western live method acting class.

The writing itself is fine. The narration is fine. I don't like his fake female voice though. He still sounds like a man and it feels weird. But it does give the book a more childish style which is nice. It's probably a book for Africans wanting to explore the basics of African storytelling without spending much energy on it or getting deeper info about the subjects. For intellectual Westerners this is a bit simple and not fully illuminating. It's still a fine mini book, but no story spoke to me. And the moral themes are so weird and weak that you won't really feel much for the characters or learn much from this. Many morals even seem counter-intuitive or even negative. Often characters will use magic out of nowhere to save themselves. Suddenly a character makes himself into a stick or hypnotizes an enemy with some unexplained powers. Or even speaks to talking food out of nowhere. It's all random and not explained or introduced. In one story a bad mother makes her daughter handicapped and this is supposed to be a lesson for the mother. We never understand why the magicians punished the daughter for what the mom did and how that's in any way fair. The story for me just feels overly cruel. It was one of the times I did feel for a character, but mainly because the story was a badly structured one.

It's a fine book. But it's all very safe and plain. The author could have been way more critical in his analysis. His assumptions about the stories are simple and uncritical yet they do make up maybe 5% of the book. It does drag the book down even further. If he understands the stories to such a shallow degree then is he really the best guy to collect and retell the stories? But it's still a fine read if you have the time. It's a single podcast length so it's for sure worth checking out if you like the topic.