The Sacred Door and Other Stories: Cameroon Folktales of the Beba
by Makuchi foreword by Isidore Okpewho
Ohio University Press, 2008 eISBN: 978-0-89680-458-6 | Paper: 978-0-89680-256-8 Library of Congress Classification PR9372.9.M34S33 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 398.2326711
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Sacred Door and Other Stories: Cameroon Folktales of the Beba offers readers a selection of folktales infused with riddles, proverbs, songs, myths, and legends, using various narrative techniques that capture the vibrancy of Beba oral traditions. Makuchi retells the stories that she heard at home when she was growing up in her native Cameroon.
The collection of thirty-four folktales of the Beba showcases a wide variety of stories that capture the richness and complexities of an agrarian society’s oral literature and traditions. Revenge, greed, and deception are among the themes that frame the story lines in both new and familiar ways. In the title story, a poor man finds himself elevated to king. The condition for his continued success is that he not open the sacred door. This tale of temptation, similar to the story of Pandora’s box, concludes with the question, “What would you have done?”
Makuchi relates the stories her mother told her so that readers can make connections between African and North American oral narrative traditions. These tales reinforce the commonalities of our human experiences without discounting our differences.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Makuchi is professor of English andComparative Literature at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Her publications include a book of short fiction, Your Madness, Not Mine: Stories of Cameroon, and Gender in African Women’s Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Foreword 000
Preface 000
Part One
The Story of Bat and Sun 000
The Story of Hawk and Hen 000
The Story of Pig and Tortoise 000
The Story of Cat and Rat 000
The Story of the Birds That Went to the Sky 000
The Story of Cat and Dog 000
The Story of Monkey and Bee 000
The Foolish Leopard 000
Tiger Kills His Mother 000
A Tug-of-War 000
The Race 000
Part Two
Metse-Tsate-Nfo, aka Sense-Pass-King 000
The Man-Eating Lion 000
The Flutes 000
The Boy and the Dish 000
The Unhappy Stepson 000
The Disobedient Son 000
The Two Sisters 000
The Girls Who Refused Suitors 000
Mbaka and the Magic Ring 000
The Dance in the Sky 000
The Quest 000
Union Is Strength 000
Part Three
Penis, Testicles, and Vagina 000
When You Eat Today, Remember There Is Tomorrow 000
The Greedy Mother 000
The Ring and the String of Beads 000
The Huntress 000
King-of-Scabies 000
Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Back to the Stem 000
A Secret Is Difficult to Keep 000
The Test 000
The Sacred Door 000
Hunting Elephants 000
Afterword 000
The Sacred Door and Other Stories: Cameroon Folktales of the Beba
by Makuchi foreword by Isidore Okpewho
Ohio University Press, 2008 eISBN: 978-0-89680-458-6 Paper: 978-0-89680-256-8
The Sacred Door and Other Stories: Cameroon Folktales of the Beba offers readers a selection of folktales infused with riddles, proverbs, songs, myths, and legends, using various narrative techniques that capture the vibrancy of Beba oral traditions. Makuchi retells the stories that she heard at home when she was growing up in her native Cameroon.
The collection of thirty-four folktales of the Beba showcases a wide variety of stories that capture the richness and complexities of an agrarian society’s oral literature and traditions. Revenge, greed, and deception are among the themes that frame the story lines in both new and familiar ways. In the title story, a poor man finds himself elevated to king. The condition for his continued success is that he not open the sacred door. This tale of temptation, similar to the story of Pandora’s box, concludes with the question, “What would you have done?”
Makuchi relates the stories her mother told her so that readers can make connections between African and North American oral narrative traditions. These tales reinforce the commonalities of our human experiences without discounting our differences.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Makuchi is professor of English andComparative Literature at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Her publications include a book of short fiction, Your Madness, Not Mine: Stories of Cameroon, and Gender in African Women’s Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Foreword 000
Preface 000
Part One
The Story of Bat and Sun 000
The Story of Hawk and Hen 000
The Story of Pig and Tortoise 000
The Story of Cat and Rat 000
The Story of the Birds That Went to the Sky 000
The Story of Cat and Dog 000
The Story of Monkey and Bee 000
The Foolish Leopard 000
Tiger Kills His Mother 000
A Tug-of-War 000
The Race 000
Part Two
Metse-Tsate-Nfo, aka Sense-Pass-King 000
The Man-Eating Lion 000
The Flutes 000
The Boy and the Dish 000
The Unhappy Stepson 000
The Disobedient Son 000
The Two Sisters 000
The Girls Who Refused Suitors 000
Mbaka and the Magic Ring 000
The Dance in the Sky 000
The Quest 000
Union Is Strength 000
Part Three
Penis, Testicles, and Vagina 000
When You Eat Today, Remember There Is Tomorrow 000
The Greedy Mother 000
The Ring and the String of Beads 000
The Huntress 000
King-of-Scabies 000
Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Back to the Stem 000
A Secret Is Difficult to Keep 000
The Test 000
The Sacred Door 000
Hunting Elephants 000
Afterword 000