Journal articles: 'African folklore studies'

1

Laberge, Yves, Philip M. Peek, and Kwesi Yankah. "African Folklore: An Encyclopedia." Journal of American Folklore 122, no. 483 (January 1, 2009): 114. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20487665.

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Early, James Counts, and Amy Horowitz. "Bernice Johnson Reagon—In Celebration of Her Eightieth Birthday (October 4, 1942): A Preliminary Inquiry and Invitation to New Generations of Activist Scholars for Further Research." Journal of American Folklore 136, no. 539 (January 1, 2023): 75–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/15351882.136.539.04.

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Abstract Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon is a groundbreaking contributor to the field of folklore studies. Reagon's career as a historian, folklorist, ethnomusicologist, founding participant in the Association of African and African American Folklorists, and founder and director of the Smithsonian Institution's Program in Black Culture provides a body of scholarly perspectives and interpretations for folklore studies that encompasses community-based renditions of history, public culture, and deeper theorizing about the construct of authenticity in folklore studies. Her significance to folklore studies is yet to be examined in depth, and this article is a call to the field to do so.

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Bailey, Ebony L. "(Re)Making the Folk: Black Representation and the Folk in Early American Folklore Studies." Journal of American Folklore 134, no. 534 (October 1, 2021): 385–417. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/jamerfolk.134.534.0385.

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Abstract This article details the origins of American folklore studies by examining how “the folk” were repeatedly equated to Black Americans and how folklore was used as a measure of African Americans’ post-emancipation “progress.” Attending to discussions of Black representation in the late nineteenth century, I explore how (1) African Americans were positioned as the folk and (2) how African Americans (re)positioned themselves in discourses of “Blackness” and “folkness.”

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Berezkin, Yuri. "African Heritage in Mythology." Antropologicheskij forum 17, no. 48 (2021): 91–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.31250/1815-8870-2021-17-48-91-114.

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Our analytical catalogue contains information on many thousands of folklore and mythological texts. The systemic approach to this material argues in favor of an African origin of episodes and images that were recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, the Indo-Pacific border of Asia and in America but are absent in continental Eurasia. Such a pattern corresponds to genetic and archaeological data concerning the early spread of the modern human from Africa in two directions, i.e. to the East along the coast of the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia and Australia, and to the North into Europe, Central Asia and Siberia. The natural conditions of humankind in the Indo-Pacific Tropics and in the African homeland are essentially similar; conversely, in the Eurasian North, deep cultural changes and a loss of the African heritage are to be expected. Though there are no cultures in Asia that could be considered to be related to the ancestors of the earliest migrants into the New World still being identified by archaeologists, similar sets of motifs in South America and in the Indo-Pacific part of the Old World provide evidence in favor of the East Asian homeland of the first Americans. Later groups of migrants brought those motifs typical for continental Eurasia to North America. Though we take into account conclusions reached by specialists in other historical disciplines, big data on mythology and folklore is argued to be an independent source of information on the human past.

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Makgabo, Connie, and Genevieve J. Quintero. "Philippine and South African Experiences on Folk Literature Research: Relevance, Gains, and Challenges." Journal of Languages and Language Teaching 12, no. 2 (April 22, 2024): 985. http://dx.doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v12i2.10667.

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Folkloric studies have accelerated in the Philippines and South Africa because the Academe acknowledged the urgency to collect, preserve, and publish the oral traditions of indigenous communities. Oral traditions embody the history, values, and world views of these indigenous cultures, which need to be preserved for posterity. This paper discusses the relevance, gains, and challenges in conducting folklore research in the Philippines and South Africa, which share similarities, including their colonial pasts and number of indigenous communities. The paper contemplates the relevance of folklore research outputs in different fields thereby contributing to the discourse on the value of folklore research. This qualitative study uses textual analysis to focus on insights related to folklore research, using secondary data including journal articles, book publications, and textual references. The study reveals that although there is extensive research in the field of folklore in both countries, there remain gaps that need to be filled, such as the collection, preservation, and recognition of representative folklore from other regions and cultural communities. South Africa, for instance, has 12 official languages, and the Philippines has 110 ethnolinguistic groups. There are still languages and indigenous oral traditions that are developing, and folk literature that needs to be recorded, preserved, and published. These oral traditions/folk literature play an important role in revealing people’s cultural identities and preserving heritage, which is imperative in nation-building. The findings highlight the importance of continuing research about folklore and the need to preserve indigenous knowledge systems When written down and published, folklore becomes tangible and preserved for posterity, providing present and future generations the opportunity to learn, understand, and appreciate their cultural legacy.

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Iwara, A. U. "African Folklore: Mother Africa’s Tale Retold." Fabula 30, Jahresband (January 1989): 271–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1989.30.1.271.

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Tatarovskaya, Irina. "Contribution of D.A. Olderogge to the Study of the Epic Tradition of West Africa." Uchenie zapiski Instituta Afriki RAN 65, no. 4 (December 10, 2023): 144–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.31132/2412-5717-2023-65-4-144-152.

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On May 6, 1903, the Soviet Africanist, ethnographer, literary critic, linguist, and historian Dmitry A. Olderogge was born in Vilna. He was one of the founders of African studies in the USSR and an organizer of museum work related to Africa. The article is dedicated to the memory of this outstanding scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It shows the main milestones of the professional path of Dmitry A. Olderogge, describes the scientist’s contribution to the study of the folklore of African peoples and gives an analysis of his main works in the field of folklore. The important theoretical and practical significance of his research devoted to the epic legends of the peoples of West Africa is revealed in the work.

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Crowley, Daniel J., Kofi Anyidoho, Daniel Avorgbedor, Susan Domowitz, and Eren Giray-Saul. "Cross Rhythms: Papers in African Folklore." Western Folklore 44, no. 1 (January 1985): 74. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1499964.

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Yves Laberge. "African Folklore: An Encyclopedia (review)." Journal of American Folklore 122, no. 1 (2008): 114–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jaf.0.0057.

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Koskoff, Ellen, Daniel Avorgbedor, and Kwesi Yankah. "Cross Rhythms [2]: Occasional Papers in African Folklore/Music." Ethnomusicology 30, no. 2 (1986): 335. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/852012.

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Roberts, John W. "African American Diversity and the Study of Folklore." Western Folklore 52, no. 2/4 (April 1993): 157. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1500084.

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Smith, Debra. "“Popularising” African and African-American Comparative Folklore in the Age of Text-messaging Millennials." Folklore 118, no. 1 (April 2007): 91–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00155870601095689.

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Asmah, Josephine. "Historical Threads: Intellectual Property Protection of Traditional Textile Designs: The Ghanaian Experience and African Perspectives." International Journal of Cultural Property 15, no. 3 (August 2008): 271–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0940739108080168.

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AbstractDefining the relationship between folklore and intellectual property continues to be an ongoing debate. Some challenges in defining this relationship center on the main characteristics of intellectual property, namely, the eligibility criteria and limited protection period that make the current construction of intellectual property incompatible with folklore protection. However, countries like Ghana have been using the intellectual property system as one of its tools to protect folklore. This article focuses on traditional textile design protection in Ghana, establishing the importance and significance of these designs in Ghana's history and culture and why Ghana is determined to protect these designs. After examining Ghana's efforts and the obstacles in its path as it uses the intellectual property law system to protect traditional textile designs, the article argues that there should be regional cooperation and international protection to strengthen individual national efforts.

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SPRINGER, ROBERT. "Folklore, commercialism and exploitation: copyright in the blues." Popular Music 26, no. 1 (January 2006): 33–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0261143007001110.

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Though federal law in the United States provides for the protection of artistic property, including music, African-American blues musicians, since the appearance of their first commercial records in the 1920s, have generally not received their due. Part of the problem came from the difficulty of squaring the discrete notions of folk composition and artistic property in those early days. But the exploitation of black artists was largely attributable to common practices in the record industry whose effects were multiplied in this case by the near total defencelessness of the victims. Imitations and cover versions led to a veritable despoliation of black talent which has only belatedly received legal compensation and public recognition.

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Fulton, DoVeanna S. "Comic Views and Metaphysical Dilemmas: Shattering Cultural Images through Self-Definition and Representation by Black Comediennes." Journal of American Folklore 117, no. 463 (January 1, 2004): 81–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4137614.

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Abstract Using the paradigm of Gary Alan Fine’s "folklore diamond," this essay analyzes comedic material of contemporary African American women comics. This comedic material conveys the uniqueness of African American women’s position at the intersections of race, gender, and class dynamics, thereby marking the performers as not only Black, not only female, but as Black women entertainers who are changing the face of Black women’s comedy.

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Patterson, Tiffany Ruby. "Howard W. Odum’s Folklore Odyssey: Transformation to Tolerance through African American Folk Studies." Agricultural History 80, no. 4 (October 1, 2006): 484–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00021482-80.4.484.

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Johnson, Grace L. Sanders. "Picturing Herself in Africa." Meridians 22, no. 2 (October 1, 2023): 348–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/15366936-10637681.

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Abstract This essay explores the relationship between imaging, archival cataloging, and African diasporic belonging through the developed and undeveloped photography of Haitian anthropologist Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain. Using her family correspondences and research on folklore to contextualize her image-based archive on Haiti, the Belgian Congo, and Nigeria, the author proposes that Comhaire-Sylvain’s visual catalog is rendered legible through her undeveloped images taken in Africa. Tracing Comhaire-Sylvain’s contortions in front of and behind the camera, the author shows that her undeveloped and unpublished imaging practices of play and experimentation exemplify a medium of scholarly and personal reflexivity that troubled the authority of her professional research practice and enlivened the range of her diasporic expression. With particular attention given to photos taken during her time in the Belgian Congo between 1943 and 1945 and her long-stay return to Haiti in 1957, the author argues that Comhaire-Sylvain’s imaging catalog is most provocatively read as an assemblage bound by her use of folklore as a unique technology for crafting meaning between overlapping sites of diasporic belonging and intellectual inquiry.

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Biesele, Megan. "South African /Xam Bushman Traditions and their Relationship to Further Khoisan Folklore." Folklore 127, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 110–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0015587x.2015.1131447.

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Patterson, Tiffany Ruby. "Book Review:Howard W. Odum's Folklore Odyssey: Transformation to Tolerance through African American Folk Studies." Agricultural History 80, no. 4 (October 2006): 484–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ah.2006.80.4.484.

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Chireau, Yvonne. "Conjure and Christianity in the Nineteenth Century: Religious Elements in African American Magic." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 7, no. 2 (1997): 225–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.1997.7.2.03a00030.

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Shortly before the turn of the nineteenth Century, an amateur collector of Negro Spirituals and folklore recounted a conversation that she had had with an unidentified African American clergyman. According to the collector, the clergyman, “one of the most scholarly and noted ministers of the colored race,” admitted that, even as a professed Christian, he found himself “under the influences of voodooism” and other African occult practices. He explained that, as a young pastor, he had grown “completely discouraged” after numerous unsuccessful attempts to attract new worshipers into his congregation until one day an unexpected visitor happened his way:I was in my study praying when the door opened and a little Conjure man came in and said softly: “You don't understand de people. You must get you a hand as a friend to draw 'em. Ef you will let me fix you a luck charm, you'll git 'em.”

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21

Krylova, N. L. "An African Woman in the Fight against Terrorism and Violence." Asia and Africa today, no. 5 (December 15, 2024): 66–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s032150750030835-0.

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In November 2023, the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the AllRussian scientific conference with international participation “Gender-based violence in Africa: origins, motives, types. Methods and ways of struggle”. The attendees discussed such topical issues as the specifics of the formation and development of gender relations in traditional African societies as some of the causes of gender inequality and violence; prohibition systems and aggression in mythology and folklore; domestic violence; belittling of social status based on gender and age in the ethno-linguistic environment. A separate block of issues were female aggression in war and peace; gender discrimination among the population of refugee camps and victims of the slave trade; the gender aspect of violence and terrorism in the Sahel countries. Some reports were devoted to religion and discrimination of adherents on gender, ethnic and racial grounds; sexual violence and combating it in modern African states as well as gender violence and inequality in Muslim societies; civil and professional destinies of foreign women in Africa. The reports noted that states and society should create the conditions for the protection and self-realization of this part of the continent’s population, its active inclusion in socio-political processes.

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Mitchell, David, Marivic Lesho, and Abby Walker. "Folk Perception of African American English Regional Variation." Journal of Linguistic Geography 5, no. 1 (April 2017): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2017.2.

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Contrary to previous “sociolinguistic folklore” that African American (Vernacular) English has a uniform structure across different parts of the US, recent studies have shown that it varies regionally, especially phonologically (Wolfram, 2007; Thomas & Wassink, 2010). However, there is little research on how Americans perceive AAE variation. Based on a map-labeling task, we investigate the folk perception of AAE variation by 55 participants, primarily African Americans in Columbus, Ohio. The analysis focuses on the dialect regions recognized by the participants, the linguistic features associated with different regions, and the attitudes associated with these beliefs. While the perceived regional boundaries mostly align with those identified by speakers in previous perceptual dialectology studies on American English, the participants consistently identified linguistic features that were specific to AAE. The participants recognized substantial phonological and lexical variation and identified “proper” dialects that do not necessarily sound “white”. This study demonstrates the value of considering African Americans’ perspectives in describing African American varieties of English.

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Dederen, Jean-Marie, and Jennifer Mokakabye. "Negotiating womanhood: the bird metaphor in Southern African folklore and rites of passage." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 55, no. 2 (August 30, 2018): 91–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.55i2.2934.

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In spite of its evident presence in Southern Africa’s rich cultural heritage, the bird metaphor has received surprisingly little attention. The cultural materials analysed in this article include children’s stories, songs, heroic poetry and ethnographic accounts of rites of passage. At first the data seems to suggest that bird symbolism could be interpreted in terms of a simple dual conception of gender identity. Some magical birds signify the prowess and authority of men. Others could be linked symbolically to the procreative powers of women. On further reflection, however, we identified a third category of more ambiguously gendered birds. It is contended that this additional bird type can be explained in terms of the female-male dialectic that shaped gender relations in small-scale societies. It is further proposed tentatively that the bird metaphor could have provided women with a symbolic means to negotiate their identity.

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Lyakhovskaya, Nina D. "Specific Features of Forming French-Language Literatures of Sub-Saharan Africa as the Regional Typological Commonness." Studia Litterarum 8, no. 1 (2023): 126–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2023-8-1-126-143.

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The article is dedicated to basic methodological principles of studying Frenchlanguage literatures in Western and Central Africa. In 60s–70s of the 20th century, foreign Africanists-literature scholars, such as Jacques Chevrièr, and domestic ones, I.D. Nikiforova in particular, studied such literatures as a typological commonness with basic peculiar features or characteristics. The first one is the French language with the tendency for the indigenisation and creation of a “hybrid message.” The second one is the general idea-driven and artistic paradigm: the anticolonial orientation, traditional Africa presentation, protection of the authentic culture, folklore, spiritual values. As distinct from foreign Africanists, both Nikiforova and other Russian scientists emphasised the national specific character of regional literatures, having substantiated two more features that are essential: the accelerated development and parallelism or “compression of styles,” alignment of various art movements within a single temporal space. By the late 20th century, the vector of African studies moved towards the analysis of certain literatures in such typological commonness, thus enabling to determine their national distinctness to a deeper and more precise extent.

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Kofman, A. F. "Latin American Folklore: Roots, Genres, Uniqueness." Cuadernos Iberoamericanos 11, no. 3 (October 7, 2023): 164–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.46272/2409-3416-2023-11-3-164-183.

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Latin American folklore is a heterogeneous phenomenon, encompassing different levels, which has been determined by the historical conditions of its formation, existence and evolution. The so-called folklore criollo, which dates back to the Spanish folk poetry brought by the Spaniards to America during the colonial period, is an important part of the Latin American folklore. The specific character of historical and socio-economic circumstances that influenced the formation of the folklore criollo, explain its relatively late formation, as well as the transformation and reinterpretation of the original Spanish popular poetic tradition. As a result of syncretisation, Creole folklore has incorporated various elements of the folk art of the indigenous peoples, including those of African origin. The main genres of Creole folklore are romance, décima (glossa) and copla, which have evolved since their birth in Spain and later in the New World, where they came with waves of Spanish immigrants. The specific conditions of life in the American colonies, in which such psychological qualities as courage, bravery, aggressive ness and violence became the norm of existence, determined the content, motifs and plot of folklore. At the same time, romantic poetry was «folklorised», it was adapted to the collective environment, its themes were simplified. Folk songs and romances were given a sentimental, artificially dramatic character of exaggerated suffering. Romantic songs have achieved great popularity, as they exist today in different Latin American countries in different forms or genres, namely the corrido, the song ranchera, the yaraví, the mulisa, among others. The example of the folklorisation of the romantic style was the tango song that was formed in Argentina and Uruguay as a massive amateur composition in the 1920s. Different genres of Creole folklore are present with their own specificity in all Latin American and Caribbean countries and deserve new studies taking into account new conditions of social and human development.

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Nyawalo, Mich. "From “Badman” to “Gangsta”: Double Consciousness and Authenticity, from African-American Folklore to Hip Hop." Popular Music and Society 36, no. 4 (October 2013): 460–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2012.671098.

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Amlor, Martin Q., and Matthew Q. Alidza. "Indigenous Education in Environmental Management and Conservation in Ghana: The Role of Folklore." Journal of Environment and Ecology 7, no. 1 (June 30, 2016): 37. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jee.v7i1.9705.

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<p>Studies into indigenous knowledge of African societies and their eco-system<strong>,</strong> and complemented by western research findings in recent years, point to a common fact that there is a complex interrelation between humans, animals, plants and their physical environment For this reason, Ghanaian societies enforce cultural laws that ensure protection and management of their natural resources. Despite the merits associated with African endowed natural environments, it is scary to note that to date, Ghana still faces serious environmental threats among which are: deforestation, annual bushfires, illegal surface mining, poor farming practices, unconventional methods of dumping human/industrial wastes and pollution of water bodies. This paper therefore attempts to investigate the causes of environmental degradation in Ghana and demonstrate how the people’s folklore can contribute to ensuring a well-conserved environment that can benefit the country’s present and future generations. </p>

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Matusevich, Maxim. "An exotic subversive: Africa, Africans and the Soviet everyday." Race & Class 49, no. 4 (April 2008): 57–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306396808089288.

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The Leninist argument, that the class struggle of the European proletariat was intertwined with the liberation of the `toiling masses of the East', led to an official ideology of Soviet internationalism in which Africans occupied a special place. Depictions of the evils of racism in the US became a staple of Soviet popular culture and a number of black radicals, among them Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Claude McKay, flocked to the Soviet Union in the 1920s-30s, inspired by the belief that a society free of racism had been created. While there was some truth to this view, people of African descent in the Soviet Union nevertheless experienced a condescending paternalism, reflected also in their cinematic portrayal and in popular literature and folklore. With the onset of the cold war, young Africans were encouraged to study in Russia, where they received a mixed reaction and, on account of occasional conflict with the authorities and Soviet cultural norms, became symbols of dissent against official Soviet culture. Later, in the perestroika period, Africa became a scapegoat for popular discontent amidst a worsening climate of racism.

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Adéèkó, Adélékè. "Time Never Lines Up like a Street: Ato Quayson's Oxford Street, Accra." Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 131, no. 2 (March 2016): 480–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2016.131.2.480.

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Africanist studies conventionally restrict considerations of space to its physical dimensions. affective representations in literary writing oppose the village to the city, imbuing the village with comprehensible, but rarely historicized, routines. Until disturbed by uninvited and troubling ideas, institutions, and individuals from unknowable distances and places, the village nourishes existential certainty and sustains spiritual balance. In contrast, the corrupting, bewildering city signals instabilities of all kinds, even in the social sciences. Across the disciplines, while organic production and genuinely reciprocal relations dominate in the village, the insatiable city absorbs without giving back and never offers spiritual renewal. The village half of the spatial dyad represents what is truly African, and folklore, or orality in general, holds Africa's romance together. Its schematic character notwithstanding, the predisposition toward construing space as little more than the thin cover of more vital substances that facilitate self-understanding has produced enduring parameters for interpreting African expressive forms. With convivial marketplaces and festivals, evil forests and sacred groves, village squares and humble homesteads, depictions of the village in novels set at the beginning of colonization have fixed, perhaps permanently, perceptions of the African cultural past in reader's imaginations, and efforts to read these narratives have generated useful, axiomatic insights about meanings of traditional, everyday African life and its ritualized calibrations of the movement of time, its reifications of the social compact, and its coded references to the society's cosmic bearings. he African city has not been that fortunate.

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Mons, Elly. "Bones Hooks and Western Folklore: A Rhetorical Analysis of a Pioneering African American Cowboy." Storytelling, Self, Society 7, no. 2 (May 2011): 110–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sss.2011.a813221.

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Yankah, Kwesi. "African Folk and the Challenges of a Global Lore, 1998 American Folklore Society Plenary Address." Journal of American Folklore 112, no. 444 (1999): 140. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/541946.

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Rich, Jordan. ""Born in a Mighty Bad Land": The Violent Man in African American Folklore and Fiction." Journal of American Folklore 117, no. 466 (October 1, 2004): 471–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4137730.

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Ким, Александра Аркадьевна. "The Perspective of Interpreting Cultural Values Based on Folklore (Using The Example of Ethnic Groups in Kenya and Neighboring Regions)." Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology, no. 3(41) (November 15, 2023): 110–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.23951/2307-6119-2023-3-110-118.

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Этнографическое изучение народов обычно сопровождается сбором фольклорного материала, так как фольклор – ценный источник информации для этнографа. Экспликация разного рода информации из текста – известный прием в гуманитарных науках, поэтому привлечение фольклора как источника для поиска и интерпретации культурных ценностей представляется перспективным. Цель данного исследования состоит в том, чтобы рассмотреть фольклор этнических групп Кении и сопредельных регионов в качестве источника для выявления и интерпретации социокультурных ценностей. В ходе исследования применяется ценностный подход к изучению культуры. Ключевой вклад этой статьи в образовательную модель по преподаванию русского языка как иностранного в учебных заведениях Кении заключается в том, чтобы дать представление о традиционных ценностях народов Кении и показать важность фольклора для преподавания. В африканских сказках, как и в сказках народов всего мира, представлен определенный моральный кодекс и отражены культ предков, вера в духов, талисманы и силы природы. В связи с трудностями получить информацию непосредственно от народов Кении идея использовать фольклор для интерпретации культурных ценностей кажется достаточно перспективной, особенно в свете усилий кенийской интеллигенции приобщить к родной культуре урбанизированную кенийскую молодежь, получающую школьное и университетское образование на английском языке. Рассматриваются примеры применения этнографического анализа на материале африканских сказок с целью интерпретации социокультурных ценностей. Высказывается предположение, что в фольклоре комбинаторика универсальных (общечеловеческих) и идеоэтнических (национальных) ценностей отражается специфическим образом: рассмотренные примеры ценностей являются универсальными, но реализуются они идеоэтнически. Folklore collections usually complement ethnographic studies, as folklore provides ethnographers with valuable sources of information. Extracting and analyzing different types of text information is a well-known technique in the humanities. Therefore, it is promising to use folklore as a source for exploring and interpreting cultural values. This article uses a value-based approach to the study of culture. It aims to examine the folklore of ethnic groups in Kenya and neighboring regions as a source for identifying and interpreting sociocultural values. The main contribution of this article to a model for teaching Russian as a foreign language in educational institutions in Kenya is to give an idea of the traditional values of the peoples of Kenya and to show the importance of folklore for teaching as it appears in the fairy tales of peoples around the world. African fairy tales convey certain morals and reflect ancestor worship, beliefs in spirits, talismans, and the forces of nature. Since it is difficult to obtain information directly from the peoples of Kenya, the idea of using folklore to interpret cultural values seems quite promising, especially given the efforts of the Kenyan intelligentsia to focus the attention of urbanized Kenyan youth on their native culture while they receive their school and university education in English. The article discusses examples of applying ethnographic analysis to African fairy tale material to interpret sociocultural values. It suggests that folklore reflects the combination of universal and ethno-national values in a particular way: The examples of values considered are universal, but their expression is ethnic.

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James, Rob. "Newer Testaments? Tradition, Culture and the Expansion of ‘Scripture’ in Contemporary Africa." Horizons in Biblical Theology 35, no. 2 (2013): 115–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18712207-12341256.

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Abstract Scripture is a text designated to bear transcendent meaning. The text thus designated mediates the Transcendent Other for the believer. Since very early in the history of the Church, the Bible has fulfilled this role in Christianity. Now, there are indications that other texts, especially folklore, may begin to be used in a similar way to how the Bible is used. This paper explores such suggestions by seeing how they apply in the thought of various contemporary African theologians. Other texts and traditions do indeed seem to hold a similar status and there is one explicit call for traditional stories to be thought of as a ‘second canon.’ In the end, it seems unlikely we can use the term ‘scripture’ to describe these texts, although they are often used as such, or to mediate the transcendent in place of the Bible’s mediation.

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Moody-Turner, Shirley. "Gladys-Marie Fry's Night Riders in Black Folk History: Critical Race Theory and Black Folklore Practice." Journal of American Folklore 135, no. 537 (July 1, 2022): 332–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/15351882.135.537.04.

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Abstract Gladys-Marie Fry's Night Riders in Black Folk History is a foundational text at the intersection of folklore studies and critical race studies. Published in 1975, Fry's work centers analyses of race and gender in collecting and explicating Black folk practices and stories related to the supernatural. Fry's attention to the operations of white supremacist practices grounds her assertion that Black folk practices and supernatural beliefs were, in part, a response to racist efforts to exert psychological and economic control over African Americans during and after slavery. Fry's method of collecting oral histories, as well as her attention to the operations of race and gender, call on us to re-engage with the critical contributions of this foundational text.

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Skinner, Andrew. "‘The Stars Know Where He Is’: World-Making, Wayfaring, and Navigational Theory in Southern African |Xam Forager Folklore." Folklore 134, no. 4 (October 2, 2023): 462–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0015587x.2023.2240104.

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Elliott, Zetta. "The Trouble with Magic: Conjuring the Past in New York City Parks." Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 5, no. 2 (December 2013): 17–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jeunesse.5.2.17.

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New York City parks serve as magical sites of discovery and recovery in speculative fiction for young readers, which has gone through a process of modernization, shifting from “universal” and “generic” narratives with repetitive features (derived from Western European folklore) to a sort of “specialization” that emphasizes the particular cultural practices and histories of racially diverse urban populations. Ruth Chew uses city spaces like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park to engage young readers in the magical adventures of white, middle-class children. Zetta Elliott’s African American speculative novels A Wish After Midnight and Ship of Souls utilize these sites to reveal the complexity and ethnic diversity of urban youth while conjuring the suppressed history of free and enslaved blacks in New York City.

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Newton, Michael. "'Did you hear about the Gaelic-speaking African?': Scottish Gaelic Folklore about Identity in North America." Comparative American Studies An International Journal 8, no. 2 (June 2010): 88–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/147757010x12677983681316.

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Jirata, Tadesse Jaleta. "LEARNING THROUGH PLAY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF CHILDREN'S RIDDLING IN ETHIOPIA." Africa 82, no. 2 (May 2012): 272–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0001972012000058.

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ABSTRACTAlthough the educational value of African oral traditions, particularly folktales, has been discussed widely in social studies of children, education and folklore, riddling is not commonly investigated as a part of children's everyday social practice. In this article, I present riddling as a part of children's expressive culture, through which they play together and learn about their local environment. I generated the data through ten months of ethnographic fieldwork among Guji people in southern Ethiopia. Based on analyses of the times and locations of this activity, as well as the social interaction involved, I argue that children perform riddling in order to entertain themselves and to learn from their immediate social and natural environment through discrete peer networks.

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Karim, Sajjadul, and Mohd Muzhafar Bin Idrus. "Black empowerment and Afro-American values in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye." IIUC Studies 16 (November 7, 2020): 111–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/iiucs.v16i0.50181.

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The Bluest Eye of Toni Morrison is extraordinarily significant, as it addresses the different sides of American literature, and the lives of the Afro-American people. Although the conventional theological aspects of white culture can negatively influence other characters of Morrison, it is Pecola whose life appears to be increasingly defenseless against the impulses of the individuals who have accepted the Western custom. In a democratic country, people generally have the same value, but there are still prejudices in the concepts of beauty and worthiness. The search for freedom, black identity, the nature of evil and the robust voices of African-Americans have become themes for African-American literature. Folklore covers the history of black and white interaction in the United States and also summarizes the feelings expressed in protest literature1. Morrison argues that the survival of the dark ladies in a white dominated society depends on loving their own way of life and dark race and rejecting the models of white culture or white excellence. This article attempts to examine The Bluest Eye from the perspective of empowerment of blacks and African American and their value system. IIUC Studies Vol.16, December 2019: 111-121

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Rich, Jordan. ""Born in a Mighty Bad Land": The Violent Man in African American Folklore and Fiction (review)." Journal of American Folklore 117, no. 466 (2004): 471–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jaf.2004.0097.

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Blier, Suzanne Preston. "Field Days: Melville J. Herskovits in Dahomey." History in Africa 16 (1989): 1–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3171776.

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In recent years anthropologists and literary critics, most importantly George Stocking Jr. (1983), James Clifford and George E. Marcus (1986), and Clifford Geertz (1987), have led the way to a closer reading of the writings of early anthropologists and a fuller exploration of the intellectual climates in which they were working. As the founder of African studies in this country, Melville J. Herskovits is of considerable importance in terms of related scholarship in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Although an anthropologist by training, Herskovits had a major impact on the development of African scholarship in many other disciplines—from the history of art to folklore to political and economic history. Herskovits' field research methodologies and orientations thus potentially are of considerable significance. Despite Herskovits' critical role in African studies, there has been relatively little scholarly interest to date in his African research methodologies.Herskovits' unpublished field notes of his Dahomey research provide us with an inside look at the principal field strategies and orientations of this important African scholar. These field materials today are housed in the archives of three different research institutions: The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City; the library of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The largest grouping of Herskovits' Dahomey field materials (journals, financial records, artifact collection, photographs, correspondence) are at the Schomburg Center. At Northwestern University are found various diary extracts, song transcriptions, and the bulk of Herskovits' early and later correspondence. Recordings that Herskovits made in the course of the Dahomey research are located at Indiana University.

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Òjó, Esther Titilayo. "Gospel Àpàlà music in African Christian worship: Thematic and stylistic analysis." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 60, no. 3 (December 13, 2023): 106–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/tl.v60i3.14469.

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Music is an indispensable tool of cultural transmission. Considering the vast nature of oral traditions, of which indigenous music is encapsulated, many studies on Nigerian indigenous music have concentrated on Jùjú, Ìjálá, Dadakúàdà, Ẹ̀sà, and Àpàlà. However, much research still needs to be done on Gospel Àpàlà, a variant of Traditional Àpàlà which was popularised by Hárúnà Ìshọ̀lá and Àyìnlá Ọmọwúrà, noted for its highly proverbial folklore, blended with percussive instruments of which dùndún drum and ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀ play leading roles to give aesthetic appeal. In this research, therefore, I investigate and document Gospel Àpàlà as it translates from traditional Àpàlà into praise and worship of God, in order to identify and describe its unique style and communicative functions, especially in these changing times of modernisation and globalisation. Drawing on systemic functional linguistics and sociology of literature, in this article I provide an analysis and interpretation of six Àpàlà Gospel songs from three Àpàlà Gospel artistes: Ṣadé Ọ̀ṣọbà, Yọ̀mí Ọlábísí, and Boiz Ọlọ́run. I portray the relevance of Àpàlà music both in Christian worship and events and gathering. Themes in Àpàlà Gospel include praises, thanksgiving and adoration to God, salvation/acknowledging Jesus, God’s greatness and miracles, forgiveness, unity, holiness, heaven, love among brethren, commitment, and dedication to God’s work. My findings reveal, among others, that Gospel Àpàlà music encapsulates indigenous knowledge contained in oral literature. I identify stylistic devices such as repetition, rhetorical question, personification, loan words, code-mixing/code-switching, and proverbs which garnish the metamorphosed music and conclude that Àpàlà has metamorphosed from traditional Àpàlà into Gospel Christian worship.

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Kawan, Christine Shojaei. "The Authority of Memory in Narrative. Introduction to a volume of papers on East African folklore and folk narrative research." Fabula 43, no. 1-2 (July 2002): 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/fabl.2002.021.

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Zeisler-Vralsted, Dorothy. "African Americans and the Mississippi River: Race, history and the environment." Thesis Eleven 150, no. 1 (January 7, 2019): 81–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0725513618822010.

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Long touted in literary and historical works, the Mississippi River remains an iconic presence in the American landscape. Whether referred to as ‘Old Man River’ or the ‘Big Muddy,’ the Mississippi River represents imageries ranging from pastoral and Acadian to turbulent and unpredictable. But these imageries – revealed through the cultural production of artists, writers and even filmmakers – did not adequately reflect the experiences of everyone living and working along the river. The African-American community and its relationship to the Mississippi River down the ages is occluded by these discourses. In focusing on this alternate history, namely the African-American experience with the Mississippi River, the overarching framework of this paper will consist of three lenses on the river as: refuge, labor, and cultural icon. From the moment of their arrival, the intersection of their lives with the Mississippi River reveals a history where the river offers freedom, oppression, escape, sustenance, renewal, disease and displacement. From this largely unexplored perspective, distinctions of race and class are exposed and reinforced. Although rivers have long been included in the historical record, whether through a geographical, spiritual, aesthetic or recreational perspective, the juncture where human lives intersect with rivers, constructing memory and identity, remains overlooked despite a plethora of cultural artifacts such as song, prose and poetry that distinguish experiences. These cultural artifacts, in turn, differentiate reciprocal relationships with the river based on race and class. For the African-American community, the Mississippi River alternated between liberator and oppressor, informing the social construct of an identity that was at times lamented, celebrated, demeaned and feared. But how did these linkages with the river not only influence a distinct collective memory but also nurture a culture with certain understandings and perspectives about the river? And if so, what have been their ramifications? Through an examination of folklore, song and first-person accounts, these questions will be addressed as multiple narratives persist, offering a history that makes more explicit the distinctive experiences of the African-American communities in their engagement with the Mississippi River.

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Alagbe, O. A., G. O. Alagbe, E. A. Adekunle, O. O. Ayodele, E. M. Olorode, R. I. Oyediran, E. O. Oloyede, F. O. Oluwaloni, and A. O. Oyeleye. "Ethnomedicinal Uses and Therapeutic Activities of Piper Guineense: A Review." Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management 25, no. 6 (November 3, 2021): 927–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v25i6.6.

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The use of medicinal plants in most developing countries as therapeutic agents for the maintenance of good health is a widespread practice. One of such plant products is Piper guineense, which is a West African spice used in many folklore medicines and has a number of verified pharmacological activities. Proximate analysis reveals that the plant contains crude protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals while preliminary phytochemical screening and gas chromatography-mass spectrophotoscopy of the methanol leaf and seed extract of Piper guineense revealed the presence of several constituents such as alkaloids, glycosides, tannins, flavonoids, terpenes; sesquiterpenoids and monoterpenoids, saponins and secondary metabolites such as Aromadendrene, 1,6,10- Dodecatriene,7,11-dimethyl-3-methylene and piperine, piperidine amongst other secondary metabolites. Studies have revealed that Piper guineense possess several pharmacological and therapeutic properties such as anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, aphrodisiac, anti-parasitic, antiinflammatory, anti-convulsant, molluscicidal, oestrogenic and oxytocic properties. This paper provides a review on the morphology, physicochemical and phytochemical constituents, ethnomedicinal and scientifically proven therapeutic activities of Piper guineense.

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Bastian, Misty L. "Philip M. Peek and Kwesi Yankah, eds. African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. xxxii + 593 pp. Maps. Photographs. Bibliograpies. Appendixes. Index. $175.00. Cloth." African Studies Review 48, no. 2 (September 2005): 150–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/arw.2005.0049.

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Huffman, Michael A. "Animal self-medication and ethno-medicine: exploration and exploitation of the medicinal properties of plants." Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 62, no. 2 (May 2003): 371–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1079/pns2003257.

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Early in the co-evolution of plant-animal relationships, some arthropod species began to utilize the chemical defences of plants to protect themselves from their own predators and parasites. It is likely, therefore, that the origins of herbal medicine have their roots deep within the animal kingdom. From prehistoric times man has looked to wild and domestic animals for sources of herbal remedies. Both folklore and living examples provide accounts of how medicinal plants were obtained by observing the behaviour of animals. Animals too learn about the details of self-medication by watching each other. To date, perhaps the most striking scientific studies of animal self-medication have been made on the African great apes. The great ape diet is often rich in plants containing secondary compounds of non-nutritional, sometimes toxic, value that suggest medicinal benefit from their ingestion. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) are known to swallow whole and defecate intact leaves. The habit has been shown to be a physical means of purging intestinal parasites. Chimpanzees and man co-existing in sub-Saharan Africa are also known to ingest the bitter pith of Vernonia amygdalina for the control of intestinal nematode infections. Phytochemical studies have demonstrated a wide array of biologically-active properties in this medicinal plant species. In light of the growing resistance of parasites and pathogens to synthetic drugs, the study of animal self-medication and ethno-medicine offers a novel line of investigation to provide ecologically-sound methods for the treatment of parasites using plant-based medicines in populations and their livestock living in the tropics.

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Abba, Mus'ab, Sunusi Usman, Muslim Ahmad, Albashir Tahir, and Aminu Umar. "Exploring the Antiepileptic Potential of Amaranthus spinosus: An Experimental Study in Albino Mice." Sciences of Pharmacy 2, no. 3 (August 5, 2023): 106–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.58920/sciphar02030106.

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About 60% of the world population relies on herbal medicine, and 80% depend almost entirely on it for their primary healthcare. Many of these herbs are rich in phytochemicals, thus valuable as potential sources of drugs. Amaranthus spinosus is a vegetable and ornamental plant used in African folklore to treat several illnesses. This study aimed to investigate the antiepileptic potential of the methanol leaf extract of Amaranthus spinosus in albino mice. Preliminary phytochemical screening and acute toxicity studies were conducted using standard methods. Anticonvulsant studies were conducted using chemo-shock models (pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) - and strychnine (STR)-induced seizures) in mice. Phytochemical screening has revealed the presence of terpenoids, tannins, saponins, alkaloids, anthraquinones, carbohydrates, cardiac glycosides, and flavonoids. Additionally, the acute toxicity studies of the extract revealed that the extract is safe in mice at 2000 mg/kg. The extract at 400 and 800 mg/kg produced a significant (p<0.05) delay in the mean onset of seizures, decreased the duration of seizures induced by PTZ in a dose-dependent manner, and protected the mice. The extract showed insignificant protection against strychnine-induced seizures in mice. This could serve as a scientific basis for further evaluation of the plant’s potential in managing epilepsy, which can lead to the discovery of an effective antiepileptic agent with fewer side effects.

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Clark, Daniel A. "Lynn Moss Sanders. Howard W. Odum's Folklore Odyssey: Transformation to Tolerance through African American Folk Studies. Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2003. 184 pp. Cloth $29.95." History of Education Quarterly 44, no. 4 (2004): 632–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s001826800003884x.

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Journal articles on the topic 'African folklore studies'

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