Zanzibar Tales: Told by Natives of the East Coast of Africa

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0

Word count: 133K words
Chapters: 14

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Zanzibar Tales: Told by Natives of the East Coast of Africa by Bobbett and BatemanAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore, Release Date: Sep 18, 2011

Editor's review

This book is a collection of English translations of oral tales told by the native peoples of Zanzibar, on the East African coast, and is a foundational text in folklore and folk literature. Its value lies not in literary polish but in the preservation of oral narrative in its original form: animal fables, clever tricksters, supernatural elements, and everyday morality intertwine, revealing how the Swahili cultural sphere imagined the world, power, and family relations. As a public-domain eBook, it is short and plain in language, making it an accessible introduction to East African folktales and a useful companion to collections such as The Arabian Nights for observing the circulation of narrative motifs under the influence of Indian Ocean trade and Islamic culture. Readers should note that this is a late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century English translation and compilation, bearing the transcriptions and editorial traces of its period, and should not be treated as a purely "original" text. It is suitable as short material for folklore courses, comparative literature discussions, or cross-cultural reading groups.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in African folk literature and oral traditions
Students and researchers in folklore, anthropology, or comparative literature
Primary and secondary school teachers seeking short story material for cross-cultural teaching
Casual readers who enjoy animal fables and trickster tales

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting the complete plots and character development of modern fiction
Researchers needing scholarly annotations, facing-page originals, or textual criticism
Readers sensitive to the transcription errors of colonial-era English translations

Reading tips

Read through once to feel the oral rhythm, then choose three tales and make comparative notes with similar stories in Aesop's Fables.
Jot down recurring animal figures and moral lessons as you read, observing how their functions differ.
Read alongside public resources on Swahili cultural background to understand the social context of the stories.
Read two or three tales at a time, as bedtime or commute reading, to avoid fatigue from reading straight through.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Did the natives of Zanzibar tell these stories directly in English?

No. The sources indicate that this is a collection of stories compiled and translated into English by Bobbett and Bateman; it is a written transcription and compilation of oral tales that preserves the narrative framework, but the language and some details were handled by the translators. It should be read as a record from a particular era, not as a verbatim recording.

Is this book suitable for children?

Some animal fables and trickster tales suit older children, but the book may contain violent punishment, supernatural intimidation, and other elements common in oral tales, and the English translation is old-fashioned. Parents are advised to leaf through and select stories themselves before deciding what to tell their children, and to explain as needed.

Is it related to The Arabian Nights?

There is no direct textual relationship, but both belong to the sphere of Indian Ocean trade and Islamic cultural influence, and some motifs—such as escape by wit, animals helping one another, and tests of fate—may be shared. Comparative reading can help illuminate how stories spread through trade and migration, but the two should not be regarded as coming from the same source.

What should I keep in mind when reading this as a public-domain eBook?

Public-domain eBooks are usually transcribed and proofread by volunteers, so there may be differences in formatting or individual words, and modern scholarly annotations are usually absent. It is best to focus on the stories themselves; for research citations, check other editions or consult relevant folklore scholarship.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.