Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. I ordered this book to read for one of my Ethics classes. I was worried about so much assigned reading to complete in one week, but it turned out to be a book that you just can't put down. It still amazes me that this is a woman's real life story, the story of her family, and how they have impacted science and anyone who works or benefits from the use of cellular research. That means just about every single person is connected to Henrietta in one way or another.
This was a great book that I'm so glad I read. I learned a lot and it kept me entertained and fascinated for days. It will really change your perspective and make you appreciate this woman's contribution to our scientific and health fields. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase.
Even before killing Lacks herself in , they took on a life of their own. HeLa became an instant biological celebrity, traveling to research labs all over the world. This work has the most human of stories at its core, and never deviates from that important, and often heartbreaking, humanity. I put the book down with a heavy sigh after reading about the experiments that black Americans have been unwittingly subjected to over the years. They have achieved immortality, used by scientists throughout the world. Similarly, her entire life has been condensed into a moving tale and an exceptional book that you could read in a comfortable day.
By right, it will achieve the same immortal status. An ode to love, family and the beauty of nature. Set in the Ozarks, northeastern Oklahoma, Billy wants nothing more than to have a puppy, or to be more specific, two puppies. He wants to train them for hunting, although his mother has forbidden him to use or own a gun until he is 21 or older.
For two years he waits, collecting enough money doing whatever jobs he can, he finally raises enough for two puppies who are delivered via train to the town closest to where he lives. I buried my face between their wiggling bodies and cried. The stationmaster, sensing something more than two dogs and a boy, waited in silence. When he was able to return to being a civilian pilot, the first thing he did with the money he saved was to buy another dog. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master.
Some people call this loyalty. Re-read it, if you read it as a child. What a great book.
My previous boss gave me a copy to read and I then bought a copy off of Amazon. I'm sending it to my cousin. Its a must read for anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity. See all 17, reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.
Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Set up a giveaway. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy: Pages with related products. See and discover other items: There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. The hen rushed into the hut to fetch the razor. She plunged her hand into the leather bag, but alas!
She was very shocked at the unpleasant discovery. She started searching on the floor to see if by chance it had dropped from the bag, but there was no finding it. Tired and defeated, she came out and, imploring, said: Have mercy on me! I want my razor back!
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The poor hen spent all the day searching and searching, but nothing came to light. She demolished her hut, and started searching in the roof-grass, among the rabble of the walls, between the poles, in the ashes, and even in the rubbish pit; but nothing was found. The following day the vulture came to see the results of the searching.
He found the hen still scratching the ground among a heap of dry grass and ox dung; but no razor was yet discovered. For to-day you must give me a chicken. So the vulture flew away with a chicken gripped within his talons under its breast. The following day he returned to the hen. She was still scratching the ground; but she could not see any razor.
Another chicken went with the vulture. And the same happened in the following days until to-day. That is the reason why the hen is always scratching the ground, and the vulture swooping on chickens even in our days. The hen is still searching for the razor, and the vulture compensating himself for its loss. He borrowed that money. Now the eagle— he died leaving his children alone. But he left a message with them: He looked and looked; but he could not find him. One day he went and sat down where they pound the rice. He was sitting there.
When he saw the hen standing there, eating the rice, he asked her: I want him to return it… 10 Do you think I will be able to find the finch? The eagle got there. He went and hid. The finch alighted and began to pick at the ground, searching for his food. The eagle swooped down. What a long time I have spent looking for you. Now here you are today. I have been looking for the hen here but could not find her.
And all the time you have been looking for me and could not find me! The eagle did not believe the finch. They went and stood near the wall where the finch lived. As for the hen-family—just look here at where my children sleep. He turned them over—and over—and over. He could only see feathers. You spoke the truth. That is why hens are carried off by eagles. That is the story. Both tales give an aetiological explanation of the present misfortunes of chickens and trace this back to a debt or alleged debt by the hen; but the framework, the detailed course of the plot, even the implied evaluations of the characters are very different.
The subject-matter and literary structure of each story can only be fully appreciated as distinct from appearing as a catalogue item with a detailed knowledge of the social and literary experience from which it springs. Most familiar of all are the animals, particularly the wily hare, tortoise, spider, and their larger dupes.
But there are also many stories about people, ordinary and extraordinary, some about legendary heroes or ancestors, and a few which recount the actions of various supernatural beings. They are also occasionally woven round other personified objects like, say, the parts of the body, vegetables, minerals, the heavenly bodies, or abstractions like hunger, death, or truth.
These various characters do not usually appear in strictly separate cycles, but in many cases are depicted as interacting among themselves: The same general plots may be centred round different types of characters in different areas, or even on different occasions in the same society. In other cases it may be rather ambiguous whether the central figure is really animal or really human, and it may appear in different guises on different occasions.
That it is not possible to regard these general types as clear-cut categories will be clear both from the way the characters overlap and from the general remarks in the previous chapter on the difficulties of producing clear typologies in the case of such flexible and variable material. However, in view of the nature of the sources available and for mere convenience of discussion, we can speak of animal tales, tales about people, and so on, at the same time insisting that in view of the overlapping and impermanence of any given story, these must not be regarded as categories in any generally valid typology of African narratives.
The tortoise predominates in the easterly regions of the west coast, in an area extending at least from the Yoruba of Nigeria across to the Fang and others of West Equatorial Africa. The tortoise also comes into other areas in a lesser way; among the Ila of Zambia, to give one example, the main cycle of tales are about Sulwe, the hare, but there are also a number about Fulwe, the tortoise. There are also a few other favourite trickster characters who occur often enough in stories but without any clear-cut geographical domain: The spider, for instance, though often wily, is also, in some areas at least, depicted as stupid, gluttonous, boastful, and ineffective, not infrequently outdone by his own wife.
There are also instances of the same image being applied to the tortoise. All these tricksters, however, are adaptable. They are able to turn any situation, old or new, to their advantage. The tortoise now aspires to white collar status in Southern Nigeria and attends adult education classes, Berry Some of the stock characters associated with them are common to many areas: Not all these occur in all regions or all stories in exactly the same way.
Surprisingly, other animals—the zebra, buck, or crocodile—seldom occur, or, if they do, tend to come in just as animals and not as the personified characters presented by those already mentioned. He is the favourite hero in Bushman narratives, and though he shares some of the qualities sometimes attributed to tricksters powerful and foolish, mischievous and kind , his supernatural associations and the unusual type of action in these stories set him rather apart from leading animal characters in narratives elsewhere in Africa.
This is sometimes brought out by the terminology, like the personal prefix used in Sotho to turn the ordinary form of, say, lion tau into a personal form motau —Mr. Lion Smith and Dale ii, In other cases no grammatical change is or needs to be made.
III. Prose
The animals act like human characters, experiencing human emotions. And yet the fact that they are also animals is not altogether lost sight of. This can be exploited either through grammatical forms, like the alternation in Zande stories between animal and personal pronouns, Evans-Pritchard In a Limba tale, for instance, a spider is shown taking off his cap, gown, and trousers in a vain attempt to placate his magic pot; in the story he is unquestionably like a man—albeit an absurdly foolish man—with a house, wife, and human garb, but the fact that he is, nevertheless, a spider struggling with all these clothes adds just the extra understated touch in the telling which makes the whole story very funny.
But there are also more serious themes. One common form is a story ending up with a kind of moral, sometimes in the form of a well-known proverb. In some places too, Christian morals are specifically introduced, e. But in other cases, sometimes even those from the same area or teller, the moral seems no more than a kind of afterthought, appended to give the narration a neat ending. These aetiological themes are not just confined to animal stories but can occur in all types of African tales.
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Not all the aetiological tales are equally humorous and light-hearted. A few explain more serious matters: An example of the nonessential nature of the aetiological conclusion can be seen from the following Kikuyu tale where the explanation at the end sounds very much like an afterthought. One day a Hyena went together with Wakahare to collect honey in the forest, where men used to hang their beehives from the trees. Wakahare climbed the tree, extracted big lumps of combs full of honey from a beehive, and when he was satiated, said to the Hyena: The Hyena did so and swallowed the honey with great pleasure several times, until she was also satisfied.
Then Wakahare left the tree and returned to the ground. He asked the Hyena: Wakahare fetched a few sharp thorns and stitched the orifice with the tail of the Hyena and went off. After some time the Hyena felt a terrible urge to evacuate. She looked around for help, but nobody was to be found. At last a Jackal happened to pass thereat. And so saying, he went on. After some time a Serval arrived on his way to the forest.
The Hyena beseeched him for help. He too went his way without looking back. Later on a Hare passed by. The Hyena asked again for help, but to no avail. I am going to a feast. He too went his way leaving the Hyena groaning and tossing on the ground on account of the pain she was suffering. At last, a Crow perched on a tree nearby. Looking down at the Hyena lying still on the grass, he thought she was dead, and began to foretaste a good meal: The Crow left the tree and approached the Hyena.
How can I help you with that business? My belly is full of meat. On hearing that, the Crow set himself to think and after a little while decided to see what he could do. With his strong bill he succeeded in extracting the first thorn, and truly, two small pieces of meat fell on the ground. The bird devoured them very greedily, and encouraged by the success, began to tackle the job seriously. After great effort he succeeded in extracting the second thorn, but alas!
The shock was so great, that he remained buried for two days, until a great shower of rain washed the ground, freeing the Crow of the burden. He remained a full day basking in the sun and regaining strength. He was so weak that he could not fly. The Crow was washed by the heavy rain, but his neck remained white. That is the reason why crows to-day have a white collar in their plumage. The Crow very much resented the alteration of his plumage and decided in his heart to take revenge. One day he heard that the hyenas had arranged for a great dance in a thicket he knew very well.
He cleaned himself with great care in the morning dew, put on a beautiful string made of scented roots and proceeded to the meeting place. On his arrival he was greeted by the hyenas and several of them asked him to give them some of those little pieces of meat he wore around his body.
They took his ornamental beads to be meat. He refused to give any of the beads away, but rising on his feet with an air of dignity, he said: Look up at the sky and see how many white heaps of fat we usually store there. The hyenas gazed up to the sky and asked: You can reach there very easily. Now, let us make an appointment. The day after to-morrow we will meet here again.
On the day appointed the hyenas came in great numbers.
Oral Literature in Africa
I think the whole population was there. The Crow arrived in due time. He started by congratulating the crowd on their punctuality, and with great poise said: You must grapple one another by the tail, so as to form a long chain. There was a general bustle among the hyenas, but after a few moments all were in order. At a given sign, the Crow began to fly, lifting the hyenas one by one till they looked like a long black chain waving in the air. After some time he asked: He flew and flew up into the sky for a long time and asked again: Do you see the trees, the huts, the rivers?
He flew again for another while and then said to the hyenas nearby: The Crow would not listen at all. He thought the time had come for his revenge. With a sharp jerk he turned to the right. The feathers of his tail tore out, and with them the long chain of hyenas. They fell heavily on the ground and died. One of them escaped with a broken leg. She was pregnant and so saved the kinship from total destruction. That is the reason why hyenas these days limp when they walk Cagnolo The fact that most of the animals portrayed are well known to the audience—their appearance, their behaviour, their calls, so often amusingly imitated by the narrator—adds definite wit and significance that is lost when rendered for readers unfamiliar with this background.
It is true that the imagery associated with the animal figures in tales hardly matches that implied in other contexts praise songs for instance, as pointed out in James But on a straightforward and humorous level the animals that appear in the stories can be appreciated and enjoyed for their amusing antics or their vivid portrayal by the narrator. On another level, what is often involved in the animal stories is a comment, even a satire, on human society and behaviour. In a sense, when the narrators speak of the actions and characters of animals they are also representing human faults and virtues, somewhat removed and detached from reality through being presented in the guise of animals, but nevertheless with an indirect relation to observed human action.
As Smith writes of the Ha, in words that can be applied far more widely: In sketching these animals, not Sulwe and Fulwe [Hare and Tortoise] only, but all the animals in these tales, the Ba-ila are sketching themselves. The virtues they esteem, the vices they condemn, the follies they ridicule—all are here in the animals. It is a picture of Ba-ila drawn by Ba-ila, albeit unconsciously. Smith and Dale ii, Nor need we refer to literalistic interpretations of the stories, and assume that in each case they present clear-cut moral messages, like the protest of weakness against strength, or a direct one-to-one reflection of human or local society, or specific references to definite individuals— though there are occasional instances of the last category.
The foibles and weaknesses, virtues and strengths, ridiculous and appealing qualities known to all those present are touched on, indirectly, in the telling of stories and are what make them meaningful and effective in the actual narration. In contexts in which literary expression is neither veiled by being expressed through the written word nor usually voiced by narrators removed from the close-knit village group, comment on human and social affairs can be expressed less rawly, less directly by being enmasked in animal characters. But the background to, say, some little story about a competition between two animals for chiefship, or a race between two birds to the colonial secretariat for the prize of local government office, renders it meaningful to an audience fully aware of the lengths to which political rivalry and ambition can lead men.
If we cannot say that such events are represented directly in the stories, we can at least see how the tales strike a responsive chord in their audience. In a way common to many forms of literature, but doubly removed from reality in being set among animals, the animal tales reflect, mould, and interpret the social and literary experience of which they form part. This is the effective use that can be made of the image of the trickster usually but not invariably an animal. This figure can be adapted to express the idea of opposition to the normal world or of the distortion of accepted human and social values.
This applies particularly when the trickster figure is made not only wily but also in some way inordinate and outrageous—gluttonous, uninhibited, stupid, unscrupulous, constantly overreaching himself. Here, the trickster is being presented as a kind of mirror-image of respectable human society, reflecting the opposite of the normally approved or expected character and behaviour. This aspect has been particularly well described for Ikaki, the tortoise trickster figure among the Kalahari. He appears in both masquerade and story as. Not only does the trickster figure stand for what is feared, his representation in literature also helps to deal with these fears.
In the first place, he is represented in animal guise which allows narrator and listener to stand back, as it were, and contemplate the type in tranquillity. Further, by portraying him in stories, people can show the trickster as himself outwitted and overreached, often enough by his own wife. In these various ways. People laugh from out of their depths at the ravening forest beast, because for once they have got him behind bars.
This in fact is far from being the case. The proportion of animal stories seems to have been much exaggerated, and in some areas at least stories mainly about people or supernatural beings seem to be preferred or to be more elaborate, lengthy, or serious. It is not easy to work out the numerical and qualitative relationship between animal and other stories in different areas. One or two suggestions have been made along these lines—postulating, for example, that animal tales are the most popular form in Central and East Africa, but not at all conspicuous in parts of South Africa.
Quite apart from the overlapping between animal and other tales, one does not usually know what principles of selection have been adopted in any given collection of tales: Perhaps all that can be concluded for the moment at least is that, for all their popularity in Europe, animal tales are not the only or even the most important type of African oral narratives.
These stories are of many kinds. Some are concerned with marvellous events and personages, some exhibit marked Arabic influence particularly in the long-established Islamic areas , some deal with everyday events in village life, some with a combination of all these. Like animal stories, some stories contain an aetiological aspect or a moralizing conclusion, others centre round a series of tricks or a competition.
There is a definite overlapping in subject and structure, both between various categories of stories about people and, as already remarked, between all these stories and animal tales as a whole. This is not because they are less important, but because, being less well known, they have been less theorized over and confused by Western scholars. It is obvious to most readers that these narratives can be treated as a form of literature comparable to the more familiar types of written fiction rather than analysed as some strange product of a totemistic or as yet childish mentality.
After some brief comments on the range of these stories, the narratives can be left to speak for themselves as self-evidently a form of literature. They concern such well-known problems as the relations of two co-wives and how these affect their children or their husband; wooing a wife; jealousy between two equals or between chief and subject; the extremes of friendship and affection shown by two companions; or a series of clever tricks by some outrageous but in essence recognizably human character.
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But even more often, it seems, the story is set back a little further from reality by the introduction of some marvellous element in setting, event, or character. Similarly the cunning of the central character may rest on enchanted powers and lead the listener into some far-away world of fantasy.
The imagination of both teller and audience can rove freely and the exploits of the hero become the more romantic and exciting for being enacted against this imaginary background. The hero struggles against ogres and monsters who are trying to devour him. These fearsome ogres are stock characters in many stories in Bantu Africa. In all these cases, the basically non-human and asocial character of these figures comes through clearly either by reason of their deformities or through their association with non-human creatures. All over the continent kings are represented as possessing exaggerated wealth and power, heroes are revived from death, girls are wooed by hundreds and thousands of suitors, young men win whole kingdoms for themselves by force of arms or politic love, or hunters kill and capture fabulous beasts who bring them all their desires.
In the areas strongly influenced by Islam, particularly on the East Coast, we also hear of sultans with wealthy and glittering entourages and of the miraculous assistance given to a hero by genies. Each has his own contribution to make of wit, satire, elegance, or moralizing.
Similarly some stories may give an impression of serenity; others most definitely do not. It is better to say that the opportunities for various kinds of literary effect are exploited differently in different contexts, and that even when some of the themes are the same, the actual tone and impact of the story itself may vary in different areas and according to different narrations. In both there is an element of fantasy and a concentration on human action—but the stories are very different in tone. There was a certain Man, a Pauper, he had nothing but husks for himself and his Wife to eat.
There was another Man who had many Wives and Slaves and Children, and the two Men had farms close together. One day a Very-Rich-Man who was richer than either came, and was going to pass by on the road. He had put on a ragged coat and torn trousers, and a holey cap, and the People did not know that he was rich, they thought that he was a Beggar.
So he had a calabash washed well with white earth, 33 and filled up to the top with dollars, and a new mat 34 was brought to close it. Wacici was a very beautiful girl, admired by many people for her elegance and charm. Her girl friends were very jealous of her and always ill-treated her. One day her friends were going to visit a mwehani 39 to have their teeth filed, spaced, and beautified as girls used to do.
He was a man of great fame who was highly reputed for his skill. They all had their teeth well done and the girls looked very attractive and charming, but no one looked as pretty as Wacici. This annoyed her girl friends very much. On their way home they stopped and talked to young men from time to time. And all the boys agreed and repeated this remark to Wacici. The girls continued their journey towards their homes and on the way they all conspired to bury Wacici alive in a porcupine hole which was somewhere in the forest near the road.
They all agreed to do this and Wacici particularly was very eager to take home some firewood. She was not only a beauty but also a very good girl who upheld the respect expected of Gikuyu girls, and her mother loved her dearly. When the girls reached the porcupine hole in the forest, they grabbed Wacici and pushed her down the hole and quickly buried her alive. She was taken by surprise and she did not have a chance to scream as she thought that they were playing with her. They did not beat her or do anything harmful to her body. They sealed the hole very carefully on top, quickly left the forest and returned to their homes; they did not speak to anybody about Wacici.
That evening Wacici did not return home. Her parents waited and waited. They all denied having been with her or seeing her anywhere that day. All this time Wacici was crying in the bottom of the porcupine hole in the forest while her parents were wandering all over the villages looking for her. He reported this to his wife and without wasting any time he went to see the dentist in order to verify this information.
The dentist confirmed that Wacici and her friends had been to see him and that he had done their teeth on the day she was reported missing. He returned home and reported to his wife and the family all the information he had gathered. He suspected foul play. He left home quickly and tracked the route through which the girls had returned from the expert.
He knew that if they gathered some firewood, they must have entered the forest on the way. He went into the forest to check if his sister had been killed there. When he came near the porcupine hole he noticed that it was freshly covered and that there were many footmarks which suggested that many people had been there. He examined them very carefully. He also saw a bundle of firewood which had been abandoned.
This time Wacici could hear some noise and footsteps above her. When he listened carefully he heard the voice of Wacici clearly and he had no doubt that she had been buried there by her girl friends who were jealous of her beauty. At once her brother started digging and removing the soil. He dug and dug until he came to where she was sitting and crying. He carried her to the surface and examined her: He took her home and her parents were so happy to see her again.
She was given a good bath and a lamb was slaughtered to offer thanksgiving to Mwene-Nyaga who had preserved her life. Wacici reported what her friends had done to her. The following morning the evil girls were arrested and sent to a trial before the elders in a tribunal court and their fathers were heavily fined. They had to pay many heads of cattle and many rams and bulls were slaughtered and a lot of beer had to be brewed for the judges and the elders to eat and drink.
The bad girls were exposed and they were all shunned in society and were unable to get husbands for a long time. Wacici was widely respected and she got married and became a mother of many children and lived happily ever after. Some societies have their own favourite named heroes, often of a trickster type, for instance the Lamba Kantanga a little mischievous fellow , the Zanda Ture or Tule an amusing rogue , the Zulu Uthlakanyana when appearing as a human a deceitful and cunning little dwarf , the Fon Yo a glutton with various supernatural powers , and so on.
As with animal tales it would be misleading to assume that all these stories about named characters fall into clear-cut cycles in an attempt to give an overall and in principle unitary history of the hero. In some cases at least there seems to be no attempt at consistency or chronology, the stories are told as short independent narrations on different occasions, and their inclusion into one united narrative may represent the outlook of the Western systematizing scholar rather than the intentions of the narrators.
The names are merely taken, it seems, from everyday names in current use and given to a character for ease of reference. Thus the Ila are particularly fond of stories about fools Smith and Dale ii Some stock characters have wide application and appear in various contexts in the stories of many African peoples.
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We often hear of the actions of a jealous husband, a boaster, a skilful hunter, an absurdly stupid person, a despised youngster making good, a wise old woman, an oppressive ruler, twins, good and bad daughters, or young lovers. The basic human dilemmas implied by so many of these figures have clearly brought inspiration to hundreds of story-tellers practising their otherwise diverse skills throughout the continent. This will involve recapitulating several points touched on earlier.
This provides a convenient starting-point. Myths are prose narratives which, in the society in which they are told are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past. They are accepted on faith; they are taught to be believed; and they can be cited as authority in answer to ignorance, doubt, or disbelief. Myths are the embodiment of dogma; they are usually sacred; and they are often associated with theology and ritual. Their main characters are… animals, deities, or culture heroes, whose actions are set in an earlier world, when the earth was different from what it is today, or in another world such as the sky or underworld… Bascom b: This is in spite of the narratives presented as myths in many popular collections.
It is seldom, also, that we seem to find narratives depicting the activities of deities or other supernatural beings alone or even as the central subject 44 much more frequently the interest seems to be centred on human or animal characters with supernatural beings only appearing in secondary roles. And one could go further and say that myths in any strict sense do not seem, on the evidence we have, to be a characteristic African form at all. This can be illustrated from three or four of the better-studied African cultures. The elements of entertainment and of conscious artistry seem relatively unimportant.
The second group of Fon narratives, the heho , covers more light-hearted stories. There are tales about various supernatural, human, and animal characters: All these latter stories are normally told at night. In fact, as Herskovits points out The Kimbundu classifications, for example, divide narratives into three main groups excluding the closely related proverbs, jisabu. There are, first, the stories regarded as fictitious, misoso , arising from imagination. This class includes animal tales and stories about the marvellous and supernatural.
Secondly there are the maka , reputedly true stories or anecdotes. These are instructive as well as entertaining, and are socially didactic, concerned with how to live and act. Their oral literature is divided into several categories. This includes the genealogies, back to the supposed time when all Dogon descended from the three sons of a common ancestor.
It also includes accounts—how far appearing in narrative sequence it is not clear—about the deeds of the first ancestor and his descendants, and about the ancestors of each clan and the founding of the various contemporary villages. Then there are the tanye or tanye nanay literally impossible or unbelievable but true.
These are tales about events that not only could not but in fact, according even to the teller, never did take place, and take the form of fantastic stories often ending up with a dilemma. Distinct from all these are the stories elme or elume told to entertain children, often by the children themselves. These tales are not usually told by adults but by young people while in the fields or during their time as herders.