Week 7 Reading Notes: Nigerian Folk Stories Part A

 Here are my reading notes for Part A of Nigerian Folk stories. Since this unit has quite a few readings, I am going to attempt a new note taking strategy.

Interesting endings: Ending the story with a sentence that outlines what the theme or lesson is supposed to be from the story. For example, the first story ends with "Never marry a stranger, no matter how pretty she may be." This is the ending after the witch killed the king by beheading him. This theme is carried through in a couple of the stories.

Relates to the origin of an animal: The story about the bat and the bushrat outlines the reason why bats are nocturnal. It could be fun to possibly make up an origin story for some other animal and explain why they have a certain quality. The story about the apes explain the history behind why apes and monkeys are afraid of people. It also relates to the theme mentioned above in which people were told who and who not to marry and also the dangers of marriage. Another story regarding the origins of a fish and why they must live under water. The king order this to be so as the fish had betrayed his long time leopard friend by sleeping with the leopard's wife. The next story regards why worms live underground. I am thing I should definitely write my story on the origin of an animal, as it seems many of the Nigerian folk stories focus on this. Possibly why spiders have multiple eyes? 

Origin of the Sun and Moon: Rather than animals, this story explains a folk tale of why the sun and moon live in the sky. I find it interesting that this is the same premise as many of the animal stories, it just contain the sun and moon instead. It gets a little repetitive in my opinion. 

Random Notes: Do the majority of Nigerian Folk Stories either focus on marriage or animal origins? I have also noticed that the stories for the most part have very literal titles hinting at what is contained in the story to come. These stories often start with two people, animals, things, whatever it may be that are very happy. The usually, someone does someone else wrong which results in a change or punishment.

An elephant and its very small worm eyes. Photo by Keyur Nandaniya on Unsplash