Essay: South African Folktales

This past week I read the unit on South African Folktales. This unit was similar to what I read last week from Nigerian Folktales, but definitely had its own uniqueness to it. The folktales included great, in-depth stories that continued throughout the entire unit. Many of the same characters were seen throughout the unit and surprise endings (to me at least) always made the stories much more interesting.

Each of the stories were super easy reads and very easy to understand. I would almost think some of these stories were for children until I read some of the dark endings. For example, in my Reading Diary B I talked about a story I read called Jackal and the Monkey. In the story, the sleazy Jackal tricks the monkey into a trap and leaves him to die for the Jackal’s crime.

The first story I pointed out in Reading Diary A was probably my favorite story. It had a lot of interesting features and kept me entertained. I thought it was clever and original and was a story that I could see being passed down from generation to generation in the South African culture.  The story was a about a monkey with a bow and arrow and a fiddle. When he was falsely accused and sent to court for lying about his bow and arrow, he played his fiddle and all the animals couldn’t stop dancing. They were so exhausted that they begged the monkey to stop and he could have whatever he wanted, even be king of the forest. The monkey simply wanted his bow and arrow back and his wish was granted. All the other animals left the area in fear he would play his fiddle again.

I really enjoyed this unit overall, and I would encourage others to read from South African Folktales.

Map of South Africa.

Photo Cred: CDC