Storytelling around the World: Folktales, Narrative Rituals, and Oral Traditions

by Jelena Cvorovic, Kathryn Coe

Overview

This book provides students, instructors, and lay-readers with a cross-cultural understanding of storytelling as an art form that has existed for centuries, from the first spoken and sung stories to those that are drawn and performed today.

This book serves as an indispensable resource for students and scholars interested in storytelling and in multicultural approaches to the arts. By taking an evolutionary approach, this book begins with a discussion of origin stories and continues through history to stories of the 21st century. The text not only engages the stories themselves, it also explains how individuals from all disciplines, from doctors and lawyers to priests and jourbanalists, use stories to focus their readers' and listeners' attention and influence them.

This text addresses stories and storytelling across both time (thousands of years) and geography, including in-depth descriptions of storytelling practices occurring in more than 40 different cultures around the world. Part I consists of thematic essays, exploring such topics as the history of storytelling, common elements across cultures, different media, lessons stories teach us, and storytelling today. Part II looks at more than 40 different cultures, with entries following the same outline: Overview, Storytellers: Who Tell the Stories, and When, Creation Mythologies, Teaching Tales and Values, and Cultural Preservation. Several tales/tale excerpts accompany each entry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440872945
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/29/2022
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 10.25(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jelena Cvorovic, PhD anthropology, is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnography, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Kathryn Coe was emeritus professor in the social and behavioral sciences department in the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction: Why Is Storytelling Important? xi

Part I Thematic Essays

History of Storytelling around the World (or the Origin and Early History of Storytelling) 3

Common Storytelling Elements across Cultures 11

Storytelling Media: Oral, Art, and Music 19

Lessons Stories Teach Us 27

The Birth and Development of 21st-century Stories 35

Part II Storytelling across Cultural Groups

Africa 45

Ashanti 45

Azande 50

Baganda 54

Bemba 60

Berber 64

Bulu 68

Dahomeans 71

Fjort 76

Hadjerai 80

Hausa 83

Ju/'Hoansi Bushmen 88

Khoikhoi/Hottentot 92

Limba 96

Maasai 100

Malagasy 105

Nandi 110

Swahili 113

Yoruba 118

Zulu 122

South America 127

Añangu Kichwa People of the Rio Napo 127

Chachi (also the Cayapa) 132

Inca Empire 136

Muisca (Chibcha) 141

Runa (Canelos Quichua) 146

North America 151

Anishinaabe People, Ojibwe, Chippewa, and Saulteaux 151

Cheyenne Nations, or Tsétsehéstáhese 154

Comanche Nation (Numunu) 159

Delaware Nation (Lenape, Lenni-Lenape, Munsee) 163

Hopi 167

Navajo (Diné) 171

Pima, Akimel O'odham 175

Tohono O'Odham Nation 179

Asia and Oceania 183

Ainu 183

Andamanese, The Great 187

Buryats 191

Chukchee 195

Enga 199

Iban 203

Ifugao 207

Maori 212

Nhunggabarras 215

Somaip 220

Wheelman 223

Europe 227

Basque 227

Roma/Gypsies, Balkan 231

Saami 238

Middle East 243

Bedouins, Negev 243

Kurds 246

Mandaeans 251

Glossary 257

Bibliography 263

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/01/2022

Part 1 of this book by C˘vorović (anthropology, Arizona State Univ.; Roast Chicken and Other Gypsy Stories) and Coe (emerita, public health, Indiana Univ./Purdue Univ.-Indianapolis; The Ancestress Hypothesis) offers five well-written broad overview essays (eight to nine pages in length each) on the history of storytelling, common elements shared by multiple cultures, storytelling media, lessons taught by the stories, and the evolution of 21st-century storytelling. Part 2 encompasses alphabetically arranged entries, three to five pages in length each, on the storytelling traditions of 52 Indigenous societies. These are located in Africa (19 of the 52 societies), South America (five), North America (11), Oceania and Asia (11), Europe (three), and the Middle East (three). Indigenous peoples covered include the Ashanti, Zulu, Incas, Maori, Basque, and Kurds. Each entry includes an overview, details on who tells stories and when they are told, creation tales (with excerpts), the purpose behind storytelling in the culture (morals, ethics, values, cultural preservation), and a short print and nonprint bibliography. Similar works recite specific cultures' tales and myths but omit the tales' how, why, and background. Glossary entries here define basic terms such as "lineage," "media," and "dowry," while specific cultural words such as "beyts" are overlooked; in addition, better editing would have benefited the work. A cumulative bibliography and detailed index close the presentation. VERDICT Fascinating for general readers and students interested in storytelling, cross-cultural history, communication skills, anthropology, sociology, or world history.—Laurie Selwyn

Library Journal