Philosophy of African Folktales : a case study of Akamba Stories

Abstract

This study involved 100 Akamba tales as recorded in Mbiti's Akamba stories, and Kieti and Coughlin's Barking, you'll be eaten! It had a fourfold purpose: establishing the morphological framework of the corpus, setting down their message, testing their coherence and gauging the degree of their analogy to the biblical worldview. Thus, three research questions, from which five hypotheses were drawn, led the study to five main areas of investigation. Designed as a literary research, this structural analysis rested upon BremondJs morphological model, and Paulme and Cauvin's typological patterns. Both paracompositional and compositional structures were analyzed. It became clear that the narrative economy tended to reproduce all the structural types thus far known. From its dual perspective, the tale genre seemed to express a two-emphasis theme, nine various frequencies of the life-view and three ideals. Despite a few inconsistencies, the commonsensical worldview of tales showed a significant extent of analogy with the biblical worldview. Three corrective ways were suggested and practical recommendations proposed in view of cultural revitalization.