Where Animals Talk - West African Folk Lore Tales

Where Animals Talk: West African Folk Lore Tales is a collection of folklore written by Robert Hamill Nassau, an American presbyterian missionary who spent forty years in Africa. He is also the author of “Fetichism in West Africa,” “The Youngest King,” etc.

The typical native African Ekano or legend is marked by repetition. The same incidents occur to a succession of individuals; monotony being prevented by a variation in the conduct of those individuals, as they reveal their weakness or stupidity, artifice or treachery.

Narrators, while preserving the original plot and characters of a Tale, vary it, and make it graphic by introducing objects known and familiar to their audience. These inconsistencies do not interfere with belief or offend the taste of a people with whom even the impossible is not a bar to faith; rather, the inconsistency sharpens their enjoyment of the story.