Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/144

 126 Reviews.

M. Basset has indicated his sources with the most scrupulous care. He has drawn on many collections (including his own) which will be familiar to the readers of Folk-Lore, from the older works of KoUe, Bleke, Schon, and Steere to Dr. Stumme's Tunisische Mdrchen, M. Junod's Chants et Co?iies des Baronara, and M. Alcee Fortier's Louisiana Folk Tales. Many stories have been gathered from periodicals, from the Zeitschrift fiir Afrikan- ische Sprachen, Melusine, and the Revue des Traditions Fopulaires, as well as from our own back numbers {e.g. on pp. 286, 289, some of Dr. Elmslie's Nyasa stories) ^ and the deinnct Journal of the South African Folklore Society. Besides these the compiler has gleaned with the greatest industry from grammars and books of travel, and has brought together in all a hundred and seventy specimens, a fairly representative selection, though I cannot help thinking that in some cases a better choice might have been made. For instance, " Aqili ya waanawake" the only story quoted from Dr. Velten's Swahili collection, is much more Arab than African in character. It is true that only a few of the stories given by Dr. Velten are really indigenous, but most of them have assimilated more of the local colouring than the one in question, which strikes a note alien to the general tone of Bantu folklore. The nature of this compilation, for obvious reasons, precludes any very detailed review ; but one or two minor errors of classification may be pointed out. The stories from the Rev. Duff Macdonald's Africana (pp. 292, 294) are not " Zumbo ' (which, by-the-bye, is a place and not, so far as we are aware, a language) but Yao, and should, of course, have been placed along with P. Ferstl's under the latter heading. Nyasa (p. 286) and Chinyanja (p. 296) are the same language. The book will be found exceedingly interest- ing as an introduction to the subject of African folklore, and is moreover useful as a map or guide to the materials accessible in several European languages.

A. Werner.

' Folk-Lore, vol. iii., p. 92.