Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/85



The tales of this second part had their source with narrators of Benga—speaking tribes of Corisco Island, the region of the Bonito River, and Batanga. Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 were written in Benga by the pioneer missionaries, Rev. Messrs. Mackey and Clemens, from the dictation in Benga by natives of Corisco, more than 40 years ago; and were printed as reading-lessons in the Primer used in their schools.

I have translated them into English. They having thus passed twice through foreign thought, have lost most of their native idioms. Tale 4 was independently re-told me at Batanga within the past few years, by a narrator living there. It differs from the version printed in the Primer, and I have combined the two.

The remaining thirty tales were given me at Batanga; by three adult narrators, all of them civilized men. They spoke them with me alone, or in the presence of one or two silent attendants, sentence by sentence, in their Bapuku dialect of the Benga language. I rapidly made notes in an English translation of their principal words. This was always at night, in order to leave the narrator at that ease which he would naturally feel if he was telling the story to an audience in the street, as he is accustomed to do in the evenings. For that purpose also, I shaded my lamp, using its light only for my pencil; he therefore spoke unrestrainedly. Next morning, with my memory still fresh of the night's story, I filled out the sentences. This set of the tales therefore is more native, in the preservation of its idioms, than any other part.