Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes

Fülszöveg

Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes
by Harold Courlander
This latest work by Harold Courlander, the distinguished folklorist and author of twenty-four books including The African, is a fascinating collection of myths, legends, and semihistorical recollections passed down through the ages by the Yoruba people. Related to a culture which existed in southwestern Nigeria over two millennia ago, the Yorubas form one of Africa's most advanced and important civilizations, having developed flourishing kingdoms long before the arrival of the first European explorers in the region.
According to one Yoruba tradition, Ife, the first city, was founded by Obatala, an orisha or deity, who descended from the sky on a golden chain and turned the watery wastes of the earth into dry land. With the aide of Olorun, the Ruler of the Sky, he created human beings, and thus began the world as we know it today. From Ife the people spread out to establish other cities, and under rulers who came in time to be... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes
by Harold Courlander
This latest work by Harold Courlander, the distinguished folklorist and author of twenty-four books including The African, is a fascinating collection of myths, legends, and semihistorical recollections passed down through the ages by the Yoruba people. Related to a culture which existed in southwestern Nigeria over two millennia ago, the Yorubas form one of Africa's most advanced and important civilizations, having developed flourishing kingdoms long before the arrival of the first European explorers in the region.
According to one Yoruba tradition, Ife, the first city, was founded by Obatala, an orisha or deity, who descended from the sky on a golden chain and turned the watery wastes of the earth into dry land. With the aide of Olorun, the Ruler of the Sky, he created human beings, and thus began the world as we know it today. From Ife the people spread out to establish other cities, and under rulers who came in time to be considered divinities, they created other great kingdoms.
Here in this enchanting collection of ancient folklore, the reader discovers how the orishas acquired their powers: why Eshu, master of confusion, had been banished to the outdoors never free to seek shelter from the elements; how Ogun who had been entrusted the secret of iron traded his secret to the orishas of Ife for a chieftainship and how the orishas then turned against him.
These are stories about the original gods who descended from the sky to live on earth, others who originated on earth, and humans who performed great deeds. The gods have human attributes, and their exploits are human adventures elevated to godly stature Ccontinued on back flap)
(continued from front flap) as they contend with one another, with the environment, with fate, and with the unknown. The reader is treated to a rare awareness of man's view of himself as mirrored in the actions of the deities he has created. Like man, the Yoruha orishas can be fallible, arbitrary, or whimsical, as exemplified by the god Eshu, the personification of whim and accident, who, employing his powers of confusion, seeks to warp and distort life.
A fascinating collection of the oral literature of an ancient people. Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes is an important and delightful contribution to mythology, folklore, history, African culture, and black studies. Included in the appendix are some Yoruba songs and tales known among Afro-American communities in the West Indies and Brazil.
About the author: Harold Courlander is a novelist and folklorist, the author of twenty-four books (many of them dealing with the traditions and oral literature of various peoples in Africa and the New World). He has collected the lore of American Indians, Ethiopians, Ashantis, Yorubas, Haitians, and Afro-Americans, and is a specialist in African and Afro-American cultures. His field trips, during which he has recorded traditional music as well as folklore, frequently have been sponsored by academic foundations. Mr. Courlander, a Guggenheim Fellow, has worked as an editor for the United Nations and as a speechwriter for the United States Mission to the United Nations. At present he is a political analyst for the Voice of America. Among his books, a number of which have been translated into foreign languages, are The Fourth World of the Hopis; The African; People of the Short Blue Corn; The Big Old World of Richard Creeks; Negro Folk Music U.S.A.-, and The Drum and the Hoe: Life and Lore of the Haitian People.
Jacket and decorations by Larry Lurin
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