“Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses.” - Aleks Krotoski .
When we deeply reflect on the above quote, we just might begin to understand why the reading culture is gradually fading away in our world of today and being replaced by mass nonchalance toward the acquisition of profitable knowledge which will be useful in the formation of desirable behaviours and attitudes. Aleks is very right by likening stories to moral compasses. In the past, the art of storytelling was a very useful parenting skill. A veritable form of storytelling that was prevalent in those times was the folktale.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a folktale is "a story passed on by word of mouth rather than by writing, and thus partly modified by successive re-tellings before being written down or recorded."
In other words, folktales are a series of traditional stories belonging to a particular cultural society often told in the evening for the moralistic tutelage and entertainment of children and young individuals in such a society from one generation to the next. In Africa, long before the advent of Western and Islamic educations, every culture in the continent had its own way of instilling in its younger generation discipline and moral instructions needed for the development of the individual and society. In fact, modern African scholars have nowadays used the evidence of folktales in Africa to debunk the beliefs by Europeans that the continent had no educational system prior to their arrival.
In the pre-literate society, folktales were very essential in inculcating the spirit of nationalism, devotion to family and godliness in children. In the same vein, an article about folktales on this website states that: "When children learn about diverse cultural traditions, they not only broaden their view of the world, they may also develop a greater appreciation of their own family’s heritage."
Didacticism and entertainment are the two major purposes of folktales. In line with this, themes prevalent in folktales include jealousy, dishonesty, disloyalty, anger, covetousness etc.
Folktales may vary from society to society but these stories always revolve around certain stock characters and themes dealing with daily human relationships and situations, even though, most folktales have animals as characters who coexist with human characters.
For example, in many Nigerian societies, the tortoise is the traditional folktale character who is always a trickster using his cunning to defraud people. At times, he gets away with it and at others, he is caught and dealt with appropriately. Among the Yoruba people, the tortoise is known as Ijapa and is the chief character of the 'Ijapa Tiroko' folktales. Among, the Igbo people, the tortoise is also the chief character and is known as Mbe. In Ghana, Ananse, the spider, is the chief character of the "Anansesem", which translates to "Spider stories", folktale tradition. Other animals commonly featured in folktales include the hare, fox, elephant, snake and bird.
In sum, it is evident enough that folktales were very useful in teaching children the right values as well as helping them grow into responsible adults and citizens in the preliterate society. In light of this, it is only wise if parents revive the ancient practice of storytelling as a means of instructing their children. Asides the fact these stories will provide entertainment and useful life lessons for children to learn from, it will also help them to develop the love for reading as well as broaden their imagination to be creative.
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