Folklore of Lesotho - 10 Children's Stories from Africa's Mountain Kingdom

Within this little volume you will find 10 unique children’s folk and fairy tales from the Southern African mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, pronounced Leh-soo-too. Here you will find the stories of “Takane”, who, despite having an arranged marriage, became a happy and devoted wife. The tale of “how Khosi chooses Polomahache” (Crocodile Child) to be his wife and of “Mokete and Morongoe the Snake” amongst the many in this book.

Herein are also stories of the Sun Chief, evil Witchdoctors, or Ngaka (in-gah-kah), the equivalent of an Evil Wizard, as well as spells being cast and broken and beautiful maidens being set free. There are also tales of malevolent chiefs who rule their people with a fist of iron, not caring how much innocent blood they shed - and how their comeuppance is delivered by a hero of the time.

These tales were collected by Minnie Martin, wife of a Government Official, who came to South Africa and Basutoland, from England, in 1891. Like Sir George Grey, Governor General of New Zealand thirty years before, to enable a better understanding of the people and their customs, she began to study the language, collected these tales and became fairly fluent in the language.

Also included in this volume is instruction of how to count in SeSotho (Seh-soo-too).

Because the Bantu peoples of Southern Africa had no written language, it must be noted that the first people to record the various languages (the Boers and the British) did so phonetically, writing the language as they heard it being spoken. Unlike most European languages, there has been no influence of French, English and Latin and Greek, here you speak the word the way it is written e.g. Ngaka is read as In-gah-kah, Takane as Tak-aan-eh, Khosi as Kor-see etc

So, we invite you to sit back and enjoy this unique collection of tales, customs and lore from a little known place. These tales have been unseen and unheard in the West for many generations.

33% of the net profit will be donated to SENTEBALE - a charity supporting children in Lesotho orphaned by AIDS.