Moral Lessons in African Folktales
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INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare’s Hamlet eloquently advised his mother queen Gertrude of Denmark to: Assume a virtue if you have it not That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habits devil, is angel, yet in this That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery Bertrand Russell, one of the pivotal philosophers of the Western world similarly enunciated, “we become just by performing just acts, and similarly as regards other virtues.” 2 The ancient African philosophers who were brimming with philosophical wisdom and ideas went further beyond the Shakespearean and Bertrand Russell’s philosophy of assuming a virtue and concurred with the ancient Greek philosophers on the teachability of virtues and morals to their younger generations. If you will, observe the heated dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras in Plato’s book ‘Protagoras’, where Socrates doubted whether virtues or morals were teachable. Socrates observed: “The wisest and best of our citizens are unable to transmit to others the virtues that they possess. Look at Pericles [Athenian Statesman, orator, and military genius], the father of these young men here. He gave them a superb education in everything that teachers can teach, but as for what he himself is really wise in, he neither teaches them that himself nor has anyone else teach them either, and his sons have to browse like stray sacred cattle and pick up virtue on their own wherever they might find it.” 3 Socrates therefore concluded, “Looking at these things, Protagoras, I just don’t think that virtue can be taught.” 3 But Protagoras like the ancient African philosophers strongly believed that virtues and morality of a society are deliberately and systematically inculcated by adults into their younger generation, sharply retorted to Socrates that;
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This book challenges us to take a cursory glance at our contemporary world, where modern man’s scientific and technological ingenuity has led him to soar thorough the galaxy and made the heavens part of his domain; and contrast that with his level of morality today. Open any newspaper or listen to the radio and television news and you can’t help but lament on the appalling moral depravity and obscene behavior of our contemporary man. With this intractable moral depravity on the ascendancy, the author nostalgically reminiscences the upright morality of yesteryears, and admonishes us to heed Plato’s philosophical advice: ‘now since men are by nature acquisitive, jealous, combative, and erotic, how shall we persuade them to behave themselves? By the policeman’s omnipresent club? {now, AK 47}. It is a brutal method, costly and irritating. There is a better way, and this is by lending to the moral requirements of the community. Throughout this book the author emphasizes the significance of proper moral education in shaping the character of children, youngsters and even adults, and reminds us: ‘morals are the rules by which society exhorts its members and associations to behavior consistent with its 'order, security and growth’ {Will & Ariel Durant}. The author noted that in traditional African societies, the wise elders, like the ancient Greek philosophers, strongly emphasized the teachability of moral values and deliberately inculcated them into their youngsters. The stories in this book are folktales filled with moral lessons that have been handed down from many generations to the present in many African countries from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroons, Liberia, the Gambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania to Zimbabwe. The traditional African elders successfully utilized these folktales to socialize their youngsters to the moral requirements of their society to insure stability, harmonious relations, order, security and growth.