Frontispiece: The poet DLP Yali-Manisi in traditional garb with staff (photo courtesy Jeff Opland).

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Dancer, West Africa (photo Sandra Bornand).

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The author on fieldwork in Limba country, northern Sierras Leone, 1964.

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Nongelini Masithathu Zenani, Xhosa story-teller creating a dramatic and subtle story (photo Harold Scheub).

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Mende performer, Sierra Leone, 1982 (photo Donald Cosentino).

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Dancers from Oyo, south West Nigeria, 1970 (photo David Murray).

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‘Jellemen’ praise singers and drummers, Sierra Leone (Alexander Gordon Laing Travels in the Timmannee, Kooranko and Soolima Countries, 1825).

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‘Evangelist points the way’ Illustration by C. J. Montague. From the Ndebele edition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, 1902.

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Arabic script of a nineteenth-century poem in Somali (from B. W. Andrzejewski ‘Arabic influence in Somali poetry’, in Finnegan et al 2011).

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Reading the Bible in up-country Sierra Leone, 1964 (photo David Murray).

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Tayiru Banbera, West African bard singing his Epic of Bamana Segu (photo David Conrad).

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Songs for Acholi long-horned cattle, Uganda, 1960 (photo David Murray).

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Funeral songs in the dark in Kamabai, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Limba girls’ initiation, Biriwa, Sierra Leone, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Ceremonial staff of Ogun, Yoruba, probably late eighteenth century.

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Limba work party spread out in the upland rice farm, inspired by Karanke’s drumming, Kakarima, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Work company of singing threshers at Sanasi’s farm, Kakarima, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Limba women pounding rice, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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‘Funky Freddy’ of The Jungle Leaders playing hip-hop political songs that were banned from Radio Sierra Leone for their protest lyrics (courtesy Karin Barber).

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‘The Most Wonderful Mende Musician with his Accordion’: Mr Salla Koroma, Sierra Leone.

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20

Radio. Topical and political songs, already strong in Africa, receive yet further encouragement by the ubiquitous presence of local radio (courtesy of Morag Grant).

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Sites of many Limba fictional narratives. a) entrance to a hill top Limba village, Kakarima 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan); b) start of the bush and the bush paths where wild beasts and the devils of story roam free, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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‘Great Zimbabwe’, the spectacular ruins in the south of the modern Zimbabwe, 1964 (photo David Murray).

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‘Karanke Dema, master story-teller, drummer, musician and smith, Kakarima, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Thronged Limba law court, site of oratory, Kamaba, 1961 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Masked Limba dancer and supporters, Kakarima, 1962 (photo Ruth Finnegan).

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Dancing in Freetown—continuing site of oral literature and its practitioners, 1964 (photo David Murray).

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At end: Maps of Africa (© John Hunt).