Amadou Hampaté BÂ was a distinguished Malian poet and scholar of African oral tradition and precolonial history.

Aina Pavolini Taylor is an independent translator with wide experience of Africa, now living and working in Italy.

F. Abiola Irele is a professor in the Department of Black Studies at Ohio State University.

Foreword

Overture

1. The Birth

2. Diagaramba

3. First Confrontation

4. The Beginning of a Career

5. Where the Calamities of Some. . .

6. The Storm Breaks

7. The Count's Messenger

8. The Trial

9. The Donkey Who Drank Honey

10. Romo's Son and Beautiful Pugubila

11. The Death of a Great Chief and What Came Out of It

12. The Ambush

13. The Calamitous Bird's Eggs

14. A Cumbersome Turban

15. Where Each Gets His Due

16. The Dream of the Fulbe Shepherdess

17. Pretty Much in the Lion's Jaws

18. Where Wangrin is Off Once Again to a Good Start

19. A Profitable Pledge

20. The Reconversion

21. An Elephant's Tale

22. A Disquieting Arrival

23. Pretty Doe of the Markets

24. Two Birds with One Stone

25. A Narrow Escape

26. . . . In Which Romo Keeps His Promise. . .and Wangrin His

27. A Souvenir That Bears Wangrin's Trademark

28. First Warning: The Hausa Geomancer

29. Madame White-White

30. Second and Third Warnings: A Fatal Oversight and the Sacred Python

31. Madame "Good Offices"

32. The Irreparable Loss

33. Last Warning: The Dove with a Black Ring Circling Half Her Neck

34. Philosopher Tramp

35. The Three Bloods and Death

36. Adieu