NOTES ET DOCUMENTS Paul Kazuhisa Eguchi Pastoralism in Ful6e Folktales The purpose of this paper is to examine how pastoralism is reflected in the folktales of the Ful6e of Northern Cameroon and Northern Togo The majority of Ful6e in both regions are sedentary semi-pastoralists The tales used in the present study were collected at random in Northern Cameroon and Northern Togo They are called taalol taati in Cameroon and tornooi tarnaaji in Togo They are told at night mainly for children.1 The style of folktales is very simple They are only slightly more elaborated than riddles On most occasions they are told by amateurs and the language is not sophisticated The unconscious nature of folktales however can make interpreta tion difficult The description is rough and sometimes ambiguous The message carried by folktales is difficult to catch The folktales show very deep feelings of human beings It is interesting to see how pastoralism is reflected in the depth of Ful6e psychology Folktales travel from one ethnic group to another very quickly As result of such transmission and interaction over long period of time all the tales of West Africa show great similarity and homogeneity The Ful6e folktales are not excep tional they are Ful6e stories simply because they are told or sung in Fulfulde In other words if told in other languages they would still belong to the same tale-type Nevertheless the Ful6e are one of the few peoples in West Africa who still prac tice pastoralism or more accurately who still place great value on pastoralism even though after sedentarization they cannot maintain lifestyle that depends entirely on pastoralism My greatest concern is whether there is any difference between the folktales told by agriculturalists and those told by Ful6e The Ful6e ethnicity called pulaaku consists of many components In this article would like to concentrate on pasto ralism as one of the most important of these components and examine the present data from the standpoint of this key word Pastoralism here refers to the lifestyle that centers around keeping cattle The place where it occurs is the West-African savanna This lifestyle is concerned with objects in nature such as the bush the sky the sun wind rain pasture water ant hills and so forth Also central to it are the activities and events related to cattle milking branding childbirth and castration Human factors including walking long distances migration transhumance patience etc. are also part of it Through pastoralism the Ful6e created their own world-view and value system

Cahiers tudes africaines 133-135 XXXIV-1-31994 pp 461-471