Folk Tales of Tanzania — Part 1 (Goso, the Teacher · "Sell Dear, Don't Sell Cheap" · The Cheat and the Porter)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part one — the premiere of a new shelf. Three Swahili tales as told by natives of Zanzibar, collected by Edward Steere and published in Swahili Tales, as Told by Natives of Zanzibar (London, 1870), heard here in a fresh telling from Steere's own English translation. Zanzibar is part of the modern United Republic of Tanzania, and this shelf bills the tales under Tanzania with their Zanzibar provenance stated plainly. In Goso, the Teacher, a falling calabash kills the teacher by accident, and his scholars beat each link of the chain in turn — south wind, mud wall, rat, cat, rope, knife, fire, water, ox and tick — each protesting, "What have I done?", until the gazelle that climbed the tree has no answer left. In "Sell Dear, Don't Sell Cheap," ruined Ali answers every questioner with a riddle, the vizir wagers the sultanship that he can learn its meaning without asking — and buys the answer with his house, his goods and his signed note, the dear sale the sultan commanded; the wagered head is never claimed, and Ali ends as chief vizir. In The Cheat and the Porter, a porter carries a box of glasses for three words of wisdom — and delivers a fourth word of his own as he sets the box down. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Lightning Crash, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters
0:38 Goso, the Teacher
8:46 "Sell Dear, Don't Sell Cheap"
38:18 The Cheat and the Porter
Six further tales of the book are not read on this shelf, excluded by name after a full reading: The Story of the Washerman's Donkey · The Kites and the Crows · The Hare and the Lion · The Hare, the Hyena, and the Lion · The Spirit Who Was Cheated by the Sultan's Son · The Ape, the Lion, and the Snake. No claim of completeness for the book is made.
From Swahili Tales, as Told by Natives of Zanzibar, by Edward Steere (London, 1870), public domain — Internet Archive swahilitalesasto00stee; the three tales complete and in book order, in a fresh telling from the collector's own English translation. Narrated by Magnolia. Theme: Lightning Crash.
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