
































Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 1, No. 1, November-December 2022 

 
 

  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 68 
 

 

Social Values and Symbolic Characterisation in 

Nigerian Folk Narratives 

 

 

By 
 

Bukar Usman 

 

 

 

Abstract 

Folk narrative characters make sense to the local audience of folktale narrators 

primarily because of the social and symbolic values attached to the characters by the 

indigenous communities whose culture and cosmology gave birth to the tales. Unlike a 

modern short story, where the events of the story mainly determine how the character 

is viewed, the folktale utilizes the label placed on each given character by the culture 

to develop the conflict and unfold the theme or themes of the tale. This researcher 

undertook a study of one thousand (1000) folktales of Nigeria with a view to 

classifying them based on how the characters are socially valued and symbolised by 

their local audiences. The research was necessitated by the fact that the classification 

classes adopted by the well-known AT and ATU systems were found to be 

functionally inadequate when applied to folktales emanating from non-Western 

traditions, including Nigerian folk narrative traditions. Although there are other ways 

of classifying Nigerian folktales, this study undertook a classification of Nigerian 

folktales based on their character types. The result is an 8-character type classification 

of 1000 tales of Nigeria published in the voluminous book, People, Animals, Spirits 

and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria. This academic paper, adapted from my 

introductory notes to the book, sheds light on the symbolic values of Nigerian folk 

characters and why they can inspire a taxonomic distribution of Nigerian folktales. 

 

Keywords: characterisation, symbols, social values, Nigerian folk narratives  

 

 



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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 69 
 

 

Introduction  

his exposition will briefly discuss two complementary topics. The 

first is the social values associated with folkloric tales while the 

second is symbolic characterization, a literary device which, in the 

arena of fictional tales, is socially mediated.  

     One of the most enduring qualities of folktales is their social relevance. 

Folktales convey and stabilize social values such as respect for constituted 

authority, respect for spiritual ordinances, hard work, good neighbourliness, 

honesty, patience, courage, moderation, and love for one’s family and kindred. 

The need to preserve stories that propagate these social values was one of the 

reasons the Dr Bukar Usman Foundation conducted the Pan-Nigerian tale-

collection projects which generated the tales of the Treasury of Nigerian Tales 

series. People, Animals, Spirits and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria is 

one of the books published under the series. All the folktales I will be referring 

to in this paper are taken from this collection.  

 

Social Values in Folktales  

Folktales are vital aspects of any nation’s folklore and this fact is clearly 

acknowledged by Emmanuel Obiechina, one of Nigeria’s pioneer literary 

critics. In the informed view of Obiechina (27), folklore 

 

embodies the values and attitudes (of a people) in its proverbs and 

fossilised saying, its belief in myths and religion, and its consciousness of 

its historical life, collective outlook and ethics, in its legends, folktales 

and other forms of oral literature. 

 

     Concuring with Obiechina, the literary scholar, Saradashree Choudhury (3-

11), says: “The folklore in traditional African societies has a highly educative 

value. It imparts knowledge on the groups’ history, values of warfare, morals, 

wise sayings etc”. In many areas of the world, the tale is the vehicle by which 

these communally-generated attributes are communicated and entrenched in 

the consciousness of the people. In Nigeria and other parts of Africa where, 

despite the fast-fading trend, it is still orally narrated to family groups, the 

T 



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folktale reflects the social pulse of the common folk. Carroll-McQuillan (1993) 

elaborates on this pulse: 

 

The African oral tradition embodies this pulse in an especially inclusive 

and expressive way. Stories in Africa weave music, audience 

participation, chants and choruses, even dance, into their fabric. 

Storytelling in Africa is an integral part of the culture. It is a common and 

effective means of teaching, preserving values and historical events, 

entertaining and is also an essential aspect of most ceremonial rituals. 

 

     There is something about stories that make them appealing across all 

cultures, but folktales have a distinct rural flavour which makes them so 

fascinating. People love stories, especially stories that reflect their everyday 

realities; and sometimes the more removed the stories are from the common 

features of the immediate environment, the more charming they seem. This is 

one of the reasons many of us, rural- and city-dwellers, are initially attracted to 

folktales. Reading or listening to the stories gives us concrete benefits that urge 

us to explore further. Carroll-McQuillan (1993) explains: 

 

When we explore folk stories, we explore ourselves and our many facets 

as human beings. We see the reflection of humankind: its strength, flaws, 

fears, and hopes. The settings and characters may change but the heart 

and soul feelings are always there. They are timeless; they are 

ageless…in folk stories, we encounter a mirror in which we can see who 

we are and what we have been. It is a mirror charged with echoes of the 

past and hints of the future. 

 

Characters as Social Mirrors 

Writers and narrators mirror the realities of their environment through the 

various aspects of their story, namely theme, setting, plot and characters. But 

no matter how profound the theme of a narrative, how exotic its setting, and 

how excellent its language, it cannot succeed in delivering a competent story 

without a character or group of characters.  

     Characters energize stories; they awaken and sustain our interest in the plot. 

Indeed, a story’s plot cannot unravel without characters. Those actions or 



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inactions which make reading fiction worth it all happen around the characters 

in the story. A story moves from one episode to another because of the 

activities of its characters. The way in which an oral narrator or a writer 

portrays his fictional characters, and this is very important, is known as 

characterisation. Bernardo clarifies: 

 

What does characterization do for a story? In a nutshell, it allows us to 

empathize with the protagonist and secondary characters, and thus feel 

that what is happening to these people in the story is vicariously 

happening to us; and it also gives us a sense of verisimilitude, or the 

semblance of living reality…In the best of stories, it is actually 

characterization that moves the story along, because a compelling 

character in a difficult situation creates his or her own plot.   

 

     A story’s characters interest us because we see our society, if not ourselves 

or those we know, through them. Characters are social mirrors. No matter the 

theme or orientation of a narrative – be that narrative a modern story or a 

folktale – the characters play the role of reflectors through which we see the 

variegated experiences of life.  

     A character’s success in achieving this role depends on a number of factors 

most of which we need not dwell on here. But suffice it to note that the type of 

characters deployed by the storyteller is very crucial. While a major character 

in a modern short story tends to be round and generally realistically portrayed, 

the typical character we encounter in folktales tends to be flat in the sense of 

having one kind of personality trait. It should be stated that this apparent lack 

of complexity is compensated for by the stimulating symbolic nature of many 

folktale characters.  

 

Symbolic Relevance of Folktale Characters 

Although they are not endowed with complex traits, many characters we meet 

in folktales are significant and entertaining because of their attributes as 

symbolic characters. A symbolic character is one who reflects or represents an 

idea or concrete reality. Narrowed to folktale characters, this symbolic 



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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 72 
 

representation is invariably socially determined, thus ensuring that such 

characters personify culturally-fixed concepts, virtue or vice.    

     The symbolic nature of its characters is a major reason a folktale is set in a 

familiar world of people, animals, spirits or objects and why its characters are 

drawn from this easily recognizable terrain. For this reason, as well, folktales 

are characterized by formulaic plots and traditional motifs. All of these make 

the folktale a communally-delivered art form. Symbolic attribution enables the 

narrator’s audience (or the reader of a written folktale) to get inside the head of 

a character and predict what the next move is likely to be. Depending on the 

narrator’s manipulation of the plot, during a story-telling session, or 

introduction of some elements of surprise, such predictions may turn out to be 

true or false. 

     The symbolic attributes of the characters are outside the prerogative of the 

folktale narrator. They are socially determined over several generations and 

involve a “sociopsychological” process which is outside the manipulative 

powers of the narrator. In this process, according to J.L. Fischer,  

 

at least three semi-independent systems are involved: (1) the tale itself, 

considered as connected and rather tightly structured discourse; (2) the 

modal personality of the typical audience-narrator group for the tale; and 

(3) the social system relevant to the tale, including not only that segment 

of the society in which are found the active and passive participants in the 

tale (i.e., the "bearers" of the tale as an item of culture) but the pattern of 

the whole society.    

 

     In the tale-bearing environment, this connection is easily established since 

the concerns expressed in folktales are usually the concerns of the common 

folk whose worldview is shaped by the collective consciousness of the 

community. It is this communal consciousness that had, over time, attributed 

symbolic meanings to the folktale’s typical characters. Thus, symbolic 

characters, in folktales, are cultural in origin and make customary sense 

because they spring from the age-old “memory” of a given ethnic or linguistic 

group. This description of cultural symbols by Carl Jung (93) is very definitive:  

 



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The cultural symbols…are those that have been used to express eternal 

truths…They have gone through many transformations and even a long 

process of more or less conscious development, and have thus become 

collective images accepted by civilized societies. Such cultural symbols 

nevertheless retain much of their original numinosity or spell. One is 

aware that they can evoke a deep emotional response in some 

individuals…They are important constituents of our mental make-up and 

vital forces in the building up of human society…. 

  

     Cultural symbols in the context of folktales function within a given social 

system which may be limited to a community or ethnic group or encompass 

many ethnic, linguistic or social groups. The relevance of these symbols, 

however, may be expanded, through migration and some other form of social 

integration, to wider social settings. Infact, due to cultural affinities among 

Nigerian ethnic groups and the prevalence of similar traditional motifs across 

folktales collected from different parts of the country, many stories of this 

collection have similar cultural symbols.  

     A good number of characters the reader would be encountering through the 

1000 tales featured in this book are symbolic. It is, therefore, important to 

briefly examine the subject of cultural symbols as they relate to characters 

featured n Nigerian folktales.  

 

Symbolic Characterisation in Nigerian Folktales 

Symbolic characterisation is the use of characters as symbols. This is a device 

employed in all fictional narratives, oral or written. In the case of folktales, 

including Nigerian folktales, the symbolic value of the characters are culturally 

derived. In modern short stories, the symbolic relevance of a character usually 

rests on the character’s engagements within the story. Unlike what obtains in 

the folktale, a character is not normally labeled outside the context of the 

contemporary short story. This is an important distinction worth exemplifying.  

     Two short stories from Through Laughter and Tears: Modern Nigerian 

Short Stories can be used to illustrate this point. In Helon Habila’s “The 

Embrace of the Snake,” Lamang, the heartless manipulator of peasants from 



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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 74 
 

his own community, is the symbol of oppression whereas in Wale Okediran’s 

“Just One Trip,” Grace, the drug courier who swallowed a wrap of cocaine 

now tearing her health apart, is a symbol of foolhardiness. Both symbolic 

meanings are achieved purely by the actions of the characters within the 

stories, and not by any external cultural attribution.  

     In a folktale, on the other hand, a typical character’s symbolic meaning is 

ascribed by the tale-bearing culture. This culturally determined label or 

symbolic value is so strong that presumptively the characters are portrayed in 

the tale in the manner dictated by the narrator-audience culture. For example, 

the hyena, in the stories where it featured in this book, symbolizes 

awkwardness, greed and foolhardiness. These are the qualities attributed to it 

by the story-bearing cultures of northern Nigeria and this informs the narrator’s 

portrayal of the hyena in any tale. This stereotypical characterization of the 

hyena delights the audience who has been culturally raised to expect the 

display of these symbolic qualities from the hyena.   

     A few examples of stories (published in Usman’s People, Animals, Spirits 

and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria) featuring the hyena include “The 

Rabbit, the Tortoise and the Hyena” (No. 241), where the rabbit and the 

tortoise kill the hyena; “The Hyena’s Offsprings and the Rabbit” (No. 253), 

where the rabbit fool the hyena and malnourish its offsprings; and “The Hyena 

and the Ant” (No. 278), where the hyena is almost drowned by the ant’s 

schemes; and “The Wasp and the Hyena” (No. 303), where the wasp trick the 

hyena to drink itself to death.  

     Some other instances are “The Hyena and the Spider” (No. 352), where the 

spider defeats the hyena in a wrestling match; “The Hyena’s Desire to Fly” 

(No. 436), where the hyena, on a monkey’s mischievous advice, tries to fly 

from a tree top but crashes down and dies; and “The Boy, His Pets and the 

Hyena” (No. 649), where the hyena steals food, is killed and eaten by other 

animals. In all of these scenarios, the hyena was discomfited or destroyed by 

physically inferior opponents. 

     The hyena’s self-destructive miscalculations above delight the audience of 

each of these stories because this character’s behaviour in each instance 

matched its symbolic mould. Should the hyena behave contrary to its cultural 



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tag, as in “The Hyena’s Dawadawa” (No. 606) where the hyena displays 

uncharacteristic patience, the story would seem unreal and the symbol-guided 

audience would most likely find it uninteresting. Can any group of Nigerian 

youngsters believe or appreciate a folktale where the tortoise, the nationally-

acclaimed trickster, is portrayed as honest, faithful, truthful, reliable, or 

selfless? Not likely. These qualities are simply not in the tortoise’s symbolic 

character. Because the tortoise’s crafty nature is culturally fixed, a narrator 

trying to make it behave otherwise may lose credibility with his audience.  

     The fact is that symbolic value is ascribed to the character by the culture 

and the folktale narrator and his audience is customarily led to respect this. 

However, the narrator is expected to freshen up these characters by engaging 

them in interesting episodes. The narrator may even borrow episodes from two 

or more stories and weld them into one story. This is permissible as long as the 

narrator remains faithful to each character’s symbolic trait.  

     Good narrators can also introduce elements of surprise by manipulating the 

plot or the motifs instead of tampering with the symbolic tendencies of the 

characters. This is a major reason narrators have created thrilling versions of a 

specific tortoise story without compromising the personality of the tortoise. In 

fact, the tortoise has featured in far more stories than any other single character 

can lay claim to, and in each story it plays a major role.  

     And the tortoise plays out its symbolic role mostly through its shell. At least 

12 different stories in 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria are weaved around the 

motif of the tortoise’s patchy shell. They include the stories numbered 281, 

332, 343, 366, 371, 372, 388, 396, 499, 502, 591 and 937. In all of these 

stories, the tortoise is characterized in accordance with its symbolic nature. 

     Symbolic values differ not only from one animal character to another but 

also from one narrator-audience environment to another. While the tortoise 

features prominently in the oral narrative of every region of Nigeria, some 

other interesting animal characters feature mainly in tales associated with a 

particular linguistic or regional group. A good example is Gizo, a popular 

character found in many folktales from northern Nigeria. Although the rabbit 

can play different symbolic roles in other areas of Nigeria, for the Fulani it 



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symbolises cleverness in a self-serving sense. All in all, there is more cultural 

unity than variations among Nigerian groups.   

     Symbolic characters in Nigerian folktales are not limited to animals. People, 

spirits, and even some objects are imbued with symbolic meaning. In many 

tales of this collection, the king is characterized as a symbol of authority and 

social order. In some stories, however, such as in “The King’s New Robe” (No. 

6), the king can diminish his dignified symbolic stature through ignoble or 

atrocious behaviour. Among the king’s subjects, some categories of individuals 

are uniquely symbolically represented. They include the old woman 

(symbolized as a mysterious rescuer or avenger), the juju priest (the communal 

prophet), the hunter (usually associated with bravery and adventure), and the 

orphan (a symbol of the triumph of providence over adversity). The orphan’s 

symbolic character accounts for the reason none of the many tales featuring the 

orphan in this collection portrays the orphan as a villain. The orphan is almost 

always a victim of circumstances who ends up triumphant through some fluke 

of good fortune, supernatural rescue or magical transformation.  

     Women are not so uniformly characterized. While they are represented as 

caring mothers in some tales, they are painted as vengeful mean antagonists in 

other tales. The latter picture is prevalent when narrators are characterizing the 

jealous co-wife. Generally, folktales simply reflect the roles the culture has 

traditionally assigned to women. The same cultural prerogative also dictates 

the way the menfolk are characterized in tales. Male and female characters, in 

general, play different roles – symbolic and otherwise.  

     Even trees are characterised symbolically in many of these folktales. The 

iroko and baobab trees symbolise mystery, strength, or fertility. “The Child 

from the Iroko Tree” (No. 878) and “Oluronbi” (No. 894) illustrate the latter 

symbol. But in spite of the strength of the baobab tree, the soldier ant 

(characterized in these tales as a symbol of wisdom, industry and resilience) 

successfully brings down the baobab tree in “The Cock, the Baobab Tree and 

the Soldier Ant” (No. 941) by attacking its roots. 

     It should be re-stated here that not only characters are of symbolic 

significance in folktales. Themes, plots and settings can also be used as 

symbolic tools. Indeed, the formulaic pattern of some plots may serve useful 



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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 77 
 

symbolic purposes; and in certain stories involving supernatural elements, the 

setting of the folktale can be as symbolically important as the characters. But 

we have dwelt on symbolic characters in this essay because of the central place 

of the folktale’s characters in initiating and resolving action. One can tell a 

story without a theme, plot or setting, although it is not likely to be interesting, 

but it is impossible to tell a story which does not feature at least one or two 

characters. A folktale is primarily about the characters. This is one of the 

reasons we opted to use characters in classifying the tales presented in this 

anthology.    

 

Folktale Classification Systems 

Of the best-known folktale classification systems, none can claim to be 

adequate enough to be applied universally. These systems are the 

Aarne/Thompson index (AT index), Aarne/Thompson/Uther index (ATU 

index), Stilth Thompson’s Motif Index of Folk Literature and Vladimir Propp’s 

Morphology of the Folktale. Indeed, none of these has captured in its system 

all the vital aspects of the folktale.  

     While the first three systems listed above concentrate on theme and motif, 

the third concerns itself with the morphology or structure of the tale. An 

examination, for instance, of the classification classes adopted by the AT and 

ATU systems would indicate their limitations and the inadequacy of applying 

them on a global level. We have tabulated the main AT and ATU classes 

below. 

Main Thematic Classes of the AT and ATU Index 

Aarne/Thompson Aarne/Thompson/Uther 

 

1. Animal tales 1. Animal tales 

2. Regular folktales 2. Tales of Magic 

3. Humorous tales 3. Religious tales 

 4. Realistic tales 

 5. Tales of the stupid ogre 

 6. Anecdotes and jokes 

 7. Formula tales 

 

 



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The ATU classification, in spite of its greater thematic space, is inadequate 

outside the Western world where it has gained some regard as an international 

taxonomical system. An attempt to fit the 18 classes of the collection, A 

Selection of Nigeran Folktales: Themes and Settings (edited by Usman) will 

display obvious inadequacies in certain areas. For instance, in which class 

would one place enfant-terrible tales? And what about those animal tales that 

make sense only within the interplay of human and animal characters, in which 

of the above tabulated classes will they be placed?  

     If the AT and ATU analytical systems were not positioned as global 

taxonomies, posing the above questions would have been unnecessary. Within 

the context of their originating Western tradition, these systems (especially the 

ATU model) are probably adequate for classifying most traditional tales from 

the Western and, to some extent, Asian worlds. Elsewhere, particularly in 

Nigeria where we have extensive research to rely on, the ATU index is 

inadequate, and this is not surprising since tales from Africa were not part of 

the data used in deriving its classes.  

     And recently, two Malaysian scholars (Harun and Jamaludin) attempted to 

develop a largely academic “conceptual model that envisions the connections 

of the three classification systems (Thompson‘s Motif-Index of Folk Literature, 

the ATU index and Propp‘s Morphology of the Folktale), which displays their 

cohesive nature to operate as one classification system.” (Brackets mine) While 

the sort of micro classification proposed by them is not our objective here, it is 

important to observe that in their parameters these systems are not broad 

enough to cover tales from every country of the world.  

 

Folktale Classification by Character-Types 

In classifying the 1000 tales studied by this researcher, a character-type 

classification deemed culturally appropriate for these tales collected from 

Nigeria was deviced. Since Claude Bremond’s 1966 three-type classification 

model, further efforts have been made to classify tales by character-type. One 

of such efforts is the home-grown four character-type model used by Sekoni to 

classify Yoruba folktales in 1983. Sekoni’s four categories are heroic, non-

heroic, anti-heroic and a-heroic character-types (Sesan).  



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     A character-type classification was used in grouping the 1000 tales analysed 

by this researcher. One of the reasons for using this type of classification was 

the need to celebrate the elements that make folktales vibrate in our memories 

long after they were told – the characters in the stories!      

       The character-type classification system deplored by the study broadly 

classifies the 1000 tales into eight groups based on the kind of characters or 

combination of characters featured in them. The eight categories are as follows:  

 

1. Human tales: these are tales featuring only human characters. By “human,” 

we mean all human beings, including malformed ones. 

2. Animal tales: these are tales featuring only animal characters. By “animal,” 

we include all living things apart from human beings and plants.   

3. Human-animal tales: these are tales featuring only human and animal 

characters.  

4. Human-spirit tales: these are tales featuring only human beings and spirits 

as characters. By “spirits” we include ghosts, fairies, elves, mermaids, and 

other supernatural “beings.” Living human beings are not included in this 

definition of “spirit.” 

5. Human-object tales: these are tales featuring only human beings and 

objects as characters. By “objects,” we mean tangible non-living things (e.g, an 

isolated bone, a rock or the moon) personified to play such roles as speaking or 

moving from one point to another. “Objects” may also include non-human, 

non-animal living things (such as a tree) when they are personified to act like 

human beings. 

6. Animal-spirit tales: these are tales featuring only animal and spirit 

characters. 

7. Animal-object tales: these are tales featuring only animal and personified-

object characters (“object” here is as defined above). 

8. Multiple-character tales: these are tales featuring characters derived from 

three or more character-types as classified above. 

      

     It should be noted that each of the above tales classification, in being 

anchored on character-types, represents some basic unifying characteristics of 



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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 80 
 

the character drawn from the tales in each category. For instance, all animal 

tales are unified by the mere fact of being animals, as defined above. Also note 

that the emphasis here is on a set of characters (e.g, animals) rather than a 

specific character (e.g, tortoise). This classification, however, allows anyone 

who so wishes to explore the character traits of single actors (as we did, in this 

essay, in our earlier discussion on the deployment of the hyena and the tortoise 

as symbolic characters). 

 

Tales Distribution by Character-Types 

A total of the 1000 folktales collected from different parts of Nigeria, 

categorized according to their character-types, are distributed into the eight 

sections of People, Animals, Spirits and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria, 

as indicated in Table 1.  

 

Table 1 

 
Character-Type Range of Tales No. of Tales % of the  

Entire  
Tales 
 

1. Human Tales       1 - 233      233 23.3% 

2. Animal Tales 
 

 234 - 563      330 33% 
 

3. Human-Animal Tales  564 - 756      193 19.3% 

4. Human-Spirit Tales  757 - 867      111 11.1% 

5. Human-Object Tales  868 - 909        42 4.2% 

6. Animal-Spirit Tales  910 - 938        29 2.9% 

7. Animal-Object Tales 
 

 939 - 953        15 1.5% 

8. Multiple Character Tales 
 

954 - 1000        47 4.7% 

 Total = 1000 Stories 100% 

 

From the above table, one gets the impression that human beings like using 

animals to portray human behaviour, especially the foibles of individuals and 

the inequities in the society. Perhaps, this could explain why 33% of the tales 

(the highest for any singular character type) are animal tales. However, the 



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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 81 
 

bulk of the 1000 tales (62.6%) are stories featuring human beings in interaction 

with human and non-human characters.  

 

Conclusion 

As we have analysed, familiarization with the symbolic value of the characters 

heightens the reader’s appreciation of the tale and its import. Characters play a 

central role in generating and developing conflicts in folktales, and conflicts 

are what make folk stories interesting to the audience. In whichever way 

conflicts are resolved, happily or unhappily, they ultimately teach some morals. 

These morals, no matter the cultural root of the tale, are usually universal 

truths. Understanding the social values represented by the characters enhances 

the reader’s enjoyment of the story and the kind of moral truths drawn from it. 

 

 

 

Works Cited 

 

Bernardo, Karen. “Characterization in Literature” (http://www.storybites.com)  
 

Bremond, Claude. “La logique des possibles narratives”. Communications, vol. 

8, no. 1, 1966, pp. 60-76.  
 

Carroll-McQuillan, Synia. “Folktales: The Mirror of Society”. From 

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1993/2/93.02.02.x.html) 
 

Choudhury, Saradashree. “Folklore and Society in Transition: A Study of The 

Palm Wine Drinkard and The Famished Road”, African Journal of History and 

Culture, vol.6, no. 1, January 2014, pp. 3-11. 
 

Fischer, J.L. “The Sociopsychological Analysis of Folktales”. Current 

Anthropology, vol. 4, no. 3, University of Chicago Press, June 1963, pp. 235-

295. 
 

Habila, Helon. “The Embrace of the Snake”. In Duve Nakolisa, ed. Through 

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  Copyright © GOJAR 2022                                                                    Page 82 
 

Harryizman Harun and Zulikha Jamaludin. “Folktale Conceptual Model Based 

on Folktale Classification System of Type, Motif, and Function”. Proceedings 

of the 4th International Conference on Computing and Informatics, Paper No. 

118, Universiti Utara, 2013. 
 

Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. Doubleday, 1964, p. 93. 
 

Nakolisa, Duve, ed. Through Laughter and Tears: Modern Nigerian Short 

Stories. Klamidas Books, 2015. 
 

Obiechina, Emmanuel. Culture, Tradition and Society in the West African 

Novel. Cambridge UP, 1975, p. 27  
 

Okediran, Wale. “Just One Trip”. In Duve Nakolisa, ed. Through Laughter and 

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Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale, 4th ed. University of Texas 

Press, 1998. 
 

Sesan, Azeez Akinwumi. “Yoruba Folktales, the New Media and 

Postmodernism”. Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol.17, 

no. 2, Khazar UP, 2014. 
 

Thompson, Stilth. Motif Index of Folk Literature, Vol. 16. Indiana UP, 1966. 
 

Usman, Bukar, ed. A Selection of Nigerian Folktales: Themes and Settings. 

Klamidas Books, 2016.  
 

Usman, Bukar, ed. People, Animals, Spirits and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of 

Nigeria. Klamidas Books, 2018.  

  

 

 

Author Information: Dr Bukar Usman is the President of 

Nigerian Folklore Society. Email: bukarusman@gmail.com. 

 

 

 

 

 


