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Feather Woman of the Jungle
In Feather Woman of the Jungle, the people of a Yoruba village gather on ten memorable nights to hear the stories and wisdom of their chief. They learn of his adventures, among them his encounter with the Jungle Witch and her ostrich, his visit to the town of the water people and his imprisonment by the Goddess of Diamonds. Each night the people return, eager to discover if there is a happy ending.
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Amos Tutuola
41 books217 followersAmos Tutuola (20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.
Despite his short formal education, Tutuola wrote his novels in English. His writing's grammar often relies more on Yoruba orality than on standard English.
Despite his short formal education, Tutuola wrote his novels in English. His writing's grammar often relies more on Yoruba orality than on standard English.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
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December 6, 2014I’ll risk this word because it should be used as a mere descriptor and shuck the suspicious glances ;; Amos Tutuola has a primitive book here with his Feather Woman of the Jungle. Others might pronounce that as ‘authentic’ but you’ll understand I prefer to avoid that condescension. Really all I mean to say is that Tutuola’s book here, and I almost must assume also his famous the palm-wine drinkard, comes from a stage of cultural-literary development which is simply no longer visible or available in the european literature ; not Grimm nor Homer come from such an early level.
And this primitive quality, if it’s there -- because I claim nothing but an impression, scarcely an hypothesis -- is not present through Tutuola’s syntax which to the prescriptivist is all full of blue pencil. No, the syntax is only local ; not as entirely strange as it might be to those raised upon the purple. It’s fantastic and slightly strange, but it’s merely another regulation of stringing words together. No, the primitive quality comes from the stories. The written is so close to the oral ; and not merely because the frame-tale places us in the audience of an Elder telling his ten nights entertainment about his several journeys and adventures ;; the oral frame-tale is common enough. No, perhaps, if we want something from Europe from this early level of emerging literary culture we might have to go north to the Vikings and their Eddas, their sagas.
Some might fetishize the primitive and the authentic. I don’t know. But there’s something stirring under Tutuola’s pen.
And this primitive quality, if it’s there -- because I claim nothing but an impression, scarcely an hypothesis -- is not present through Tutuola’s syntax which to the prescriptivist is all full of blue pencil. No, the syntax is only local ; not as entirely strange as it might be to those raised upon the purple. It’s fantastic and slightly strange, but it’s merely another regulation of stringing words together. No, the primitive quality comes from the stories. The written is so close to the oral ; and not merely because the frame-tale places us in the audience of an Elder telling his ten nights entertainment about his several journeys and adventures ;; the oral frame-tale is common enough. No, perhaps, if we want something from Europe from this early level of emerging literary culture we might have to go north to the Vikings and their Eddas, their sagas.
Some might fetishize the primitive and the authentic. I don’t know. But there’s something stirring under Tutuola’s pen.
December 9, 2017
A fascinating collage of myth and tall tales
Every now and then the world's attention is drawn to a strange figure in the world of arts, a figure who "doesn't belong", who has not paid the proper dues and hasn't struggled up through the usual channels. No, that person suddenly rockets into the artistic firmament, does things in a totally unconventional way, and is immediately pounced upon and torn apart by those who have studied, worked, and sweated, dreaming of brilliant success. I think of somebody like Grandma Moses, who didn't start to paint until she was 78 and never attended a single art class, didn't know about a single "artistic convention", yet became one of the most popular American artists ever. The critics rewarded her by calling her "primitive". Yeah, right. Then, there was Niko Pirosmanishvili, a Georgian painter, who died in obscure poverty in 1918, having painted startlingly original images on any material he could get his hands on. The title "primitive" was bestowed on him also. Right here in my home town we had J.O.J. Frost, who painted scenes of the Marblehead he'd known as a child and events in the town's history. He painted on odd boards and tried, unsuccessfully, to sell his works for a nickel or a dime. After he died, he was recognized as a true artist and today his works are in New York and Washington. You can't get hold of one for love or less than a huge amount of money. A primitive. Amos Tutuola is a member of this little band, an original, a genius, a man who had no training, but just wanted to tell a lot of stories. If he'd written them in Yoruba, his mother tongue, we would never have heard his name. He wrote them in English, an English suffused with the tones and twists of West Africa. And guess what. Some African critics even felt ashamed of Tutuola's work, as it was not modern or European enough for them. Too primitive, right ? That word again. OK, for sure he doesn't write as smoothly as Hemingway or Turgenev; his grammar and spelling may leave something to be desired. But for those people who have not read Tutuola---don't miss your chance. If you love a story, if you love color and imagination, if you could like tales full of witches, magic, devils, and strange towns, if you are not totally wedded to the literary conventions set down by the critics, by the English departments of the world, then read Tutuola. "The Palm Wine Drinkard", "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts", or FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE---all are great.
Tutuola's stories certainly do have connections to local Nigerian myths, traditional stories told for centuries. I will leave structural analysis to those so inclined. Unless you are familiar with the myths, though, everything will seem new. It seemed to me as I read through the account of six fabulous journeys that Tutuola's imagination had been fired by the cinema, both American and Indian. When mixed with the Yoruba tales, you certainly do have a fantastic result. If you are only interested in conventional novels, probably you'd better skip this book, but if you like Grandma Moses, if you like works by anyone who just fires away regardless of what critics say, then you're going to love FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE. Original. Imaginative. Outstanding.
Every now and then the world's attention is drawn to a strange figure in the world of arts, a figure who "doesn't belong", who has not paid the proper dues and hasn't struggled up through the usual channels. No, that person suddenly rockets into the artistic firmament, does things in a totally unconventional way, and is immediately pounced upon and torn apart by those who have studied, worked, and sweated, dreaming of brilliant success. I think of somebody like Grandma Moses, who didn't start to paint until she was 78 and never attended a single art class, didn't know about a single "artistic convention", yet became one of the most popular American artists ever. The critics rewarded her by calling her "primitive". Yeah, right. Then, there was Niko Pirosmanishvili, a Georgian painter, who died in obscure poverty in 1918, having painted startlingly original images on any material he could get his hands on. The title "primitive" was bestowed on him also. Right here in my home town we had J.O.J. Frost, who painted scenes of the Marblehead he'd known as a child and events in the town's history. He painted on odd boards and tried, unsuccessfully, to sell his works for a nickel or a dime. After he died, he was recognized as a true artist and today his works are in New York and Washington. You can't get hold of one for love or less than a huge amount of money. A primitive. Amos Tutuola is a member of this little band, an original, a genius, a man who had no training, but just wanted to tell a lot of stories. If he'd written them in Yoruba, his mother tongue, we would never have heard his name. He wrote them in English, an English suffused with the tones and twists of West Africa. And guess what. Some African critics even felt ashamed of Tutuola's work, as it was not modern or European enough for them. Too primitive, right ? That word again. OK, for sure he doesn't write as smoothly as Hemingway or Turgenev; his grammar and spelling may leave something to be desired. But for those people who have not read Tutuola---don't miss your chance. If you love a story, if you love color and imagination, if you could like tales full of witches, magic, devils, and strange towns, if you are not totally wedded to the literary conventions set down by the critics, by the English departments of the world, then read Tutuola. "The Palm Wine Drinkard", "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts", or FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE---all are great.
Tutuola's stories certainly do have connections to local Nigerian myths, traditional stories told for centuries. I will leave structural analysis to those so inclined. Unless you are familiar with the myths, though, everything will seem new. It seemed to me as I read through the account of six fabulous journeys that Tutuola's imagination had been fired by the cinema, both American and Indian. When mixed with the Yoruba tales, you certainly do have a fantastic result. If you are only interested in conventional novels, probably you'd better skip this book, but if you like Grandma Moses, if you like works by anyone who just fires away regardless of what critics say, then you're going to love FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE. Original. Imaginative. Outstanding.
April 28, 2012
"Feather Woman of the Jungle" was my introduction to Amos Tutuola. Denver's best bookstore, sadly long-gone, was Equator Books, specializing in international literature. A small bookstore, but every title on their shelves a real gem, hand-selected by the women who owned the joint, DeDe and Joanne. I hadn't heard of Tutuola in college, graduate school or even the dynamic literary street scene at Faces Cafe at 17th and Franklin, run by that wild-eyed and wilder-haired Hawaiian of Cretan ancestry, Steve Kalama, "Check this out," said DeDe, one day. "Thanks!" I answered, delighting in having a friend who knew she could please me. Amos Tutuola was an African (Nigerian) magical realist, sans the self-consciousness self-importance of participating in a literary movement. "Feather Woman" was a tale as told around a campfire, to your buddies, all of you drinking stout (or palm-wine, as the case may be). His English Nigerian, so it takes a little getting used to ... about ten pages, by which time you're hooked. Nigerian English is musical and happy, intricate and playful like jazz. One word of caution: there be monsters haunting those pages!
June 5, 2016
A much weaker follow-up to "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" and "The Palm-Wine Drinkard". The verve and zaniness of those two novels are here dulled and wan. The premise is plain: a village elder tells stories of his adventures among the magic-wielding weirdos of the bush. Too bad that these stories are little more than bored-sounding rehashes of much of what Tutuola had already written. I'd give this one a pass and stick to his earlier novels.
June 16, 2017
Абсурдна і дивна книжечка, яка своїми історіями про зловісних богинь лісу і мандри нагадує дитячі казки, але водночас достатньо іронічна для дорослих. Більшість негативних персонажів - жінки - відьми, чарівниці і королеви, які вплутують бідного мандрівника у халепи, але, принаймні, ці всі героїні активні та діяльні. Читання про всіх цих людей-змій, підводні царства, велетнів і чаклунів дуже розширює межі уяви, щось, що ми втрачаємо після того, як перестаємо читати казки
August 17, 2010
This is a collection of hero adventure tales similar to Sinbad and the Seven Seas. These 10 tales are related by the hero in his old age when he becomes chief to an ever-increasing number of villagers. The tales all involve the hero meeting, battling, and (usually) prevailing by cleverness and bravery and returning home with riches. I love Tutuola's books and the magical air of fairy tale his language evokes.
June 9, 2019
“When it was about ten o’clock in the night, I saw many lights faintly on top of that mountain and that showed me that a town was on top of it. I tried my best to see the top of it clearly but I was unable because it was so high that if a person raised his head up with hat on head to see the top of it, the hat on his head would certainly fall down yet he would not see it.”
yeah man
yeah man
August 21, 2019
Эта книга мне понравилась меньше, чем "Путешествие в город мертвых", но все-таки она очень самобытная и необычная. Забавная деталь: у автора или лирического героя, видимо, проблемы с пониманием, что такое грабеж и вымогательство, потому что герой несколько раз упоминает, что никогда не крал и не вымогал богатств, тогда как и крал, и вымогал.
June 15, 2018
There is no storyteller like Amos Tutuola.
January 22, 2015
The collected misadventures in Feather Woman lack the depth of wide eyed creative genius of Tutuola's earlier work. We still have flashes of that depraved wonder - our protagonist selling his sense of shame so he can demand food from a village of famine - just not at the same breakneck speeds. In exchange for these inventive shortcomings the English is notably more polished, though still takes getting used to. Despite my reservations about the content, this is still Tutuola - a truly original literary voice - and if you can track down any of his works in print, you want all of them.
November 2, 2016
Amos Tutuola is an amazing story teller, and it's always a joy to read his books. This one was great at times but unfortunately a bit lacking in certain aspects - some adventures weren't very exciting and the main character didn't need to do much to achieve his goals. Overall, a nice book but not excellent.
August 4, 2008
Story collection by author who also wrote My Life In the Bush of Ghosts, about magic in the African bush. Scariest sections involve protagonist and his brother who are captured by the witch, turned into two-dimensional images, and flogged daily. Witch is half-bird, half-woman. Yay!
November 13, 2007
amazing stuff, just read this on the way to East Africa, reviewed it here:
http://5cense.com/Africa/EA1_NYC.htm
http://5cense.com/Africa/EA1_NYC.htm
June 6, 2013
This is a pretty fun read. When I read it, it seemed a lot like variations on a theme, taking place over several nights. The grammar is... interesting.
January 13, 2016
This isn't Tutuola's best work but it retains his sense of wonder and characters full of derring-do and mischief.
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July 1, 2017I'm not rating this because I feel like I can't really get a grip on it. It's just so far from what I'm used to I didn't know what to think.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews