ABSTRACT
Kong the present-day inhabitants of the African conti-nent the hare has no such deep mythical associations aswe have seen it to have elsewhere. This does not mean that there are not numerous folk-tales associated with it. F~o benius indeed has constructed a map showing the distribution of folk-tales in which the hare figur~s as a kind of tricksterhero, a distribution covering the greater part of the Sudan stretching from Senegal on the west coast to the Red Sea on the east, and from thence spreading south to include many parts of East Africa, Rhodesia, whence it branches off into Angolia and also Portuguese East Africa and thence to Bechuanaland and the Transvaal.! In these areas the hare plays the role that other trickster animals play in other parts of the Continent. It 11as not been possible for me to examine all the tales recorded from these areas, but those published by Frobenius froin among the Mande-speaking peoples inhabiting northern Liberia and the neighbouring districts, 'and also the Mossi to the north of the Gold Coast, while depicting the hare as a wise animal and trickster eluding his ~nemies through the exercise of his great ingenuity and, as such, being in the nature of humorous character-sketches, do not appear to have any mythological bearing which would warrant their inclusion in the present inquiry. 2
2 Leo Frobenius, Atlantis: Yolksmiirchen und Volksdichtungen Afrikas, Jena, 1922, vol. viii, Erzahlungen aus demo Westsudan, Tales 47-58 from the Mande-speaking peoples among whom the hare is called Sani or Sonsanni, and Tales 98 and 101-7 from the Massi by whom the hare is called Samba.
