McIntosh is Canadian but spent from 1981 to 1983 as a teacher in a Nigeria in the Hausaland area, a small town called Gwadabawa, in Sokoto state. During this time there was money for the schools thanks to the prior oil finds, but soon after things changed. The time was perfect for collecting stories and folk tales, and this is what McIntosh did with much of his free time. When there was no tv, the one with the best stories was the most popular person in the school or village. This book is the result of his story collection year in Hausaland.

This book has been previously in Austin city library's collections; then it was in Recycled Reads where I could not resist but had to buy for reading and afterwards liberating.
It's definitely not just for kids - I enjoyed the animal stories.

These tales are included:
* Why the red-necked lizard nods his head
* The race
* Why vulture has a bare neck
* The leopard and the rat
* Millipede and tortoise make a trade
* Louse joins a herd
* Why gorilla lives in a jungle
* Ostrich in the desert
* How man found a friend
* The carver and the panther
* Tortoise meets the river goddess
* The deer woman

There are also some sayings after each story in the local language and translated in English. Some of those that seemed interesting:
- Maganin maki gudu ban kashi -- desperate times call for desperate measures.
- Abin da zuciya ta dauka gangar jiki bawa ne -- where tehre is a will there is a way.
- Kowa ya zubar mani da tsamiyata sai in zubar masa da mononsa -- pay back in the same coin.
- Komi nisan jifa kasa zai fadi -- he who laughs last, laugh longest.
- Mugu shi ya san makwantar mugu -- set a thief to catch a thief.
- Kowa ya kona runbunsa, ya san inda toka ke kudi ne -- apparent stupidity can be concealed wisdom.
- Kashin turmi ba na wadan kare ba ne -- do not attempt what is beyond your powers to perform.
- Ba a shan zuma sai an sha harbi -- success comes after tears.
- Idan wata ta koni mutum, in ya ga toka sai ya gudu -- once bitten, twice shy.
- Ba kullum a ke kwana a gado ba wata rana ko a kasa sai a kwana -- life is a mixture of the sweet and the bitter.
- Kowa ya daure kura ya san yadda zai yi ya kwance -- look before you leap.

A RABCK win... Will drop to Annelis in Lansisatama to then get to Tampere, to Tarna and Kemppu to read next! :)

Safe journey little book - I hope you'll make many new friends on your travels!

"Don't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read... "
— Neil Gaiman

To the finder of this book:
Hello and congratulations! You have not only found yourself a good book, but a whole community of booklovers dedicated to sharing books with each other and the world at large. I hope you'll stick around a bit and get to know BookCrossing --maybe even make a journal entry on this book. You may choose to remain anonymous or to join (its free!)
Feel free to read and keep this book, or to pass it on to a friend or even set it out "in the wild" for someone else to find like you did. If you do choose to join and journal, then you can watch the book as it travels- You'll be alerted by email each time someone makes another journal entry. It's all confidential (you're known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spam-free. Happy reading!

I already saw this at Länsisatama mini meetup at noon last sunday and then got it on tuesday evening at Kampinhylly micro meetup and now am couriering it to local bookcrossers.

Thank you, aetm, what a great surprise this is! I'm really interested in African tales and so is Kemppu. I'll meet her tomorrow and we'll decide which one will read the book first.

Edited to add that this book made the bells ring at Tampere Main Library. Just to let the next readers to know... :)

Thank you for this surprise book, aetm, and thanks to all the couriers! The book is now safe with me. It may take some time before I have time to read it, but I will, and then I'll give it back to Tarna.

I got to read this book quite soon, actually. Lovely stories plus a frame story that created a nice atmosphere! Most of the tales were either stories about how a certain animal became the way it is, or educational/warning stories which usually involved animals that behave like humans. These kind of storylines are common all over the world, a nice and kind of cool thing to notice. People are not that different from each other after all.
Thanks once again for this book! I'll give it back to Tarna next.

It’s back with me now. Thanks, Kemppu! You were much faster than I expected.

Also I liked it. The stories were lovely, just like Kemppu said, and the frame trory was nice, too. Had it been a bit longer, I wouldn't have liked it so much. Now it ended just at the right time. I enjoyed all the tales, and each one seemed better than the previous ones. My favourite is the last one, The deer woman. Thank you so much for bringing this book to Finland and sharing it with us, aetm!
With this book, I'm participating in Amynita's Erilaiset kulttuurit (“different cultures”) Challenge in the Finnish Forum. That's why I need to say something about the Nigerian Hausa culture presented in the book. First of all, Hausa people speak Hausa language. Hausaland is ethnically diverse, there are other ethnic groups living among the Hausas. In Nigeria there seems to be around 300 different ethnic groups.
Hausa people are Muslims. Oral storytelling tradition is very important (as it is in all Africa, I think). It means that the stories don't remain the same, every narrator removes something from the the story and adds something else. Once a week there's a market in town. It's an important social event, everyone comes there if they can. It's the place to change news, to gossip, to meet your friends, to tell stories... And that's what the whole book is about.

UCLA Hausa Home Page
Hausa Information at Art & Life in Africa
Hausa people at Wikipedia
Hausa at Omniglot
Hausa language at Wikipedia

Happy reading!

Book seems interesting. Thank you!