Author: Verrier Elvin
Publisher: National Book Trust
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 98
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8123717393
Description
When the World was Young contains a wide-ranging selection of folktales from the tribal communities of India. The book has wonderful accounts of how the world was made, how a river finds its course, and what causes earthquakes.
This collection of tribal stories were selected by Elwin himself from amongst the many thousand and written down almost exactly as they were told to him. Few of the tribal stories point a moral, but they have their own interest and excitement.
A fine writer, Dr Verrier Elwin’s many anthropological monographs and rich collection of oral tradition on the adivasis are some of the best documentations on tribal culture. A charm and freshness that reflects the freedom and gaiety of their life and the beauty of their environments.
These stories are richly evocative, and certainly more engaging than purely scientific, dray-as-dust explanations how humans began to talk and see, the origins of cloth and clothing, and the discovery of fire. Some stories recount human encounters with animals, both intimate and hostile, and the origin of animal characteristics. We learn here why frogs have thin legs, and why elephants do not have wings.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
The Beginning of Things
The First Men
Discoveries
The Talking Animals
Adventures in a Magic World
The End of Things