The Hero with an African Face: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa [Paperback]

Clyde W. Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2000

In this remarkable book, Clyde Ford restores to us the lost treasure of African mythology, bringing to life the ancient tales and showing why they matter so much to us today.

African myths convey the perennial wisdom of humanity: the creation of the world, the hero's journey, our relationship with nature, death, and resurrection.  From the Ashanti comes the moving account of the grief-stricken Kwasi Benefo's journey to the underworld to seek his beloved wives.  From Uganda we learn of the legendary Kintu, who won the love of a goddess and created a nation from a handful of isolated clans.  The Congo's epic hero Mwindo is the sacred warrior who shows us the path each person must travel to discover his true destiny.

These and other important African myths show us the history of African Americans in a new light--as a hero's journey, a courageous passage to a hard-won victory.  The Hero with an African Face enriches us all by restoring this vital tradition to the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Extending the sensibility of Joseph Campbell, Ford exposes readers to African myths and folk tales, finding that they harbor both culturally specific and universal motifs. Ford (Where Healing Waters Meet) has a diverse background in business, chiropractic, psychotherapy and African-American history. He recounts many traditional African stories, exploring their metaphors, symbols and archetypal figures, their answers to the timeless questions of how to live, how life began and how it will end. While these tales have been notoriously absent from world literature, they are strikingly similar to Eastern, Western and Middle-Eastern mythology in many ways. As Ford splices the myths with his engaging analyses of them, he illuminates universal themes and values, symbols and characters. Applying the hero's journey to the African diaspora ("the massive forceful displacement of millions of Africans"), he ruminates: "there is every reason to believe that African slaves... understood their capture and travails in just such mythic terms." Likely to find its way into college classrooms, Ford's comprehensive work supplies a missing piece of world mythology.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"This fascinating exploration of African stories and myths...tells us who we are as human beings--all of us."
--Cornel West, author of Race Matters

"This wonderful and sustaining work illuminates the power and importance of ancient African myth.... Scholarship and masterful storytelling combine...fascinating."
--NAPRA ReView

"A master storyteller....Clyde Ford picks up where Joseph Campbell left off."
--Jonathan Young, Ph.D., founding curator, Joseph Campbell Archives and Library

"This is a breakthrough book on the mythic imagination of Africa."
--Atlanta Daily World

"An important first look at the universal themes of some of the principal African myths...excellent and much-welcomed."
--Seattle Times

"An excellent introduction to African mythology....Brings insights into the myths themselves and encourages further reading."
--The Bloomsbury Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (January 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553378686
• ISBN-13: 978-0553378689
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #328,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Clyde W. Ford was born in New York City. He graduated from Wesleyan University, Western States Chiropractic College, and the Psychosynthesis Institute of New York.

Clyde has taught Swahili at Columbia University, African American history at Western Washington University, and, somatic psychology at the Institut f'r Angewandte Kinesiologie in Freiburg, Germany. He was the editor of Leading Edge Bulletin, a monthly newsletter of personal and social transformation, published by Marilyn Ferguson, author of The Aquarian Conspiracy (Tarcher, 1980).

Jonathan Young, Joseph Campbell's archivist, described Clyde's work in mythology as "picking up where Joseph Campbell left off." His books have been translated into German and Portuguese.

Clyde is a much sought after public speaker with frequent appearances at bookstores, educational institutions, business and professional associations, and civic organizations around the country. Over the past twenty years he has performed hundreds of media interviews, and he has appeared on shows such as the Oprah Winfrey Show, and New Dimensions Radio to discuss his writing and work.

Clyde currently lives in Bellingham, Washington where he writes and enjoys cruising the waters of the Inside Passage aboard his single engine biodiesel trawler.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A monumental work, March 3, 1999

By 

John M. Gilmore (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hero with an African Face: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa (Hardcover)

Clyde W. Ford helps us to connect to African mythology on so many levels. It is encouraging and illuminating to finally see African mythology treated in the manner that it deserves: as vital as those of any other culture. He demonstrates the importance of myth for centering our lives and providing focus for living. His discussion of the meaning and role of myth in the preface is worth the price of the book alone.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a context for African American spirituality!, February 18, 1999

By 

Lola E. Peters (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hero with an African Face: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa (Hardcover)

The last paragraph of the book is in my day timer as a reminder of who I am, where I came from and why and how I will always be. Ford's view of the African American story as an epic journey is liberating. He contrasts the intimacy between African diety and the common person with the separation between the western God or Goddess and their subjects. As someone who is struggling to understand the deepening division of black and white in US culture, I find this book very helpful in clarifying our root cultural differences. This also is a wonderful book to give a young person who is away from home or struggling with the questions of identity. As someone who has worked with children in multiracial families (particularly adopted children) who are struggling with a sense of place, I wish I'd had this book a long time ago.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars African myths are given their rightful place in the world!, February 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hero with an African Face: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa (Hardcover)

This book provides the missing link in our spiritual/mythical evolution. When one link in humanity's mythological history is placed forever outside of the philosophical circle; both sides lose. Those inside the circle suffer, as well as those outside of the circle. This book is as important to me as Ken Wilber's "Brief History of Everything.' From this point forward the African myths are given their rightful place in the pantheon of world mythology.