Fabeln und Märchen aus Nord-Transvaal 1912

“Was der Afrikanische Großvater seinen Enkeln erzählt: Fabeln und Märchen aus Nord-Transvaal” - Berliner Missionsgesellschaft 1912
"What the African Grandfather Tells His Grandsons: Fables and Fairy Tales from North Transvaal" -Berlin Missionary Society 1912.

The author, Carl Hoffmann, was a prominent missionary stationed in the northern reaches of the old Transvaal (modern-day Limpopo Province), primarily working among the Northern Sotho (Pedi) people.

While the primary mandate of these missionaries was religious conversion, individuals like Hoffmann became some of the earliest to systematically record local oral traditions, languages, and folklore. This specific volume compiled indigenous fables—such as the Märchen von Chuveane (the tale of Chuveane, a creator/trickster figure who forms a child from clay)—and translated them into German to give European audiences a rare, albeit heavily filtered, glimpse into African cosmological and moral storytelling

A Snapshot of Missionary Preparation

The handwritten inscription provides a highly personal historical micro-narrative. Written in German, it translates roughly to:

Berlin, on 21.7.1926: Karl Drescher.

Received as equipment/outfitting from the Berlin Mission, to the value of 50 Pfennigs.

Georgenkirchstraße 70, Berlin, Wednesday, 21 July 1926.

Friedrich Karl Drescher, Berlin Mission Candidate.

The address Georgenkirchstraße 70 in Berlin was the historic headquarters of the Berlin Missionary Society. This note reveals that this specific copy was handed to a young "missionary candidate," Friedrich Karl Drescher, as part of his official pre-departure preparation or study material before being sent out into the field. Books like Hoffmann’s were used to familiarize candidates with the languages, mindsets, and cultural landscapes of the regions they were assigned to manage.

The Fraktur Typography vs. Colonial Subject Matter

Visually, the book is printed in traditional German Fraktur (blackletter) script. There is a stark historical juxtaposition in seeing indigenous African oral literature, originating from the bushveld of the Northern Transvaal, bound and typeset in the rigid, archaic gothic script of imperial and Weimar-era Germany. It reflects a period when African cultural heritage was systematically captured, processed, and packaged through a distinctly European lens.

Both front and back wrappers detached and chipped.

145mm x 220mm

R1,250