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The Master of the Forge : A West African Odyssey
The Master of the Forge A West African Odyssey Author:Harold Courlander The Master of the Forge is the epic tale of Numukeba, a blacksmith from the Sudanese village of Naradugu, who abandons his forge to seek honor and nobility as a soldier of fortune. Numukeba arms himself with the weapons of his forge and talismans of magical power and sets out on an eleven-year journey through the land. He undergoes freq... more »uent trial by combat, outwits kings, heroes and beasts, descends into the land of the dead, is turned into a dog, and is sold into slavery. Throughout his travels he is harassed by the sorcerer Etchuba, the personification of chance, against whom Numukeba struggles to prove that man's destiny is not a series of accidents, but is written in steel as unbending as the weapons born in his forge.
Although the themes of this classic tale are familiar to them, the story of Numukeba is not in the repertoire of the Sudanic bards. It is an epic drawing on the cultural traditions of West Africans during those days, several hundred years ago, when the Bambara had their own kingdoms along the western bend of the Niger River, which they called Joliba. It draws its substance not only from their way of life, but also from the questions that occupied their minds, such as the eternal conflict between fate and accident.« less