JOHN WILLIAM JOHNSON is Associate Professor of Folklore at Indiana University and the author of two books and many articles on Somali and Mande linguistics and folklore.
Thomas A. Hale is Liberal Arts Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature at The Pennsylvania State University. He is editor of The Epic of Askia Mohammed (IUP, 1996) and co-editor (with John William Johnson and Stephen Belcher) of Oral Epics from Africa (IUP, 1997).