Fourteen hundred cowries : and other African tales

This volume comprises thirty-one Yoruba folktales assembled by Nigerian author Abayomi Fuja and illustrated by Ademola Olugebefola. The tales, including "The beautiful girl and the fish" and "Why tortoises are sacrificed," are about people and animals, nature, and gods. Some of the tales attempt to explain an aspect of nature while others impart wisdom of the Ancient Yoruba of West Africa.

The illustrator, Ademola Olugebefola, was born in 1941 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and arrived in the United States when he was five years old. In 1966, he moved to Harlem and became one of the founding members of the Weusi Artists Collective, named for a Swahili word meaning "blackness". Founded during the Black Arts Movement, the members of Weusi created art invoking African themes and symbols, and worked collectively, establishing galleries to exhibit and sell their art. The organization helped to disseminate African American Art in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.