Introduction
The purpose of this project is to compile and collate an online resource for discussing, promoting, and informing people about the myths and legends of the Somali region of Africa (comprising Somalia and the self-declared independent region of Somaliland) and the Somali peoples across the world. Somalia has an amazingly rich mythological history that has not found its way into the consciousness of much of the Western world, and this site seeks (in a very small way) to improve that situation. The hope is that this project will be of interest to anyone interested in fantasy or mythology - academics, storytellers, game designers, writers, and more - as a fresh well of ideas and concepts to draw upon.
Information will be sought from any and all sources - anyone who has first-hand access to old Somali tales and variants of tales is very much encouraged to share them, and suggestions of books and online sources will also be gratefully accepted. All readers are encouraged to share, discuss, and comment upon the threads to give their own ideas. I am particularly initially going to focus on the adventure stories and other greater myths rather than fables, though both will, I hope, be eventually included.
The resource will be formed of threads that allow discussion of the different topics, with referenced notes at the top. This will mostly be done in a fairly dry fashion; the aim is to preserve for example the plotlines of stories, rather than the specific wording given by a certain source or storyteller (except where the wording is plot-relevant). There will be an "analysis" section of each thread which will the recording of people's thoughts on the stories and how they might function and what they might be trying to tell us - please bear in mind that whilst the main information sections are referenced and should be neutral, "analysis" sections purely represent the views and thoughts of named commenters and contributors.
FAQs
Wouldn't this make more sense as a Wiki?
No; the reason I want to use a forum for this is to encourage open discussion, which is generally had as something of a sideline on Wikis. In addition there are unlikely to be vast numbers of editors, so the smaller size of the project would make setting up a Wiki something of a time-sink compared to its value. The purpose is to promote, rather than just inform, about the mythology of this region and I think the way I've set this up strikes a good balance.
