The Annotated African American Folktales Read online

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  For all those before us who kept these stories alive by listening to the voices of others:

  Talk got us here.

  Henry Louis Gates Jr. dedicates this volume to Eleanor Margaret Gates-Hatley

  “L’dor va’dor!”

  Maria Tatar dedicates this volume to Lauren Blum, Daniel Schuker, Jason Blum, Giselle Barcia, and Roxy Blum

  This interlinking of the New World and all countries and ages, by the golden net-work of oral tradition, may supply the moral of our collection.

  —WILLIAM WELLS NEWELL,

  Games and Songs of American Children

  Mouse goes everywhere. She prowls through the houses of the rich, and she visits the poor as well. At night, with her bright little eyes, she watches the doing of secret things, and no treasure chamber is so safe but she can tunnel through and see what is hidden there.

  In olden days she wove a story-child from everything she saw, and to each of these she gave a gown of a different color—white, red, blue, or black. The stories became her children and lived in her house and served her because she had no children of her own.

  —Nigerian folktale

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword: The Politics of “Negro Folklore” by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

  Introduction: Recovering a Cultural Tradition by Maria Tatar

  AFRICAN TALES

  IMAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD WITH ANANSI: STORIES, WISDOM, AND CONTRADICTION

  How the Sky God’s Stories Came to Be Known as Spider Stories

  Rabbit Wants More Sense

  How Wisdom Came into the World

  The Two Friends

  How It Came About That Children Were (First) Whipped

  How Contradiction Came to the Ashanti

  IIFIGURING IT OUT: FACING COMPLICATIONS WITH DILEMMA TALES

  Who Should Marry the Girl?

  Trackwell, Divewell, Breavewell

  A Vital Decision

  The Story of the Four Fools

  IIIADDING ENCHANTMENT TO WISDOM: FAIRY TALES WORK THEIR MAGIC

  The Story of Demane and Demazana

  The Tail of the Princess Elephant

  The Maiden, the Frog, and the Chief’s Son

  Adzanumee and Her Mother

  The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children

  Tsélané and the Marimo

  IVTELLING TALES TODAY: ORAL NARRATIVES FROM AFRICA

  The Filial Son

  Men Deceive Women

  Know Your Relatives or Else You’ll Be Mistaken for a Slave

  Which of the Three Men Was the Most Powerful?

  AFRICAN AMERICAN TALES

  IDEFIANCE AND DESIRE: FLYING AFRICANS AND MAGICAL INSTRUMENTS

  FLYING AFRICANS

  The Flying Man

  All God’s Chillen Had Wings

  All God’s Chillun Got Wings

  Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

  Now Let Me Fly

  Little Black Sambo from Guinea

  Flying Africans

  MAGIC INSTRUMENTS

  How The Hoe Came to Ashanti

  The Do-All Ax

  TESTIMONIALS ABOUT FLYING AFRICANS

  IIFEARS AND PHOBIAS: WITCHES, HANTS, AND SPOOKS

  WITCHES

  Skinny, Skinny, Don’t You Know Me?

  Skin Don’t You Know Me?

  The Cat-Witch

  Witches Who Ride

  Out of Her Skin

  Macie and the Boo Hag

  HANTS AND SPOOKS

  The Headless Hant

  In the Name of the Lord

  The Girl and the Plat-Eye

  The Jack-o’-My-Lantern

  IIISPEECH AND SILENCE: TALKING SKULLS AND SINGING TORTOISES

  The Talking Skull

  The Skull That Talked Back

  Dividing Souls

  Talking Bones

  Talks Too Much

  The Hunter and the Tortoise

  What the Frog Said

  Pierre Jean’s Tortoise

  The Talking Turtle

  John and the Blacksnake

  Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies

  IVSILENCE AND PASSIVE RESISTANCE: THE TAR-BABY STORY

  Spider and the Farmer

  Tale of Ntrekuma

  Tar Baby

  De Wolf, De Rabbit, and De Tar Baby

  The Story of Buh Rabbit and the Tar Baby

  The Wonderful Tar-Baby

  How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox

  Tar Baby

  Tar Baby

  Anansi and the Tar Baby

  The Rabbit and the Tar Wolf

  The Rabbit and the Tar Wolf (Second Version)

  Buh Wolf, Buh Rabbit, and de Tar Baby

  VKINDNESS AND TREACHERY: SLIPPING THE TRAP

  Gratitude

  An Example of Ingratitude

  The Boy and the Crocodile

  Mr. Snake and the Farmer

  The Tortoise and the Toad

  VIJOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AND THE UNCLE REMUS TALES

  Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy

  The Sad Fate of Mr. Fox

  How Spider and Kawku Tse Killed the King’s Cows and Took His Wives (Africa)

  Mr. Rabbit Grossly Deceives Mr. Fox

  Rabbit Makes Wolf His Horse (South Sea Islands)

  Brother Rabbit’s Love-Charm

  Brother Rabbit’s Laughing-Place

  Brother Rabbit Doesn’t Go to See Aunt Nancy

  The Adventures of Simon and Susanna

  VIIFOLKLORE FROM THE SOUTHERN WORKMAN AND THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE

  Brer Rabbit’s Box, with Apologies to Joel Chandler Harris

  The Donkey, the Dog, the Cat and the Rooster

  Jack and the King

  Plantation Courtship

  Echoes from a Plantation Party

  Hags and Their Ways / The Conquest of a Hag

  Why the Clay Is Red

  Fish Stories

  Two Ghost Stories

  Haunted House, Buried Treasure, The Six Witches

  The Witch Cats

  The Boy and the Ghost

  Mr. Claytor’s Story and Mrs. Spennie’s Story

  Playing Godfather, Flower of Dew, and Soul or Sole

  VIIIFOLKTALES FROM THE BROWNIES’ BOOK

  The Story of “Creasus”

  The Twin Heroes

  Chronicles of Br’er Rabbit

  Br’er Rabbit Wins the Reward

  Br’er Rabbit Learns What Trouble Is

  How Mr. Crocodile Got His Rough Back

  How Br’er Possum Learned to Play Dead

  Yada: A True African Story

  IXZORA NEALE HURSTON COLLECTS AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLKLORE

  Franz Boas, Preface to Mules and Men

  From Zora Neale Hurston, Works-in-Progress for The Florida Negro

  From Zora Neale Hurston, “Negro Folklore”

  From Zora Neale Hurston, “Culture Heroes”

  From Zora Neale Hurston, “Research”

  How the Cat Got Nine Lives

  “Blood Is Thicker Than Water” and Butterflies

  When God First Put Folks on Earth and Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men

  Why de Porpoise’s Tail Is On Crosswise and Rockefeller and Ford

  Anansi and the Frog

  The Orphan Boy and Girl and the Witches

  Jack and the Devil

  King of the World

  XLESSONS IN LAUGHTER: TALES ABOUT JOHN AND OLD MASTER

  John de First Colored Man

  “ ’Member Youse a Nigger!”

  Catching John
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  The Mojo

  How?

  John Outwits Mr. Berkeley

  Old Boss and John at the Praying Tree

  Old Master and Okra

  A Laugh That Meant Freedom

  How Buck Won His Freedom

  Voices in the Graveyard

  Swapping Dreams

  How John Stopped His Boss-Man from Dreaming

  John and the Constable

  Old John and the Master

  XIHOW IN THE WORLD? POURQUOI TALES

  Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles as Big as Themselves

  Why the Hare Runs Away

  Tortoise and the Yams

  What Makes Brer Wasp Have a Short Patience

  De Reason Why de ’Gator Stan’ So

  Why the Nigger Is So Messed Up

  Two Bundles

  Compair Lapin and Madame Carencro

  XIIBALLADS: HEROES, OUTLAWS, AND MONKEY BUSINESS

  John Henry

  Annie Christmas

  Stagolee

  Frankie and Johnny

  Railroad Bill

  The Titanic

  The Signifying Monkey

  XIIIARTISTS, PRO AND CON: PREACHER TALES

  How the Brother Was Called to Preach

  The Farmer and the G.P.C.

  Jump on Mama’s Lap

  Deacon Jones’ Boys and the Greedy Preacher

  Poppa Stole the Deacon’s Bull

  The Haunted Church and the Sermon on Tithing

  Old Brother Tries to Enter Heaven

  XIVFOLKLORIC COUSINS ABROAD: TALES FROM CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICAN CULTURES

  The Oranges

  The President Wants No More of Anansi

  The Night Beauty

  Man-Crow

  Words Without End

  Why People Do Not Live Again After Death

  The Man Who Took a Water Mother for His Bride

  The Girl Made of Butter

  Tiger Softens His Voice

  A Boarhog for a Husband

  XVSOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE: FAIRY TALES

  Cinderella

  Mr. Bluebeard

  The Chosen Suitor: The Forbidden Room

  The Chosen Suitor: The Forbidden Room (Second Version)

  The Singing Bones

  The Singing Bones (Second Version)

  The Murderous Mother

  The Stolen Voice

  The Mermaid

  The Big Worm

  The Talking Eggs

  Ramstampeldam

  King Peacock

  PREFACES TO COLLECTIONS AND MANIFESTOS ABOUT COLLECTING AFRICAN AMERICAN LORE

  William Owens, “Folklore of the Southern Negroes”

  Joel Chandler Harris, Introduction to Nights with Uncle Remus (1883)

  Anonymous, “Word Shadows”

  Alice Mabel Bacon, “Folk-Lore and Ethnology Circular Letter” and Letters in Response to the Call

  William Wells Newell, “The Importance and Utility of the Collection of Negro Folk-Lore,” and Anna J. Cooper, “Paper”

  Zora Neale Hurston, “High John de Conquer”

  Sterling A. Brown, “Negro Folk Expression”

  POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS REMEMBER STORIES: MEDITATIONS ON AFRICAN AMERICAN LORE

  IMAGE GALLERY A: TALE-TELLING SITES: AT HOME AND IN COMMON SPACES

  IMAGE GALLERY B: TALE-TELLING SITES: PLACES OF LABOR

  IMAGE GALLERY C: ILLUSTRATED POEMS BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

  IMAGE GALLERY D: JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AND THE UNCLE REMUS TALES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  FOREWORD

  The Politics of “Negro Folklore”

  by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

  The Negroes have a wonderfull Art of communicating Intelligence among themselves. It will run severall hundreds of Miles in a Week or Fortnight.

  —John Adams’s Diary, September 24, 1775

  The American Negroes are rising so rapidly from the condition of ignorance and poverty in which slavery left them, to a position among the cultivated and civilized people of the earth, that the time seems not far distant when they shall have cast off their past entirely, and stand an anomaly among civilized races, as a people having no distinct traditions, beliefs or ideas from which a history of their growth may be traced. If within the next few years care is not taken to collect and preserve all traditions and customs peculiar to the Negroes there will be little to reward the search of the future historian who would trace the history of the African continent through the years of slavery to the position which they will hold a few generations hence.

  —ALICE BACON, Editorial, Southern Workman, December 1893

  The black man is readily assimilated to his surroundings and the original simple and distinct type is in danger of being lost or outgrown. To my mind, the worst possibility yet is that the so-called educated Negro, under the shadow of this over powering Anglo-Saxon civilization, may become ashamed of his own distinctive features and aspire only to be an imitator of that which can not but impress him as the climax of human greatness, and so all originality, all sincerity, all self-assertion would be lost to him. What he needs is the inspiration of knowing that his racial inheritance is of interest to others and that when they come to seek his homely songs and sayings and doings, it is not to scoff and sneer, but to study reverently, as an original type of the Creator’s handiwork.

  —ANNA JULIA COOPER, Letter to the Editor, Southern Workman, January 1894

  I am speaking then, not with regards to the past, but the future, when I say that it is of consequence for the American Negro to retain the recollection of his African origin, and of his American servitude. For the sake of the honor of his race, he should have a clear picture of the mental condition out of which he has emerged: this picture is not now complete, nor will be made so without a record of song, tales, beliefs, which belongs to the stage of culture through which he has passed.

  —WILLIAM WELLS NEWELL, “The Importance and Utility of the Collection of Negro Folk-Lore,” Southern Workman, July 1894

  The field of folklore in general is known to be a battle area, and the Negro front is one of the hottest sectors. One sharply contested point is the problem of the definition of the folk; another that of origins. Allies are known to have fallen out and skirmished behind the lines over such minor matters as identifying John Hardy with John Henry.

  —STERLING A. BROWN, “Negro Folk Expression,” Phylon, 1950

  Surely a most interesting volume could be gathered of the traditions, proverbs, sayings, superstitions and folk-lore of the American Negro, and as you suggest, unless this is done immediately—i.e. before the present generation of Negroes pass from the stage, the opportunity will be lost forever. Whatever is done, then, must be done quickly.

  —REVEREND WILLIAM V. TUNNELL, King Hall, Washington, D.C., Letter to the Editor, Southern Workman, December 1893

  In July, 1894, the Southern Workman magazine published transcripts of two remarkable, indeed historic, speeches delivered on Friday evening, May 25, “at the Hampton Normal School [now Hampton University] under the auspices of the Hampton Folk-Lore Society.”1 The Southern Workman was a monthly magazine founded in 1872 by Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Booker T. Washington’s mentor and inspiration, and the founder and first principal of Hampton. It would cease publication in 1939. Though they were delivered second on the program that evening, let’s first examine the remarks of Anna Julia Cooper, the pioneering black feminist who had published her powerful manifesto A Voice from the South two years earlier, in 1892, and who in the Southern Workman was identified as a member of “the Washington Negro Folk-Lore Society.” Cooper’s argument was, perhaps, the first made by a black feminist intellectual for the importance of Negro folklore, and her remarks proved prescient in defining the terms of the debate about the nature and function of this body of oral lore and its relation to the social progress and political status of an emergent people just twenty-nine years “up from slavery.”

  Cooper cleverly cast the heart of her ar
gument for preserving Negro folklore in terms of “originality”:

  Emancipation from the model is what is needed. Servile copying foredooms mediocrity: it cuts the nerve of soul expression. The American Negro cannot produce an original utterance until he realizes the sanctity of his homely inheritance. It is the simple, common, everyday things of man that God has cleansed. And it is the untaught, spontaneous lispings of the child heart that are fullest of poetry and mystery. . . . [Correggio] felt the quickening of his own self consciousness as he gazed on the marvelous canvasses of the masters. “I too am a painter,” he cried and the world has vindicated the assertion. Now it is just such a quickening as this that must come to the black man in America, to stimulate his original activities. The creative instinct must be aroused by a wholesome respect for the thoughts that lie nearest. And this to my mind is the vital importance for him of the study of his own folklore. His songs, superstitions, customs, tales, are the legacy left from the imagery of the past. These must catch and hold and work up into the pictures he paints. . . . The Negro too is a painter. And he who can turn his camera on the last receding views of this people and catch their simple truth and their sympathetic meaning before it is all too late will no less deserve the credit of having revealed a characteristic page in history and of having made an interesting study.2

  Rarely could a bolder argument for the nature and function of African American folklore have been made, and Cooper was making this argument just less than a year after the appearance of what would become, after its debut in the December 1893 number, a regular column on “Folklore and Ethnology” in the pages of the magazine. Just that November, the first Negro folklore society had been formed at Hampton, under the direction of a far-seeing white administrator there, Alice M. Bacon, as a branch of the American Folklore Society, which itself had launched in 1888. Students and alumni were asked to contribute examples of traditional Negro folklore to the journal, which encouraged them to transcribe tales they remembered or encountered. According to folklorist Alan Dundes, “Not only were students enrolled at Hampton asked to report folklore, but through the notices periodically placed in the Southern Workman, past graduates were asked to help the cause.”3 Consequently, the Southern Workman, at the turn of the century and well into the twentieth, became a living archive or laboratory of Negro folklore, and its readers became its informants, its documentarians. The collection of black cultural artifacts on a more or less systematic basis had never been attempted before, and we believe that this effort remains unique to this day. In 1983, the historian Donald J. Waters would publish the best of this material in a volume titled Strange Ways and Sweet Dreams: Afro-American Folklore from the Hampton Institute, some selections from which we have included in our anthology.