African American Folktales

by Roger Abrahams

  Dorson Richard M. Dorson. American Negro Folktales. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1976.

  Dundes “African and Afro-American Tales.” In Daniel J. Crowley, ed., African Folklore in the New World, 181–99. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977.

  Flowers Helen H. Flowers. A Classification of Folktales of the West Indies by Types and Motifs. New York: Arno Press, 1980.

  JAF Journal of American Folklore.

  Klipple May Augusta Klipple. “African Folktales in Foreign Analogues.” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1938.

  Motif Stith Thompson. Motif-Index of Folk Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955–58.

  RAL Research in African Literatures.

  All other references are to articles and books given in the Bibliography. In each annotation the place of collection is given in italics, followed by the last name of the author-collector, then the page number on which the original text appears. The tales are arranged alphabetically according to the titles I have given them in the text, and the page on which they appear in this volume is given in parentheses after that title.

  To a nonfolklorist, the numbers that denote tale types and motifs may be incomprehensible, so let me briefly explain their uses. These reference tools have made the comparative study of folktales possible but they have severe limitations that can cause a good deal of frustration to anyone wishing to run down the distributional history of a specific tale. The difficulties reflect as much the elusive character of oral tales as the inconsistent minds of the scholars who worked out the plan of these compendia. The tale-type index begun by Antti Aarne and revised by Stith Thompson assigns numbers and short descriptions to all tales that these scholars encountered in which the same sequence of episodes has been found in a number of geographical areas. Because the work grew out of annotations for the Grimm tales, it is considerably biased toward European reportings. The same is true of Thompson’s Motif-Index (from which all my motif numbers are taken). Thompson attempted to redress the shortcomings of the early edition of this work by encouraging his graduate students to write dissertations on the body of lore from outside the Indo-European world; one result is the Flowers volume. These students made extraordinary efforts to assign existing Aarne-Thompson motif numbers to their data; only for the most recalcitrant materials were new numbers suggested. Nevertheless, the students each had an idiosyncratic reading of the master’s words: so, for example, what Flowers assigns to one motif and its number, another student, such as May Klipple, places under a different number. Working with these documents has meant being issued hunting licenses!

  That this has frustrated scholars who wish to study culture flow (from Africa or Europe) is abundantly recorded in the Baer, Bascom, and Dundes documents. Nonetheless, again and again, the numbering system has provided an accurate and intuitively insightful place to begin. The problem is complicated by Dorson’s almost blind adherence to the Thompson descriptions to annotate his extensive collection of American Negro tales. It is from this base that he argues the essentially European or New World “origins” of North American black tales. Crowley usefully surveys this controversy in the introduction to African Folklore in the New World, as do Bascom and Baer in the introductions to their works.

  As noted in the Preface, I have edited the stories. Generally, I have followed the wording of the original, changing only those passages that seemed most difficult or rendered in an archaic way. Of the stories I recorded myself, most were taken down in one or another form of Creole—some closer, some farther away from standard American English. I have attempted to maintain the narrative flow and the stylistic cadences of the narrator while taking out all the orthographic tricks that have been used to render black English as it is heard by the transcriber. My objective, of course, has been to make the texts more immediately understandable to readers. I have made no attempt to introduce stylistic homogeneity to the texts, but have translated as fully as I could the narrative “voice” of the original into the American vernacular. The more Creole the original, the more I have felt the need to translate. Thus, some stories depart from the recorded text more than others. This is especially so with texts recorded in the West Indies, the originals of which I plan to publish in a scholarly monograph.

  Anansi Climbs the Wall (this page). Jamaica; Trowbridge, 286–87. Thompson A2261.2, “Spider Transformed for Greediness Now Occupies Dark Corners.” Flowers (373), has only two stories under this number, neither of which is a version of this story. On the other hand, under A2433.5.3, “Haunts of Spiders” (382), she has this story and no other. There are numerous other stories in which Death figures as a character in Afro-America.

  Anansi Plays Dead (this page). St. Vincent; recorded by Abrahams. This is one of the most widely collected stories in Afro-America. Aa-Th 66B, Motif 607.3, “Sham Dead-Man Deceived into Making a Gesture.” Found widely in Africa, though its provenance is widespread elsewhere, it is also found among American Indians. See Baer, 38–39; Dundes, 48.

  Animal Talk (this page). Jamaica; Beckwith, 178. This has a passing reference to “the fasting contest,” given here as “Fasting for the Hand of the Queen’s Daughter,” and treated by Bascom in RAL.

  Assaulting All the Senses (this page). Surinam; Herskovits and Herskovits, 183–85.

  The Barn Is Burning (this page). North Carolina; Brewer. 61–64. This is an international tale; it is widely found in this form in Great Britain, as reported by Kenneth Jackson and Edward Wilson in “The Barn Is Burning,” Folk-Lore 47 (1947); 190–202. Dorson, 115, notes that though Aa-Th tale type 1833E has been suggested for its assignment, the tale is sufficiently distinct to have a number of its own.

  Being Greedy Chokes Anansi (this page). Jamaica; Coleman-Smith, 278. Flowers cites five versions of this story under Motif C496*, “Tabu Using Certain Words” (409–10).

  Between the Fiddler and the Dancer (this page). Bahamas; Parsons, Andros, 132–38.

  Big-Gut, Big-Head, Stringy-Leg (this page). Bahamas; Parsons, Andros, This story is widely found in Europe as well as in the West Indies. Cf. Flowers, B610.1 (394).

  Black Jack and White Jack (this page). Antigua; Johnson, 77–80. This is a version of Aa-Th 303. “The Twins or Blood Brothers,” and is unusual only in the black-white references. Otherwise, the tale is well-known in the Old World (both Europe and Africa).

  A Boarhog for a Husband (this page). St. Vincent; Abrahams, Man-of-Words, 171–72. This is one of the most common stories in the Antilles involving a marriage of the king’s beautiful daughter with some kind of animal. Flowers, under Motif 610 (601?), “Marriage of Person to Beast,” gives 29 versions, and a number of others under B611, “Beast Paramour”; B613, “Reptile Paramour”; B621, “Beast as Suitor”; B622, “Reptile as Wooer”; B640.1, “Marriage to Beast by Day and Man by Night”; B651, “Marriage to Beast in Human Form”; G81, “Unwitting Marriage to a Cannibal”; and D655, “Transformation to Receive Food,” where there are two other texts in which the animal is a boarhog. Under this last number, she gives many African references, but none to European sources. Baer discusses the pattern in reference to the Uncle Remus and His Friends text “Why Brother Bull Grumbles and Growls.” She argues that the story is clearly African but with the motive changed, for there the animal is going to eat his new wife. She refers (128) to Alice Werner’s discussion of the pattern in Africa in which the notion of the younger brother saving his sister is central to the fiction. (Werner in Jeckyll, 191, 193, 196–97.)

  Brer Bear’s Grapevine (this page). North Carolina; Cobbs and Hicks, 14–18.

  Brer Rabbit’s Riddle (this page). Georgia; Harris, Nights, no. 10. This is an artful combination of an international tale—Aa-Th 49, K1023, “The Bear and the Honey”—and a motif of punishment found often in Africa, as Baer has noted (53). The introduction of the riddle as a way of piquing the fox’s interest and leading him into a trap is unusual in this story, but a common Afro-American contest device in tales. See, for instance, “Three Killed Florrie, Flor
rie Killed Ten,” “Making the Eyes Run,” and “Never Seen His Equal.”

  Bringing Men and Women Together (this page). Surinam; Price and Price, 187–88.

  Brother Rabbit Takes a Walk (this page). Georgia; Harris, Nights, no. 53. As Dundes notes, after giving references to a number of related African and U.S. texts, mouth mutilation is part of Trickster’s repertoire. This is closely related to the voice-modification techniques, drinking acid or using a hot poker, called on by Trickster. Baer says, judiciously: “Structurally, and from the standpoint of motivation, the tale is related to Aa-Th 110, ‘Belling the Cat.’ The suggestion of sewing up or otherwise altering a bodily orifice is certainly a popular motif in Africa … but without evidence of closer analogues this tale would be most safely categorized as an Afro-American variant of a European tale” (98).

  Buh Nansi Scares Buh Lion (this page). Tobago; recorded by Abrahams.

  Buying Two Empty Hands (this page). St. Vincent; recorded by Abrahams.

  A Chain of Won’ts (this page). Montserrat; Parsons, Antilles, 2:305. This “routine” derives from the very widely collected story called in English “The Old Woman and Her Pig,” Aa-Th 2030. That these acts are not actually occurring but are part of the goat-owner’s wishes and the delivery of the routine in the first person are the idiosyncratic features of this rendering. While Flowers (563–64) gives seven versions, and there are a number of reportings from Africa, the story is too widely found to say anything definitive about its pattern of dissemination.

  A Comic Conversation (this page). Jamaica; Trowbridge, 278.

  Competition for Laziness (this page). Texas; Abrahams, Positively Black, 66.

  Crawling into the Elephant’s Belly (this page). Guyana; C. D. Dance, 85–87. This strange and gory story is widely reported in the New World; the various renderings are discussed by Bascom in RAL 10 (1979): 323–40, where he argues its African origins. It invokes one of the most common of all Afro-American episodes, in which a prohibition against eating too much results in the capture and/or death of the Trickster or dupe, a “motif” that often occurs inside a large animal’s body. Flowers (227ff.) lists a number of versions of this story under Aa-Th 676, “Open Sesame,” because entrance into the animal’s belly is achieved through a password. In fact, the story is structurally related to that famous story of the robbers storing their booty inside a mountain, because Aa-Th 676 commonly involves the capture of the imitator because he forgets the password. In many West Indian versions, the imitator is caught both because of cutting the animal’s heart and forgetting the password to get out.

  The Cunning Cockroach (this page). Antigua; Johnson, 66–67. Motif A2494.5.18, “Enmity of Fowl and Cockroach,” cited in Flowers (385–86). She gives so many stories explaining why chickens eat roaches that it is clearly a favorite subject in the West Indies.

  Cutta Cord-La (this page). Georgia; Harris, Nights, 195–99. This is, according to Bascom in RAL 13 (1981): 187–95, a combination of two distinctly African tales, “Agreement to Kill Mothers” and “Cutta Cord-La.” In contrast to Thompson (who has it as Motif R311.3) and Flowers (who has it as K963, with a close analogue as K231.1.1), Baer argues that this story is most appropriately included under Aa-Th 123.

  Dancing to the River (this page). Jamaica; Murray, 24–29. Flowers reports five versions of this story from the West Indies under Motif K622, “Captive Plays Further and Further Away from Watchman and Escapes.” I have heard it many times in the West Indies, and this early (1877) text indicates that it has lived in the region for some time. In addition to these reports, Flowers notes the Uncle Remus tale (Harris, Nights, no. 3) and the Cape Verdean and African versions, but none from Europe. Baer says that it should be included under Aa-Th 122, “Other Tricks to Escape from Captor,” and notes finally that “it is clearly an African Afro-American story.”

  The Devil’s Doing (this page). American South; Branner, 28–30.

  The Doings and Undoings of the Dogoshes (this page). American South; Branner, 80–82.

  Don’t Shoot Me, Dyer, Don’t Shoot Me (this page). St. Vincent; recorded by Abrahams. Flowers (437) has a number of versions under F915, “Victim Speaks from the Swallower’s Body,” and refers only to African cognates. (Only her no. 2 and no. 3 are versions of this story, however.) Under D1619.2, “Eaten Object Speaks from Inside Person’s Body,” she includes three versions of this tale (426–31). The story is a strange one because in some versions (e.g., Fortier, 120) the animal (here a fish) is the lover of a girl who is sacrificing himself so she can eat him. He gives her orders to catch him up and eat him, as opposed to the prohibitions on such things in this version. In another version, from St. Vincent, that I collected, the bird has the benevolent protection of Compé Sun.

  Endings (this page). Michigan; Dorson, Negro Tales, 281.

  Escaping, Slowly (this page). Jamaica; Beckwith, 161–62.

  Fasting for the Hand of the Queen’s Daughter (this page). Bahamas; Parsons, Andros, 97–98. Again, Bascom has demonstrated that this is an African tale, with no European versions, in “Birds Fasting (Singing) Contest,” RAL 9 (1979). Flowers (457) includes this story under the general rubric of H331, “Suitor Contests: Bride Offered as Prize.”

  The Feast on the Mountain and the Feast under the Water (this page). Surinam; Herskovits and Herskovits, 287–89.

  The Fight over Life (this page). Guadeloupe; Courlander, 90–91. He gives an African version (585), and says that the story is widely told there. Flowers (368) refers to one Haitian text, under Motif A1335.

  The Flying Contest (this page). Surinam; Herskovits and Herskovits, 193.

  A Flying Fool (this page). Texas; Abrahams, Positively Black, 36. This tale is widely collected in the United States; see, for instance, Daryl Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’, 13–14. She notes ten versions printed in other American collections (306).

  A Foolish Mother (this page). Providencia; Washabaugh, 22–23.

  Get Back, Get Back (this page). Florida; Hurston, 48-49. A number of explanatory tales for human coloration differences are found throughout the New World, stories with special power when found as part of the black repertoire. See, for instance, Daryl Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’, 333–34, and the notes she provides there.

  Getting Common Sense (this page). Jamaica; Bennett, 67. This story is widely found in the West Indies and the Guianas. It is given a new motif number by Flowers, H1263+, but she provides no descriptive name and includes a number of related stories concerned with God’s decision, after a number of tests, that Trickster is wise enough already and doesn’t need any more endowments. Bascom would surely have included this story in the general complex of the African-derived story “Trickster Seeks Endowments.” See “Hankering for a Long Tail,” below.

  The Gifts of Dipper and Cowhide (this page). Alabama; Fauset, 215–16. From an informant, Cudjo Lewis, “born in Dahome (sic), West Africa about 85 years ago” (in 1927?).

  The Girl Made of Butter (this page). Bahamas; Parsons, Andros, 125–26.

  Golden Breasts, Diamond Navel, Chain of Gold (this page). Surinam; Herskovits and Herskovits, 401–13. A version of Aa-Th 850, “The Birthmarks of the Princess.” Though widely found throughout the Indo-European world (including the Grimm collection), Herskovits notes (401) the especially African character of the locking up on the ménage à trois. The dances of the pigs are a special Surinamian note, relating the story to specific religious practices.

  Goobers Gone, Rabbit Gone (this page). Alabama; Carmer, 181–83.

  Hankering for a Long Tail (this page). South Carolina; Stoney and Shelby, 175–92. This is a version of one of the most widespread and interesting African tales, “Trickster Seeks Endowments,” studied by Bascom in RAL 9 (1979): 218–55. As Bascom notes, this type readily divides in three in terms of the tasks assigned the figure who has unnatural needs to add a feature to his body (as here) or his abilities. The three tasks are often found together, often as separate stories (as in “Why They Name the Stories for Anansi”), an
d are: (1) Measuring the Snake; (2) Challenging Birds (Insects) to Fill a Container; (3) Milking a Cow (Deer) Stuck in a Tree.

  He Pays for the Provisions (this page). Tobago; Abrahams, 347.

  Hide Anger until Tomorrow (this page). Surinam; Herskovits and Herskovits, 347.

  The Horned Animals’ Party (this page). Antigua; Johnson, 59-60.

  Horses Stay Outside (this page). Alabama; Carmer, 184.

  Jack Beats the Devil (this page). Florida; Hurston, 70–77. This story brings together motifs from a number of fairytales without fitting specifically into one tale type. It begins, for instance, with Motif S22.3, “Youth Sells Himself to an Ogre in Settlement of a Gambling Debt.”

  The John Crows Lose Their Hair (this page). Jamaica; Rampini, 124–28. A2317.11, “Why John Crow Has Bald Head.” Flowers (375) gives four references, two of them to other Jamaican versions of this story. Similar tales are found in the continental United States, as discussed in Baer (143–44), including a rare “Ann Nancy” version from Georgia. Dorson, 109–10, gives a different tale on this theme, a fight between Fox and Buzzard in which Buzzard sticks his head in a place where Fox can pull out Buzzard’s head feathers.

  John Outruns the Lord (this page). Florida; Hurston, 96–99. This story is widely found among black storytellers in the United States; it is commonly given Motif J217.0.1.1, “Trickster Overhears Man Praying for Death to Take Him.” Daryl Dance gives a recently collected text in Shuckin’ and Jivin’, 134, and notes other places it may be found in her notes (346–47), including one African reporting.

  John Outwits Mr. Berkeley (this page). Trinidad; Parsons, Antilles, 3:48–58. This story well illustrates the problem of bringing together black tales and European-based motif and tale-type indices. This is an elaboration of the story pattern, widely found in Africa, of an unsuccessful and often fatal imitation by a dupe, assigned Motifs K941.1 and K913, which is part of Aa-Th 1535, “The Rich and Poor Peasant.” (It is, in this rendering, put into the frame of a test of wits between a white power figure and a black subordinate.) As in Aa-Th 1535, the fatal imitation is combined with K842, “Fatal Deception,” in which Trickster persuades a dupe to take his place being tied up. Aarne and Thompson indicate in their latest edition that, based on Flowers’s West Indian tale-type and motif index, there are 20 versions of this tale type collected in the West Indies. Flowers, however, includes no references to Aa-Th 1535, nor to any stories under the Motif number K941 and its relatives. On the other hand, she does have three stories, closely related to the unsuccessful (fatal) imitation stories studied by Paulme in Africa, under K851, “Deceptive Game.”