So de man come on back and submitted hisself to de woman and she opened de doors.
He wasn’t satisfied but he had to give in. ’Way after while he said to de woman, “Le’s us divide up. Ah’ll give you half of my strength if you lemme hold de keys in my hands.”
De woman thought dat over so de devil popped and tol her, “Tell ’im, naw. Let ’im keep his strength and you keep yo’ keys.”
So de woman wouldn’t trade wid ’im and de man had to mortgage his strength to her to live. And dat’s why de man makes and de woman takes. You men is still braggin’ ’bout yo’ strength and de women is sittin’ on de keys and lettin’ you blow off till she git ready to put de bridle on you.
B. Moseley looked over at Mathilda and said, “You just like a hen in de barnyard. You cackle so much you give de rooster de blues.” Mathilda looked over at him archly and quoted:
Stepped on a pin, de pin bent
And dat’s de way de story went
“Y’all lady people ain’t smarter than all men folks. You got plow lines on some of us, but some of us is too smart for you. We go past you jus’ like lightnin’ thru de trees,” Willie Sewell boasted. “And what make it so cool, we close enough to you to have a scronchous1 time, but never no halter on our necks. Ah know they won’t git none on dis last neck of mine.”
SOURCE: Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, 31–34.
In both these tales the foundational question of the gendered division of labor and responsibility is taken up, with additional refinements and embellishments on the theme coming out in the second story through conversational banter. The story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden takes us into the same territory as these two tales. The battle between brawn and brains is a central preoccupation of folktales, and here it is not depicted as a struggle between a lumbering giant and a smaller, quick-witted and fleet-footed adversary but between men and women. Stories like these take us into a circle that includes men and women. Their provocations and overstated claims ensure that there will always be something to talk about and debate.
“When God First Put Folks on Earth” and “Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men,” from Zora Neale Hurston, Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States. Copyright © 2001 by Vivian Hurston Bowden, Clifford J. Hurston Jr., Edgar Hurston Sr., Winifred Hurston Gaston, Lucy Anne Hurston, and Barbara Hurston Lewis. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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1 scronchous: exciting
WHY DE PORPOISE’S TAIL IS ON CROSSWISE AND ROCKEFELLER AND FORD
WHY DE PORPOISE’S TAIL IS ON CROSSWISE1
Now, I want to tell you ’bout de porpoise. God had done made de world and everything. He set de moon and de stars in de sky. He got de fishes of de sea, and de fowls of de air completed.
He made de sun and hung it up. Then He made a nice gold track2 for it to run on. Then He said, “Now, Sun, I got everything made but Time. That’s up to you. I want you to start out and go round de world on dis track just as fast as you kin make it. And de time it takes you to go and come, I’m going to call day and night.” De Sun went zooming’ on cross de elements. Now, de porpoise was hanging round there and heard God what he tole de Sun, so he decided he’d take dat trip round de world hisself. He looked up and saw de Sun kytin’ along,3 so he lit out too, him and dat Sun!
So de porpoise beat de Sun round the world by one hour and three minutes. So God said, “Aw, naw, this aint gointer do! I didn’t mean for nothin’ to be faster than de Sun!” so God run dat porpoise for three days before he run him down and caught him, and took his tail off and put it on crossways4 to slow him up. Still he’s de fastest thing in de water.5
And dat’s why de porpoise got his tail on crossways.
ROCKEFELLER AND FORD
Once John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford was woofing at each other.1 Rockefeller told Henry Ford he could build a solid gold road round the world. Henry Ford told him if he would he would look at it and see if he liked it, and if he did he would buy it and put one of his tin lizzies2 on it.
SOURCE: Zora Neale Hurston, Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings, 837.
Included in Hurston’s “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” the two stories above mirror each other, revealing that drives manifested at the beginning of the world shape desires in the contemporary world. A competitive spirit rules in both the natural order and in a capitalist social order. The can-do attitude of Ford with his Tin Lizzie contrasts with the imperious Rockefeller, who produces the same kind of golden road constructed in the first tale by God.
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1 “Why de Porpoise’s Tail Is On Crosswise”: What folklorists call pourquoi tales, or etiological stories explain the origins of animals as well as of their characteristics. See Part XI, How in the World? Pourquoi Tales.
2 He made a nice gold track: The track made for the sun anticipates the “gold road round the world” in the story of Rockefeller and Ford.
3 kytin’ along: moving fast as a kite
4 put it on crossways: The triangular-shaped tail of the porpoise is at a right-angle to its body.
5 de fastest thing in de water: Porpoises are small cetaceans, but the fastest in a group that includes dolphins and whales.
1 woofing at each other: speaking in an aggressive manner with each other but with no real malice or intent to harm
2 tin lizzies: The Ford Model T or Tin Lizzie was manufactured efficiently with assembly line production in Henry Ford’s plant and became the first affordable automobile in the United States.
ANANSI AND THE FROG
Inside the room the old ones kept the duppy entertained with Anansi stories. Now and then they sang a little. A short squirt of song and then another story would come. Its syllables would behave like tambour tones under the obligato1 of the singing outside. It fitted together beautifully because Anansi stories are partly sung anyway. So rhythmic and musical is the Jamaican dialect that the tale drifts naturally from words to chant and from chant to song unconsciously. There was Brer Anansi and Brer Grassquit;2 Brer Anansi and the Chatting Pot; Brer Frog’s dissatisfaction with his flat behind and Anansi’s effort to teach him how to make stiffening for it. And how all the labor was lost on account of Brer Frog’s boasting and ingratitude. “So Frog don’t learn how to make him behind stick out like other animals. Him still have round behind with no shape because him don’t know how to make the stiffening.” A great burst of laughter. This is the best-liked tale and it is told more than once.
SOURCE: Tell My Horse, in Zora Neale Hurston, Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings, 319.
While doing fieldwork in Jamaica, Zora Neale Hurston took part in a séance that conjured what Jamaicans call a “duppy,” a term of African origin meaning a ghost or spirit. The evening is filled with song and storytelling, as relatives of the duppy try to appease the spirit of the dead man.
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1 obligato: a musical line that is not to be omitted
2 Grassquit: a type of bird
THE ORPHAN BOY AND GIRL AND THE WITCHES
An orphan boy and girl lived in the house with their grandmother, and one day she had to go on a journey and left them there alone. The little girl was sick and the boy went to search for food for them both.
After he was gone, the girl felt stronger so she got out of bed. She was walking in the house when he came back.
“Why do you get out of bed?” he asked her.
She said that she got out of bed because she smelt the witches about. He laughed at her and persuaded her to eat some yams. While they were eating, sure enough in came three witches.
The witches wanted to eat them at once, but they begged to be spared until their grandmother returned at sundown. The witches didn’t want to wait, so they said that they would not eat them if they would go and get some water from
the spring. The children gladly said that they would go.
The witches gave them a sieve to fill with water, and told them that if they did not return at once with it, they would be eaten immediately.
The boy and girl went to the spring for the water and dipped and dipped to try to fill the sieve, but the water always ran out faster than they could fill it. At last they saw the witches coming. Their teeth were far longer than their lips.
The boy and girl were terribly frightened. He seized her and said, “Let us run. Let us go across the deep river.”
The children ran as fast as they could. They saw the witches behind them coming so fast that they made a great cloud of dust that darkened the sun. The little girl stumbled and the witches gained ground so fast that they saw they could not reach the river before the witches, and so climbed a great tree.
The witches came to the foot of the tree and smelt their blood. They came with a broad-ax and began to chop down the tree. The little girl said: “Block eye, chip, block eye chip!” and the pieces that the witches chopped off would fly back into the witches’ eyes and blind them.
The boy called his dogs. [Chant] “Hail Counter! Hail Jack! Hail Counter! Hail Jack!”
The witches at the foot of the tree chopping away said, [chant]: “O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher! O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher!” [Here it is understood that each actor in the drama is speaking, or chanting his lines without further indications.]
“Hail Counter, Hail Jack!”
“O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher!”
“Block eye chip, block eye chip!”
The Tree was toppling and the children was so scared but the boy kept on calling: “Hail Counter, Hail Jack!”
“Block eye chip, block eye chip!”
“O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher!”
The little girl asked her brother: “Do you see the dogs coming yet?”
He said, “Not yet. Hail Counter! Hail Jack!” He didn’t see the dogs coming and he began to sing: “I’m a little fellow here by myself for an hour.”
The dogs was tied at home. They heard his voice and wanted to come, but they were tied. The grandmother was asleep. She was very tired from her journey. She wondered where her grandchildren were. She did not hear the dogs whining to go to the aid of the boy. But a black fast-running snake heard the boy and ran to the house and struck the grandmother across the face with his tail and woke her, and she loosed the dogs.
“I’m a little fellow here by myself for an hour.”
“Block eye, chip, block eye, chip!”
“Hail Counter, hail Jack!”
“O-oooo! Whyncher, whyncher!”
By that time here come the dogs. The tree was falling. The boy and girl was so glad to see the dogs. He told one dog: “Kill ’em!” He told another one, “Suck their blood!” He told the last one, “Eat the bones!”
By that time I left.
SOURCE: Zora Neale Hurston, Every Tongue Got to Confess, 66–68, told by Hattie Reeves, born on the Island of Grand Command.
The breathless pace of this tale about a witch, a grandmother, and her two orphaned grandchildren makes tales like “Little Red Riding Hood” feel tame. The orphaned children find protective forces in the natural world rather than in the human one. Snakes and dogs come to their rescue, and they also use language in the form of charms to ward off cannibalistic witches. Closer to the fairy-tale canon than many of the folktales collected by Hurston, this story contains many tropes familiar from European tales, from the (grand)mother who leaves the children home alone to the magical pursuit by demons.
“The Orphan Boy and Girl and the Witches,” from Zora Neale Hurston, Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States. Copyright © 2001 by Vivian Hurston Bowden, Clifford J. Hurston, Jr., Edgar Hurston, Sr., Winifred Hurston Gaston, Lucy Anne Hurston, and Barbara Hurston Lewis. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
JACK AND THE DEVIL
A man had two sons. One was name Jack and de other one was name Frank. So they got grown and their father called ’em one day and says, “Now, y’all are grown. Here’s five hundred dollars a piece. Go out for yourself.”
Frank took his and went and bought him a farm and settled down.
Jack took his and went on down de road. He got into a crap game and bet his five hundred dollars and won. He bet five hundred more and won agin.
He went walking on down de road and met a man. “Good morning, my boy, what might be your name?”
“My name is Jack. Who are you?”
“Lie-a-road to ketch meddlers.”
Jack says, “I speck youse de man I’m looking for to play me some five-up.”
“All right, let’s go.”
So they set down and played and Jack lost. “I got five hundred more that says I’ll win.” They played and Jack lost agin. “Well,” he says, “I got five hundred more.” He lost dat.
Den de man says, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll play you a game for your life against all the money.”
Jack lost again. So the man he says, “My name is the devil. My home is across the Atlantic ocean.1 If you gets there before this sun rises and goes down again I’ll save your life. If not, you’ll have to die.”
Jack was down by de road crying and a ole mast ast him, “What are you crying for?”
Jack says, “I played five-up wid de devil and he have won my life. He’s gone back across the Atlantic Ocean. He told me if I’m not there before the sun rises and goes down again he’s bound to take my life. I don’t see no chance of getting there.”
Old man says, “Youse in a pretty bad fix, all right. There’s only one thing can cross the ocean in twelve hours. That’s a bald eagle. She comes here every morning and dips herself in de ocean and walks out and plucks off her dead feathers. Now you be here tomorrow morning with a bull yearling; when she get through plucking her feathers she’ll be ready to go. You mount her back wid dis bull yearling and every time she hollers, you put a piece of meat in her mouf and she’ll carry you straight across the ocean by nine o’clock.”
Jack was there nex’ morning wid de bull yearling and saw de eagle when she dipped herself in de ocean and come out on shore to pick off her dead feathers. She dipped herself the second time and shook herself. When she rocked herself and made ready to mount the sky, Jack mounted her back wid his yearling.
After while she hollered, “Hah-ah! One quarter cross de ocean. I don’t see nothing but blue water.” Jack tore off one de hams of dat yearling and stuck it in her mouf and she flew on.
After a while, “Hah-ah! Half way cross de ocean—don’t see nothing but blue water, Hah!” He gave her de rest and pretty soon she landed. Jack hopped off and met an old black man with red eyes and ast him if he knew where de devil live at. He told him, “Yeah, he live in de first little house down de road.”
He knocked on de door and de devil opened it. “Well, you made it, didn’t you? Come in and have breakfast with me.”
After breakfast he says to Jack, “I got a lil job for you to do and if you do it, you can have my youngest daughter; but if you fail I’ll hafta take yo’ life. I got seventy-five acres of new ground—never a bush cut on it. Every bush, every tree, every stump got to be cut and piled up and burnt before twelve o’clock.”
Jack went on down there and went to work; then he begin to cry and de devil’s youngest daughter come down wid his breakfast. She says, “Whut’s de matter, Jack?”
“Your father gimme a hard task. I can’t clean all dis off by twelve o’clock.”
“Eat yo’ breakfast, Jack, and lay yo’ head in my lap and go to sleep.”2
Jack done so, and when he woke up every bush, every tree, every stump was cut and piled up and burnt. So Jack went on back to de house.
“I get one more little hard task for you to do. If you do, you kin have my daughter; if you don’t, I’ll hafta take yo’ life. I got a well three thousand feet deep—I want every drop of water dipped out and bring me whut you find on the bott
om.”
Jack went to dipping the water out de well, but it run in faster than he could dip it out; so he set down and went to crying. Here come de devil’s daughter and ast him: “Whut’s de matter, Jack?”
“Your father have give me another hard task. I can’t do this work.”
“Lay down and put your head in my lap and go to sleep.”
Jack done so and after while she woke him up and hand him a ring and tole him: “Heah, take dis to papa. That’s whut he want. Mama was walking out here de other day and lost her ring.”
Devil say, “I got one more task for you to do and you kin have my youngest daughter. If you don’t, I’ll hafta take your life.” De devil had some coconut palms three hundred fifty feet high. He tole Jack, “You kill these two geeses and go up dat palm tree and pick ’em and bring me back every feather.”
Jack took de geeses and went on up de tree and de wind was blowing so strong he couldn’t hardly stay up there. Jack started to cry. Pretty soon here come de devil’s daughter. “Whut’s de matter, Jack?”
“Your father have given me too hard a task. I can’t do it.”
“Just lay your head on my lap and go to sleep.”
Jack done so and she caught the feathers that had got away from Jack and when he woke up she hand him every feather and de geese and says: “Heah, take ’em to papa and let’s get married.”
So de devil give them a house to start housekeeping in.
That night the girl woke up and says: “Jack, father is coming after us. He’s got two horses out in the barn and a bull. You hitch up de horses and turn their heads to us.”
He hitched up de horses and she got in and they went. De devil misses ’em and run to git his horses. He seen they was gone, so he hitched up his bull. De horses could leap one thousand miles at every jump and de bull could jump five hundred. Jack was whipping up dem horses but de devil was coming fast behind them and de horses could hear his voice one thousand miles away. One of ’em was named Hallowed-Be-Thy-Name and the other one Thy-Kingdom-Come.
The Annotated African American Folktales Page 48