The Annotated African American Folktales

by Henry Louis Gates

  2.Customs, especially in connection with birth, marriage and death, that are different from those of the whites. Old customs cling longest about such occasions. The old nurse, who first takes the little baby in her arms, has [a] great store of old-fashioned learning about what to do and what not to do, to start the child auspiciously upon the voyage of life. The bride receives many warnings and injunctions upon passing through the gates of matrimony, and the customs that follow death and burial tend to change but little from age to age. What was once regarded as an honor to the dead, or a propitiation of his spirit, must not be neglected lest the dead seem dishonored, or the spirit—about which we know so little after all—wander forlorn and lonely, or work us ill because we failed to do some little thing that was needful for its rest. And so the old ways linger on about those events of our lives, and through them we may trace back the thoughts and beliefs of our ancestors for generations.

  3.Traditions of ancestry in Africa, or of transportation to America. Rev. Dr. Crummell, in his eulogy of Henry Highland Garnett, says of that great man, “He was born in slavery. His father before him was born in the same condition. His grandfather, however, was born a free man in Africa. He was a Mandingo chieftain and warrior, and, having been taken prisoner in a tribal fight, was sold to slave traders, and then brought as a slave to America.” If this tradition was preserved for three generations, may there not be others that have been handed from father to son, or from mother to daughter through longer descents? The slavery system as it existed in the United States tended to obscure pedigrees and blot them out entirely by its brutal breaking up of all family ties, but even if only here and there such traditions are still found, they are worth preserving as tending to throw light upon the derivation of the American Negroes.

  4.African words surviving in speech or song. Here and there some African words have crept into common use, as goober for peanut, which is manifestly the same as n’gooba, the universal African designation for the same article of food. Are there not other words less common which are African? Do not children sing songs, or count out in their games with words which we may have taken for nonsense, but which really form links in the chain that connects the American with the African Negro? Do not the old people when they tell stories use expressions that are not English and that you have passed over as nonsense? Are there songs sung by the fireside, at the camp-meeting, or at work, or play, that contain words, apparently nonsensical, that make a refrain or chorus? If there are, note them down, spelling them so as to give as nearly their exact sound as possible and send them in with a note of how they are used.

  5.Ceremonies and superstitions—Under this head may be included all beliefs in regard to the influence of the moon or other heavenly bodies; superstitions in regard to animals of various kinds and their powers for good or evil, as well as all ideas about the medical or magical properties of different plants or stones. Here also may be noted all that can be learned about beliefs in ghosts, witches, hags, and how to overcome supernatural influences. How to cork up a hag in a bottle so that she cannot disturb your slumbers, how to keep her at work all night threading the meshes of a sifter hung up in the doorway and so escape her influence, how to detect or avoid conjuring, or magic in any form, how to escape the bad luck that must come if you turn back to get something you have forgotten, or if a crow flies over the house, or if your eye twitches, or if any of the thousand and one things occur which, in the minds of the ignorant and superstitious, will bring bad luck if the right thing is not done at once to avert the evil influence.

  6.Proverbs and sayings—From the time of King Solomon until now there have always been embodied in proverbs many bits of sound wisdom that show the philosophy of the common people. The form that the proverbs and sayings take depends largely upon the habits and modes of thought of the people who make them. Thus a collection of the proverbs of any people shows their race characteristics and the circumstances of life which surround them. Joel Chandler Harris in his “Uncle Remus’s Songs and Sayings” has given a series of Plantation Proverbs that show the quaint humor, the real philosophy and the homely surroundings of the plantation Negroes. A few specimens from his list may call attention to what we mean. “Better de gravy dan no grease ’tall.” “Tattlin’ ’oman can’t make de bread rise.” “Mighty po’ bee dat don’t make mo’ honey dan’ he want.” “Rooster make mo’ racket dan de hin w’at lay de aig.” In Mr. Harris’s book the Georgia Negro dialect is carefully preserved, but that is not necessary for our work, though adding to its value where it can be done well.

  7.Songs, words or music or both. The Hampton School has been at some pains to note down and preserve many of the “spirituals” which are probably the best expression so far attained of the religious and musical feeling of the race, but there are innumerable songs of other kinds which have never been taken down here. One of the earliest methods of recording and preserving historical or other knowledge is through the medium of rhythmic and musical utterance. The Illiad of Homer, the great historical psalms of the Hebrew poets, the Norse sagas, the Scotch, English and Spanish ballads were but the histories of the various races moulded into forms in which they could be sung and remembered by the people. In the absence of written records, or of a general knowledge of the art of reading, songs are the ordinary vehicle of popular knowledge. A few years ago, I was listening to the singing of some of our night students. The song was new to me, and at first seemed to consist mainly of dates, but I found as it went along and interpreted itself that it was a long and fully detailed account of the Charleston earthquake, in which the events of successive days were enumerated, the year being repeated with great fervency again and again in the chorus. Are there not other songs of a similar character that take up older events? Are there not old war songs that would be of permanent value? Are there not songs that take up the condition and events of slavery from other than the religious side? Are there any songs that go back to Africa, or the conditions of life there? What are your people singing about—for they are always singing—at their work or their play, by the fireside, or in social gatherings? Find out and write it down, for there must be much of their real life and thought in these as yet uncollected and unwritten songs.

  There are many other lines along which observation would be of value for the purpose of gaining a thorough knowledge of the condition—past and present, of the American Negro. Are there any survivors of the later importations from Africa, or are there any Negroes who can say today, “My father or my mother was a native African?” If there are, talk with them, learn of them all they can tell you and note it down. Are there any families of Negroes, apparently of pure blood, characterized by straight or nearly straight hair? If there are, do they account for it in any way? What proportion of the colored people in the district where you live are of mixed blood? Give the number of pure and mixed blood. What proportion having white blood have kept any traditions of their white and Negro ancestry so that they know the exact proportion of white to Negro blood? How many have traditions of Indian ancestry? Reports on all these subjects would be in the line of our work.

  And now, having shown as fully as is possible within the limits here set down what it is that the Hampton School desires to do through its graduates and all other intelligent Negroes who are interested in the history and origin of their own race, we would say, in closing, that we should be glad to enter into correspondence with any persons who wish to help in this work, and to receive contributions from all who have made or who can make, observations along the proposed lines of investigation. Correspondence with prominent men of both races leads us to believe that we have the possibility ahead of us of valuable scientific study, that in this age when it is hard to open up a new line of research, or add anything to the knowledge of men and manners and beliefs that the world already possesses we, if we labor earnestly and patiently, may contribute much that shall be of real and permanent value in spreading among men the understanding of their fellowmen as well as in furnishing
material for the future historian of the American Negro. Is not this worth doing?

  Correspondence in regard to this matter may be addressed to Miss A. M. Bacon, Southern Workman Office, Hampton, Va.

  MORE LETTERS CONCERNING THE “FOLK-LORE MOVEMENT” AT HAMPTON

  Since our last issue several pleasant letters have come to us, called out by the folk-lore movement.

  From Mr. T. T. Fortune of the N. Y. Age the following response has been received.

  Permit me to say that I enter fully and heartily into the spirit of your undertaking and shall have pleasure in giving you and it all the assistance possible in my sphere of activity.

  From Rev. Alex Crummell, D.D. of Washington, comes the following letter.

  You may judge of my interest in your letter from the fact that I myself have been endeavoring to secure interest in the same subject your letter suggests, in my circle in this city. I wished last year to enlist two or three friends of mine in the attempt to organize an “African Society” for the preservation of traditions, folk-lore, ancestral remembrances, etc., which may have come down from ancestral sources. But nothing came of it. The truth is that the dinning of the “colonization” cause into the ears of the colored people—the iteration of the idle dogma that Africa is THE home of the black race in this land; has served to prejudice the race against the very name of Africa. And this is a double folly:—the folly of the colonizationists, and the folly of the black man; i.e. to forget family ties and his duty to his kin over the water.

  I, for my part, give my full adhesion to your plans. But I can do but little. The shades of evening are upon me. Age is fast relaxing my powers;—I am constantly up as it were to my eyelids in work and duty; but what assistance I can give I shall gladly render.

  You are right in your reference to the ancestry of my dear friend Garnett and I have, myself, distinct remembrances of the African (tribal) home of my own father, of which he often told me.

  I have the impression that wide and telling information will fall into the hands of persons interested in the project that you wish to undertake; and I shall look for your circular at an early day.

  You give an admirable and orderly list of topics in your letter and my impression is that among the class you rely upon—students and graduates, full up to this day, of the remembrances of southern homes and parents, you will find a larger number of inquiring minds than among a more ambitious and pretentious class of our people.

  I wish you great success; and I shall be glad to hear from you again.

  Very truly yours,

  ALEX CRUMMELL.

  From Mrs. A. J. Cooper of Washington, author of that able little collection of essays entitled “A Voice from the South,” comes this tribute to Gen. Armstrong’s work combined with her approval of our new plan.

  Your letter expresses a want that has been in my mind for a long time. In the first place the “Hampton idea” is one for which I have long entertained an enthusiastic regard and I have been sorry that my fate has not yet given me an opportunity of coming in contact with its work. I do not at all discourage the higher courses for those who are capable among my people, but I am heartily in favor of that broad work begun with so much thoroughness at Hampton. You have large views of things at Hampton and it must have been a large heart that inspired the movement and a wise, well-balanced head that conceived and developed the plan. General Armstrong is one of our national heroes, and his work is no whit inferior because it supplements and rounds off that begun by Lincoln and Grant.

  As for your plan for collecting facts that disclose and interpret the inner life and customs of the American Negro, I believe such a work is calculated to give a stimulus to our national literature as characteristic as did the publication of Percy’s Reliques to the English in the days of Scott and Wordsworth. It is what I have long wanted to take part in in some way and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to become a part of your plan. What you say is true. 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.

  Mr. Geo. W. Cable, whose name in literature occupies so assured a position that his approval is of the highest value, sends us the following:

  I have just received your paper setting forth your plan for the study of Negro folk-lore and ethnology by the graduates of Hampton, and I must say to you at once that I consider it one of the most valuable plans yet proposed for the development of that literary utterance which I believe to be essential for the colored people to secure in order to work out a complete Emancipation. It is an attempt to enter into literature where literature begins. I believe that anyone on reflection will see that it is of grave and serious political value for a people whose development must depend so largely upon another people more fortunate and advanced, to make themselves interesting in literature. No American can overlook the value this has been and is still to the Indian. If you see any way in which I can be of service, I will be glad for you to let me know.

  Yours truly,

  GEO. W. CABLE

  One extremely interesting phase of this new work is that it brings the worker into more agreeable contact with the best minds and broadest thinkers among the colored people, a contact that is certain to prove most helpful and encouraging to one who is interested in the present condition and future development of the race. The uniform courtesy and appreciative spirit of assurances received from members of the Afro-American press will furnish a chapter in itself for some further issue of the Workman. Suffice it to say that the Workman offers its heartiest thanks to all the editors who have responded so cordially to its new departure and will be glad in return to do what it can in any direction that they may suggest for the advancement of the Negro race.

  WILLIAM WELLS NEWELL, “THE IMPORTANCE AND UTILITY OF THE COLLECTION OF NEGRO FOLK-LORE,” AND ANNA J. COOPER, “PAPER”

  Southern Workman 23 (1894), 131–33

  William Wells Newell was an American folklorist who taught in the Philosophy Department at Harvard University and founded the American Folklore Society in 1888. He addressed the Folklore Conference held at the Hampton Normal School in May 1894. Anna Julia Cooper was born a slave and became an American educator who received her Ph.D. in History from the Sorbonne. The author of A Voice from the South: By a Woman from the South (1892), she argued for the educational and spiritual progress of African American women as a means to improving the standing of the entire community.

  ADDRESS BY MR. WILLIAM WELLS NEWELL

  “The Importance and Utility of the Collection of Negro Folk-Lore”

  The subject of Folk-lore is one on which there would be no difficulty in expanding an address to any required length. This evening, however, I am not wound up to go, but to stop. I propose only to make some general remarks intended to explain the importance of gathering Negro Folk-lore and the future value of such collection; this accomplished, I shall resign the floor to members of your own society who will furnish you with practical illustrations of Negro Folk-lore.

  It was for this purpose that I came from Cambridge, in the hope of forwarding an undertaking which appears to me most meritorious, and of promoting the work of the Negro Folk-lore societies, a movement which is significant in regard to the present intelligence and rapid progress of Southern Negroes. I shall, however, take away with me from Hampton far more than I can give you. I think that no one can attend a commenceme
nt of this Institution for the first time, without receiving a profound intellectual impression. The mighty problems to be worked out, the vast destinies of the United States, and of republican government, are brought to his attention in the most vivid manner, while hope, comfort, trust in the future, faith in the ultimate position of the Negro race, and of the prosperity and harmony of the section to which it chiefly belongs, are inspired by all that he feels and sees.

  With regard to the plan of my discourse, I may be allowed to take an illustration from a jury service in which I have lately been engaged. When a good judge is endeavoring to cut short the irrelevant cross-examinations in which lawyers are prone to indulge, in the hope of something turning up to their advantage, he will ask: “How is that material?” On this, the examiner is bound to make it clear that he is “leading up” to some connection with the case unapparent to the listener. Now, if I seem to introduce remarks disconnected with my theme, I must ask you to suppose that I intend at a later point to make clear the materiality.

  What is Negro Folk-lore? It is that body of songs, tales, old-fashioned religious beliefs, superstitions, customs, ways of expression, proverbs, and dialect, of American Negroes.

  Lore means learning; folk, as I shall here use the word, means race.

  The Folk-lore of Negroes in the United States then, is the learning or knowledge peculiar to the Negro race. It is that mass of information which they brought with them from Africa, and which has subsequently been increased, remodelled, and Anglicized by their contact with the whites.

  All this body of thought belongs to the past. It is vanishing in proportion to the progress of Negro education; it fades away before the light of such institutions as Hampton; it is superseded by more advanced ideas, habits, morals, and theology.

  If this be so, what is the use of concerning ourselves with these out-grown notions and usages? Is it not better to leave them to rapidly approaching oblivion? The living to the living, the dead to the dead? Of what use can any part of the matter indicated be to the future of Negroes in the South?