The Annotated African American Folktales

by Henry Louis Gates

  De devil could call, “Oh, Hallowed-Be-Thy-Name, Thy-Kingdom-Come! don’t you hear your Master calling you? Jump Bull, jump five hundred miles.” Every time he’d holler de horses would fall to their knees and de bull would gain on ’em.

  De girl says, “Jack, get out de buggy and drag your heel nine steps backward3 and throw dirt over your left shoulder and git back in and let’s go.”

  They did this three times before de horses got so far off they couldn’t hear their master’s voice. After dat they went so fast they got clean away. De devil kept right on coming and so he passed an old man and ast: “Did you see a girl black as coal, with eyes of fire, wid a young man in a buckboa’d?” He tole him yeah. “Where did you hear ’em say they were going?”

  “On de mountain.”

  “I know ’tain’t no use now, I can’t ketch ’em. [Chant] Turn, bull, turn clean around, turn bull, turn clean around.”

  De bull turnt so short till he throwed de devil out and kilt him and broke his own neck.

  That’s why they say, “Jack beat the devil.”

  SOURCE: Zora Neale Hurston, Every Tongue Got to Confess, 47–51. Told by Jerry Bennett.

  Connected with stories about a man who sends his sons out into the world as well as with tales about winning the devil’s treasures, this particular narrative also takes up bargains with the devil. Impossible tasks figure prominently in many folktales, and in this case, it is the heroine who takes up the challenge of carrying them out.

  “Jack and the Devil,” 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 across the Atlantic ocean: A possible allusion to Africa, where souls return after death.

  2 lay yo’ head in my lap and go to sleep: It is not unusual for a heroine to accomplish impossible tasks while the hero sleeps, though often it is an animal bride who works the magic.

  3 drag your heel nine steps backward: The devil’s daughter seems familiar with the techniques of conjure.

  KING OF THE WORLD

  “Y’all been tellin’ and lyin’ ’bout all dese varmints but you ain’t yet spoke about de high chief boss of all de world which is de lion,” Sack Daddy commented.

  “He’s de King of de Beasts, but he ain’t no King of de World, now Sack,” Dad Boykin spoke up. “He thought he was de King till John give him a straightenin’.”

  “Don’t put dat lie out!” Sack Daddy contended. “De lion won’t stand no straightenin’.”

  “Course I ’gree wid you dat everybody can’t show de lion no deep point, but John showed it to him. Oh, yeah, John not only straightened him out, he showed dat ole lion where in.”

  “When did he do all of dis, Dad? Ah ain’t never heard tell of it.” Dad spoke up:

  Oh, dis was befo’ yo’ time. Ah don’t recolleck myself. De old folks told me about John and de lion. Well, John was ridin’ long one day straddle of his horse when de grizzly bear come pranchin’1 out in de middle of de road and hollered: “Hold on a minute! They tell me you goin’ ’round strowin’ it2 dat youse de King of de World.”

  John stopped his horse: “Whoa! Yeah, Ah’m de King of de World, don’t you b’lieve it?” John told him.

  “Naw, you ain’t no king. Ah’m de King of de world. You can’t be no King till you whip me. Git down and fight.”

  John hit de ground and de fight started. First, John grabbed him a rough-dried brick and started to work de fat offa de bear’s head. De bear just fumbled ’round till he got a good holt, then he begin to squeeze and squeeze. John knowed he couldn’t stand dat much longer, so he’d be jus’ another man wid his breath done give out. So he reached into his pocket and got out his razor and slipped it between dat bear’s ribs. De bear turnt loose and reeled on over in de bushes to lay down. He had enough of dat fight.

  John got back on his horse and rode on off.

  De lion smelt the bear’s blood and come runnin’ to where de grizzly was layin’ and started to lappin’ his blood.

  De bear was skeered de lion was gointer eat him while he was all cut and bleedin’ nearly to death, so he hollered and said: “Please don’t touch me, Brer Lion. Ah done met de King of de World and he done cut me all up.”

  De lion got his bristles all up and clashed down at de bear. “Don’t you lay there and tell me you done met the King of de World and not be talk ’bout me! Ah’ll tear you to pieces!”

  “Oh, don’t tetch me, Brer Lion! Please lemme alone so Ah kin get well.”

  “Well, don’t you call nobody no King of de World but me.”

  “But Brer Lion, Ah done met de King sho’ nuff. Wait till you see him and you’ll say Ah’m right.”

  “Naw, ah won’t neither. Show him to me and Ah’ll show you how much King he is.”

  “All right, Brer Lion, you jus’ have a seat right behind dese bushes. He’ll be by here befo’ long.”

  Lion squatted down by de bear and waited. Fust person he saw goin’ up de road was a old man. Lion jumped up and ast de bear, “Is dat him?”

  Bear say, “Naw, dat’s Uncle Yistiddy, he’s a useter-be!”

  After while a li’l boy passed down de road. De lion seen him and jumped up agin. “Is dat him?” he ast de bear.

  Bear told him, “Naw, dat’s li’l tomorrow, he’s a gointer-be, you jus’ lay quiet. Ah’ll let you know when he gits here.”

  Sho nuff after while here come John on his horse but he had done got his gun. Lion jumped up agin and ask, “Is dat him?”

  Bear say: “Yeah, dat’s him! Dat’s de King of de World.”

  Lion reared up and crack his tail back and forwards like a bull whip. He ’lowed, “You wait till Ah git thru wid him and you won’t be call’ him no King no mo’.”

  He took and galloped out in de middle of de road right in front of John’s horse and laid his years back. His tail was crackin’ like torpedoes.

  “Stop!” de lion hollered at John. “They tell me you goes for de King of de World!”

  John looked him dead in de ball of his eye and told him, “Yeah, Ah’m de King. Don’t you like it, don’t you take it. Here’s mah collar, come and shake it!”

  De lion and John eye-balled one another for a minute or two, den de lion sprung on John.

  Talk about fighting! Man, you ain’t seen no sich fightin’ and wrasslin’ since de mornin’ stars sung together. De lion clawed and bit John and John bit him right back.

  Way after while John got to his rifle and he up wid de muzzle right in old lion’s face and pulled de trigger. Long, slim black feller, snatch ’er back and hear ’er beller! Dog damn! Dat was too much for de lion. He turnt go of John and wheeled to run to de woods. John leveled down on him agin and let him have another load, right in his hindquarters.

  Dat ole lion give John de book: de bookity book.3 He hauled de fast mail4 back into de woods where de bear was laid up.

  “Move over,” he told de bear. “Ah wanta lay down too.”

  “How come!” de bear ast him.

  “Ah done met de King of de World, and he done ruint me.”

  “Brer Lion, how you know you done met de King?”

  “ ’Cause he made lightnin’ in my face and thunder in my hips. Ah know Ah done met de King, move over.”

  SOURCE: Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, 131–34.

  Who is the master of the world when it comes to a contest between the king of the beasts and a man named John? When John “got his gun,” the playing field is no longer quite level, and, despite efforts to naturalize gunshot as thunder and lightning, it is clear that firearms are decisive when it comes to naming the King of the World.

  “King of the World,” from Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men. Copyright 1935 by Zora Neale Hurston; renewed © 1963 by Joh
n C. Hurston and Joel Hurston. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

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  1 pranchin’: variant of prancing

  2 strowin’ it: broadcasting it (strow is an archaic form of strew)

  3 de bookity book: “Bookity-book” means quickly, and the phrase has been thought to imitate the sound of feet running.

  4 hauled de fast mail: “Hauling the mail” and “toting the mail” both mean “to run away quickly.”

  PART X

  LESSONS IN LAUGHTER: TALES ABOUT JOHN AND OLD MASTER

  In the earthy realism of tales about John and Old Master, we do not have the mythical depth found in some stories about High John the Conquer. Like his folkloric cousins (the British Jack, the Russian Ivan, the French Jean, or the German Hans), John is a kind of Everyman. A comic, folkloric spinoff of the mythical John referred to by Zora Neale Hurston as a “hope-bringer,” he uses his wit and imagination to model survival skills. Still, it is not entirely clear that John of the Old Master tales is related structurally to High John the Conquer. The two figures may, despite Zora Neale Hurston’s insistence on their identity, have developed from entirely different traditions, one connected with tricksters, the other with heroic redeemers. But they are united by their resourcefulness and ability to “conquer,” as it were, in the face of circumstances that were designed to vanquish body and soul.

  John and Old Master serve as constants in the stories that follow, and their relationship remains enduringly transactional rather than transformative. Conflict is the motor of these plots, and the recurring situational struggle never resolves itself but is destined to repeat itself endlessly. Each story begins with the violation of a taboo—failure to follow orders, theft, impersonation, cursing, and so on. John and Old Master are constantly sparring with each other, with John seeking the advantages that his Master enjoys, and Old Master doing everything he can to obstruct John’s plans. This set of stories was less invested in revealing something about character than in modeling the “skillful handling of varieties of settings by actors in a given social relationship” (Dickson 1974, 428). How well matched (or equal) master and slave are becomes evident from the fact that a rough tally of the recorded tales reveals “a draw in the contest of wits” (Dorson 1959, 86).

  John Rose’s watercolor The Old Plantation was most likely painted in the late eighteenth century. It is thought to represent a marriage ceremony (with the ritual of jumping the broom), but it may also represent a form of dance in African cultures. It is remarkable in its effort to depict a joyful, self-contained episode in the lives of enslaved people. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Gift of Abby Rockefeller.

  Still, John and Old Master are not by any stretch of the imagination social equals. John works on the plantation, plowing, planting, cutting wood, toting water, milking cows, keeping records, and undertaking almost the entire range of labors customarily carried out by slaves. More of a house slave than a field hand (he is rarely shown picking cotton), he enjoys a special relationship with Old Master (sometimes called Massa, Marster, Marse, or Old Boss in the postbellum era), a man who can be harsh and demanding, but also indulgent and kind when it comes to John (who sometimes appears with a generic name for a male slave).

  John himself is the classic numbskull, a figure both nimble and quick-witted but often under the guise of stupidity. “Are they stolidly stupid,” one female slave owner wondered, “or wiser than we are, silent and strong, biding their time?” (Litwack 1980, 4). Her observation is revealing in its failure to recognize that slaves were wise to play “stolidly stupid” and that “silent and strong” was one of the few strategies available under the plantation system for avoiding punishment. Is it any wonder that John is constantly learning from chatty skulls and loquacious animals about the perils of talking too much? Or that John’s victories depend on the capriciousness of his master, who shows varying degrees of tolerance for being duped?

  Slavery was a social system based on asymmetrical power relationships riven by conflict and violence. Yet stories about John and Old Master often, if not always, offer up a peaceful resolution of differences, one in which wagers, contests, disagreements, and the violation of taboos are resolved or smoothed over through good-natured exchanges capped by displays of exceptional wit or strength. John and his master are often portrayed as friendly rivals rather than hardened enemies, and John’s challenges to the master’s authority are rarely punished severely. Nor are his periodic thefts of chickens and pigs viewed as anything more than mild transgressions, only mildly annoying. Despite plots with realistic settings and plausible circumstances, these tales could be seen as moving in the mode of the counterfactual, giving us high fantasy by suggesting an impossible fraternal friendliness between master and slave and a denial of the hierarchical nature of their relationship. Still, one historian reads the tales optimistically, finding in them “symbolic denials of white Southerners’ claims to any kind of inherent superiority over blacks.” And in this way, he adds, John did get the best of Old Master “all the time” (Dickson 1974, 429).

  JOHN DE FIRST COLORED MAN

  De first colored man what was brought to dis country was name John. He didn’t know nothin’ mo’ than you told him and he never forgot nothin’ you told him either. So he was sold to a white man.

  Things he didn’t know he would ask about. They went to a house and John never seen a house so he asked what it was. Ole Massa tole him it was his kingdom. So dey goes on into de house and dere was the fireplace. He asked what was that. Ole Massa told him it was his flame ’vaperator.

  The cat was settin’ dere. He asked what it was. Ole Massa told him it was his round head.

  So dey went upstairs. When he got on de stair steps he asked what dey was. Ole Massa told him it was his Jacob ladder. So when they got up stairs he had a roller foot bed. John asked what was dat. Ole Mass told him it was his flowery-bed-of-ease. So dey came down an went out to de lot. He had a barn. John asked what was dat. Ole Massa told him, dat was his mound. So he had a Jack in the stable, too. John asked, “What in de world is dat?” Ole Massa said: “Dat’s July, de God dam.”

  So de next day Ole Massa was up stairs sleep and John was smokin’. It flamed de ’vaperator and de cat was settin’ dere and it got set afire. The cat goes to de barn where Ole Massa had lots of hay and fodder in de barn. So de cat set it on fire. John watched de Jack kicking up hay and fodder. He would see de hay and fodder go up and come down but he thought de Jack was eatin’ de hay and fodder.

  So he goes upstairs and called Ole Massa and told him to get up off’n his flowery-bed-of-ease and come down on his Jacob ladder. He said: “I done flamed the ’vaperator and it caught de round head and set him on fire. He’s gone to de mound and set it on fire, and July the God dam is eatin’ up everything he kin git his mouf on.”

  Massa turned over in de bed and ask, “What dat you say, John?”

  John tole ’im agin. Massa was still sleepy so he ast John agin what he say. John was gittin’ tired so he say, “Aw, you better git up out dat bed and come on down stairs. Ah done set dat ole cat afire and he run out to de barn and set it afire and dat ole Jackass is eatin’ up everything he git his mouf on.”

  SOURCE: Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, 79–80.

  This is a tale about language—who controls it and how. The story begins in almost biblical fashion, with John as the first man to be sold as a slave in the New World. His Master names objects for him, in an inventory that suggests the limited nature of John’s world. More importantly, the names are all manipulative, deceptive, or nonsensical, made-up language designed for a man who will not be able to use language as a tool for communication. It takes an emergency for all the illusions to drop, for the rituals of deception to collapse. John has had access to meaningful language all along; he has simply played along, following orders about how to speak all the while watching, listening, and learning.

  “John de First Col
ored Man,” from Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men. Copyright 1935 by Zora Neale Hurston; renewed © 1963 by John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

  “’MEMBER YOUSE A NIGGER!”

  Ole John was a slave, you know. Ole Massa and Ole Missy and de two li’ children—a girl and a boy.

  Well, John was workin’ in de field and he seen de children out on de lak in a boat, just a hollerin’. They had done lost they oars and was ’bout to turn over. So then he went and told Ole Massa and Ole Missy.

  Well, Ole Missy, she hollered and said: “It’s so sad to lose these ’cause Ah ain’t never goin’ to have no more children.” Ole Massa made her hush and they went down to de water and follered de shore on ’round till they found ’em. John pulled off his shoes and hopped in and swum out and got in de boat wid de children and brought ’em to shore.

  Well, Massa and John take ’em to de house. So they was all so glad ’cause de children got saved. So Massa told ’im to make a good crop dat year and fill up de barn, and den when he lay by de crops nex’ year, he was going to set him free.

  So John raised so much crop dat year he filled de barn and put some of it in de house.

  So Friday come, and Massa said, “Well, de day done come that I said I’d set you free. I hate to do it, but I don’t like to make myself out a lie. I hate to git rid of a good nigger lak you.”

  So he went in de house and give John one of his old suits of clothes to put on. So John put it on and come in to shake hands and tell ’em goodbye. De children they cry, and Old Missy she cry. Didn’t want to see John go. So John took his bundle and put it on his stick and hung it crost his shoulder.