The Annotated African American Folktales

by Henry Louis Gates

  WHY THE HARE RUNS AWAY

  This is the story of the hare and the other animals.

  The weather was drying up the earth into hardness. There was no dew. Even the creatures of the water were suffering from thirst. Soon famine came, and the animals, having nothing to eat, assembled in council.

  “What shall we do,” they said, “to keep from dying of thirst?” And they deliberated a long time.

  At last they decided that each animal should cut off the tips of its ears and extract the fat from them. Then all the fat would be collected and sold, and with the money they would get for the fat, they would buy a hoe and dig a well so as to get some water.

  And all cried, “It is good. Let us cut off the tips of our ears.”

  They did so, but when it came the turn of the hare to cut off the tips of his ears, he refused.

  The other animals were astonished, but they said nothing. They took up the ears, extracted the fat, went and sold all, and bought a hoe with the money.

  They brought back the hoe and began to dig a well in the dry bed of a lagoon. “Ha! At last some water! Now we can slake our thirst a little.”

  The hare was not there, but when the sun was in the middle of the sky, he took a calabash and went towards the well.

  As he walked along, the calabash dragged on the ground and made a great noise. It said—“Chan-gañ-gañ-gañ.1”

  The animals, who were watching by the lagoon, heard the noise. They were frightened. They asked each other, “What is it?” Then as the noise kept coming closer, they ran away.

  Reaching home, they said there was something terrible at the lagoon that had forced the watchers by the lagoon to flee.

  Then all the animals by the lagoon were gone. The hare drew up water without any interference at all. Then he went down into the well and bathed so that the water was muddied.

  The next day, all the animals ran to get water, and they found it muddied.

  “Oh,” they cried, “who spoiled our well?”

  They went and made an image. Then they made bird-lime and smeared it all over the image.

  When the sun was again in the middle of the sky, all the animals went and hid in the bush near the well.

  The hare came. His calabash cried, “Chan-gañ-gañ-gañ, Chan-gañ-gañ-gañ.” He approached the image. He never suspected that all the animals were hiding in the bush.

  The hare greeted the image. The image said nothing. He greeted it again, and still the image said nothing.

  “Watch out,” said the hare, “or I will give you a slap.”

  He gave a slap, and his right hand remained stuck in the bird-lime. He slapped with his left hand, and it remained stuck also.

  “Oh! Oh!” he cried, “I must kick with my feet.”

  He kicked with his feet, and they remained stuck, and the hare could not get away.

  Then the animals ran out of the bush and came to see the hare and his calabash.

  “Shame on you, oh! hare,” they cried out together. “Didn’t you also agree to cut off the tips of your ears, and, when it came to your turn, you then refused? What! you refused, and yet you come to muddy our water?”

  They took whips, they fell upon the hare, and they beat him. They beat him until they nearly killed him.

  “We ought to kill you, accursed hare,” they said. “But, no—run.”

  They let him go, and the hare fled. Since then, he does not leave the grass.

  SOURCE: A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, 275–77.

  A variant of the tar-baby story, this African tale shows how the hare undermines collaboration with his self-centered behavior. Not only does he fail to cut off the tips of his ears (thus creating a second implicit pourquoi story about why the hare has such long ears), he also dirties the water for the other animals. The tale seems to turn less on why hares stay in the grass or run away than on the question of survival through cooperation and group problem-solving or through self-interested behavior. In a sense, we have more of a dilemma tale—a provocation that gets listeners to respond and talk—than an etiological fable.

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  1 gañ-gañ: a drum

  TORTOISE AND THE YAMS

  My alo1 is about Tortoise.

  There was once a famine in the land, and food was not to be found anywhere.

  One day, Lizard was on a plantation searching for something to eat, when he discovered a large boulder with yams in it. Here’s how it happened.

  Lizard saw a plantation owner and heard him shout, “Rock, open,” and the boulder before him opened up. The man went in, took some yams, and came back out again. Then he said, “Rock, shut,” and the boulder closed up.

  Lizard watched all of this. He heard what the man said, and he went back home.

  The next morning, once the rooster had crowed, Lizard went back to the boulder. He said, “Rock, open,” and the boulder opened. He went inside and picked out some yams to take home and eat. Then he said, “Rock, shut,” and the boulder closed back up again. The Lizard did this every day.

  One day Tortoise, the bald-headed elf, met Lizard on the road and saw that he was carrying yams. He asked, “Where did you find all those yams, my friend?”

  Lizard said, “If I were to tell you and take you to the place where I found them, I might be killed.” The bald-headed elf answered, “I will not say a word to anyone. Please show me the place.” And Lizard said, “Very well, then. Come and find me tomorrow morning when the cock crows, and we will go there together.”

  The next morning, long before the rooster began crowing, Tortoise arrived at Lizard’s house. He stood outside and cried, “Cock-a-doodle-do.” A second time he called out, “Cock-a-doodle-do.” Then he went in and woke Lizard. “The cock has crowed, and it’s time to go,” he said.

  “Let me sleep a while longer,” Lizard said. “The cock has not yet crowed.”

  “All right,” said Tortoise. And they both went back to sleep until dawn.

  After Lizard woke up, the two left to find the yams. As soon as they reached the boulder, Lizard said, “Rock, open,” and the rock opened. Lizard went in, took some yams, and came out again.

  He said to Tortoise, “It is time to go. Take your yams and let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Tortoise.

  “All right,” said Lizard. “Rock, shut.” And he left without his friend.

  Tortoise, the bald-headed elf, helped himself to more yams. He put yams on his back and yams on his head; he put yams on his arms and yams on his legs.

  Lizard arrived home and lit a fire. Then he lay on his back with his feet in the air, as if he were dead. And he stayed like that all day long.

  When Tortoise, the bald-headed elf, was ready to leave, he wanted to make the boulder open up again. But he could not remember what he was supposed to say. He tried one word after another2 but never found the right words, and the boulder remained shut.

  Before long the plantation owner came by. He ordered the boulder to open up and found Tortoise inside. He grabbed hold of him and beat him. He beat him hard.

  “Who brought you here?” asked the man.

  “It was Lizard who brought me here,” Tortoise replied. The man took a piece of string and tied it around Tortoise’s neck, and then he went over to where Lizard was living.

  When they arrived, the man found Lizard lying on his back, with his feet in the air, as if he were dead. He starting shaking him. Then he said, “This bald-headed elf claims it was you who took him to my plantation and showed him the yams I stored up.”

  “Me?” said Lizard. “You can see for yourself that that’s not possible. I am not in a condition to go out. I have been sick for three months, lying flat on my back. I have no idea where your plantation is.”

  The man picked Tortoise up and smashed him to the ground. Poor Tortoise, groaning and moaning, said in a pathetic voice, “Cockroach, come and mend me. Ant, come and mend me.”


  And Cockroach and Ant came and mended him. And you can still see the places where they mended him, for those are the parts of Tortoise’s shell which are rough.

  SOURCE: Adapted from A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, 271–74.

  Folklorists have identified a motif known as “mountain opens to magical formula,” and in this story, crafty Lizard manages to trap Tortoise by counting on his flawed memory. But in the final analysis, it is Tortoise’s greed that does him in. In some versions of the tale about how the tortoise came to have his shell marked, the mended spots are seen as decorative designs that ennoble and embellish rather than as unsightly scars.

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  1 alo: The term is used to designate a story, but the literal meaning of the word is riddle, something invented, with twists and turns.

  2 He tried one word after another: Like the brother of Ali Baba in the tale from The Thousand and One Nights about the forty thieves, Tortoise is unable to recall the correct magical password.

  WHAT MAKES BRER WASP HAVE A SHORT PATIENCE

  Creatures don’t all stay just the way God made them. No, sir. With the mistakes made, and accidents, and natural debilitation, and one thing or another, they become different as time goes on, until sometime later they are hardly the same thing at all.

  At one time, Brer Wasp looked very different from the way he does today. He was big on company, and he loved to talk, and joke, and cut the fool. He was one person that had to have his laugh.

  One day, he was walking on a path, and he met up with Brer Mosquito. Now, Brer Mosquito and his whole family weren’t very big at all, but they took themselves mighty seriously. Brer Mosquito and his pa planted a little patch of ground together, but they always called it the plantation. They talked so big about their crops and land and everything that you would have thought that they had a twenty-mile place. Now, Brer Wasp loved to draw Brer Mosquito out on the subject.

  That same week, there had been a heavy frost, and all the sweet-potato vines died and turned black and everybody was forced to dig for the early potatoes. And Brer Wasp, after he had passed the time of day with Brer Mosquito, and inquired about his family, asked him about his pa’s health and how he had made out with his crop. “We made out fine, Brer Wasp,” Brer Mosquito said; “just too fine. We had the biggest crop you ever have seen!” “The potatoes were big, then?” “I tell you, sir! They were huge! You have never seen such potatoes!” “How big are they, Brer Mosquito?” Brer Wasp questioned him. “My friend,” Brer Mosquito said, puffing out his chest and reaching down and pulling his little britches tight around his little leg. “Most of our crop came up bigger than the calf of my leg!”

  Well, sir! Brer Wasp looked at Brer Mosquito’s poor little leg, and as he thought about those “huge potatoes,” he had to laugh to himself. Now, he tried to mind his manners, but his chest and face swelled up, and his eye water ran out of his eyes, and he burst out laughing right in Brer Mosquito’s face. He laughed and he laughed till his sides hurt him. Whenever he thought he would stop, he looked at that ridiculous leg that stood there like a toothpick, and he laughed more than ever. His sides hurt him so much he had to hold them in with both his hands and rock himself back and forth.

  “What makes you have to do that?” Brer Mosquito asked him. “You had better explain yourself. That is, if you can act sensible!” Brer Wasp gasped out, “Good lord, Brer Mosquito, looking for the biggest part of your leg is like hunting for the heaviest part of a hair! How big those huge potatoes must be, if you say they are as big as that!” And he laughed again till his sides hurt so bad that it wasn’t enough just to press them—he had to grab them in both his hands and squeeze.

  Brer Mosquito was so annoyed that he felt like fighting Brer Wasp right on the spot. But then he remembered that Brer Wasp was kind of nasty when he got in a row. So he just drew himself up, and stuck out his mouth, and said, “Laugh, you no-mannered devil! Laugh! But take care that the day doesn’t come when somebody laughs at you the same no-mannered way!” And he went away so blistering mad that his two little coattails stuck straight out behind him.

  But that didn’t stop Brer Wasp. All the way to his house he had been laughing so hard that he had to stop now and catch his breath. At last he got home and started to laugh some more and tell his family about Brer Mosquito.

  Just then his wife got a good look at him, and she hollered out, “For crying-out-loud, Brer Wasp! What’s happened to your stomach?” Brer Wasp looked down where his waist had been, and he saw how much he had shrunk up, and he was afraid to so much as sneeze.

  Then he remembered what Brer Mosquito had said to him. He remembered all those people he had been joking about and laughing at so hard and for such a long time and he thought about how now the others were going to have their turn to laugh at that little waist he had now. He got so that he couldn’t get that shameful thing out of his mind. And that is why he has such a short patience! Everywhere he goes he thinks somebody is ready to laugh at him. If anyone so much as looks at him, he gets so mad that he is ready to fight.

  And that isn’t the worst, because from that day to this day, he can’t laugh anymore, because if he does, he will burst in two!

  SOURCE: Samuel Gaillard Shelby and Gertrude Matthews, Black Genesis: A Chronicle, 81–84.

  The story of Brer Wasp and his thin waist sends a clear message about the consequences of rudeness and cruelty. Brer Wasp’s mocking laughter has physical effects and is turned against him—he becomes vulnerable and testy as a result of his intolerance. Only rarely do African American folktales transmit a message so clearly moral and instructive, without the usual complications about the multiple ambiguities and unintended consequences of human behavior.

  DE REASON WHY DE ’GATOR STAN’ SO

  De Rabbit an’ de Alligator was to hab a dance an’ dey invited all de gals to come to de dance dat night, an’ de Alligator was to come out de ribber to meet de Rabbit.

  So arfter dey all was come into de dancin’ room dey all biggin for say, “Big so, an’ big so anudder”—dat was de chune1 dey dance by.

  Well, Br’er Rabbit biggin for tink Br’er Alligator ben kiss de gals tummuch. So ’e git behin’ de doo’ wid a club in ’e han’, an’ as Br’er Alligator come dancin’ by ’e hit um ober de eye, an’ dat what mek de knobs ober de ’Gator eye dat we all see stan’ so tel dis day.

  Br’er Alligator neber know what struck um; ’e run clean out de house down to de ribber side.

  Well, one day, Br’er Rabbit was walkin’ ’long de ribber sho’ feedin’ an’ ’e yeardy2 Br’er Alligator da fetch long groan,—same like we year um groan sometime now in de pon’. So ’e call um for come sho’3 an Alligator come sho’, an’ ’e say, “Br’er Alligator, what mek dem knob ober you eye?”

  Br’er Alligator say, “Dat mek I hab to gib sich long groan, ’cause something ben knock me in de eye.” So Br’er Rabbit tell um him ben mek dat knob on ’e eye, an’ arfter dat dey biggin for mek peace. An’ whiles dey ben a talk, Br’er Alligator say, “Br’er Rabbit, you know wha’ trubble is?”

  Rabbit tell um, “Br’er Alligator, when de win’ blow to de Norderwes’ you mus’ go in de broom grass4 an’ lay down, an’ ef you le’ me know de day you gwine I’ll le’ you know wha’ trubble is.”

  An de Alligator went one day an’ lie down in de broom-grass, an’ de win’ was blowin’ from de Norderwes’, blowin’ bery brisk dat day when de Alligator went right out an’ lay down in de broom grass, an’ ’e tell Br’er Rabbit ’e was gwine dere.

  So while him gone in de grass lie down, Rabbit gone set de broom grass on fire all roun’ while ’Gator ben sleepin’.

  An’ whiles de win’ ben catch de fire, blow um right on alligator; when ’e git ’bout ten feet ’Gator biggin for wake up.

  Rabbit stan’ leetle way off, da whoop! An’ while de fire da blaze up, ’Gator aint know wha’ for do. ’E dance an’ de fire da blaze. At
lars’ ’e couldn’t do no better, had to jump right in de fire for git out. ’E run right t’ru’ de fire an’ run on tel ’e jump in de water, an’ by dat de fire bu’n um so tel ’e back ben all cober ober wid scale an’ barnacle, same like you allers shum5 de Alligator back to dis day.

  SOURCE: A. M. H. Christensen, Afro-American Folk Lore, Told Round Cabin Fires on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 54–57.

  Told in Gullah dialect, this tale was collected by Abigail Christensen, who heard it from a man of sixty or seventy named Baskin, who in turn had the stories from his grandfather, who came to the United States on a slave ship. The story neatly enacts the hazards of asking for trouble, and it shows Br’er Rabbit as a vengeful figure who cannot get enough when it comes to inflicting punishments.

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  1 chune: tune

  2 yeardy: heard

  3 for come sho’: to come ashore

  4 broom grass: a type of tall grass

  5 shum: see

  WHY THE NIGGER IS SO MESSED UP

  When the Creator made man, He was making the white man first, and all of the scrap pieces, the ends of the fingernails and the toes and the backsides, and what have you, He said, “Well, I don’t know what I’m gon’ do with all of these ends. I’ll throw them over here in the corner, and when I get time, I’ll decide what to do with them.”

  And, ALL OF A SUDDEN, something popped out of the corner, say, “Lawd, here me!”

  And He turned around and it was a nigger—he made himself. He say, “Since you so smart, now, you stay like that.”

  And that’s why the nigger is so messed up. He couldn’t wait until the Lord fixed him right. He had to make himself.

  SOURCE: Daryl Cumber Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans, 7.