He seed de Lord pass de gates one day an’ stop Him an’ plead wid Him, but it is mighty hard to fool de Lord an’ de Lord ’fuse him an’ tell him He feared to ’low him in, he record down below been so bad. He tell de Lord he have truly repent, an’ de Lord tell him He know he is, but he ain’ done it till too late. He tell him dey ain’t no nuse to come wid all dis repentance ole as he is; date he ain’ start it till he were lookin’ right through de bars, an’ he must be ain’ like wuh he see in hell. He tell him He know he ain’t repent for no love er Him, but kaze he wants to do he devilment wid pleasure an’ ease; dat He b’lieve he jes tryin’ to git into heaven kaze he think hell fire will be too distractin’ an’ he will be too busy payin’ ’tention to de fire an’ scorchin’ to properly make other people miserable.
But de ole God have too much experience an’ tell Ole Brother He wants him to git away from de gate. Ef he keep on hangin’ ’round dere, it will gee heaven a bad reputation. An’ de Lord went back into heaven an’ call He servants an’ tell ’em He want ’em to run Ole Brother ’way from de gate. He tell ’em He done gee him notice, but dey must gee him a little time, an’ atter dat dey must call all de dogs together an’ put ’em outside de gate an’ run Ole Brother spang into hell. He tell ’em don’t trust no mistake. Ef dey go to de gate an’ ain’ see Ole Brother, put de dogs out anyhow an’ see can’t dey strike he trail, as he more’n apt to be dodgin’ ’round some er de bush. You see God is sharp an’ is mighty hard to change He mind.
But Ole Brother ain’ guin up hope. He dodge ’round till he see Jesus. He know you kin do more wid chillun workin’ on dey feelin’s, an’ he start workin’ on Jesus. Axe Him to intercede wid He Pa for him. Well, he git hold er Jesus jes as de Lord’s servants come out wid dem dog, an’ Jesus, wid He lovin’ kindness, was ’bout to let him go into heaven, but He Pa s’picion wuh were ’bout to happen—He been watchin’—so He come to de aid er He servants an’ tell He Son not to interfere wid He commands, an’ call Gab’el an’ tell him to blow he horn an’ git all de dogs together. He were so inter-rested in gitten Ole Brother ’way from dere, dat He stood out on de hill wid He hand over He eye shadin’ it from de glare er de sun. He git so inter-rested till He climb up on a stump an’ started whoopin’ up dem dogs He Self. You could hear He voice ringin’ all over de hill, an’ I reckon it sound mighty nigh to hell. An’ den de race commence.
De Lord is a sport when He has a mind to be, He gee dat Ole Brother a good start, but he were like a fox. Dey run him all over heaven hill. He struck out in a bee line for a cornder er heaven wey he heared dere were a hole in de fence, but de Lord done had dat crack stop up. He done have every hole repaired in He fence, but dat Ole Brother was hard to git shet er. He slip all ’round heaven—him an’ dem dogs—an’ angels was every wey whoopin’ to de dogs. He run every wey—under brush an’ through briar. He try every scheme known to a fox. He went over ditch an’ through thicket, but dem dogs ain’ never took dey nose off er he scent. You know Ole Brother got a scent, dat’s one thing he can’t git rid er.
Atter dey run around for over a hour, dey got him straighten out an’ dem dogs was so hot to hind him, dat he leff de narrow path an’ thicket an’ token to de broad road wey dere ain’ no obstruction an’ headed he self for hell, den he done some runnin’. He runned like dere ain’ no place but hell dat he wants to go to. He was guine at sech a rate till he was jes techin de road in spots, an’ dem dogs was stretched like a string an’ cryin’ for God’ sake sho’ ’nough. But dat nigger done got all idea out er he head but one, an’ dat was makin’ hell ’fore dem dogs make him. He know he done wrong, dat de Lord done make up He mind an’ ain’ guh fool wid him now since He find out he try to corrupt He Son.
De devil knowed wha’ was guine on an’ he had de gates er hell closed, an’ as dat nigger approach he sorter shy off a little bit as he seen de flames lickin’ through de gates, but he look back an’ see dem dogs an’ seen a man on a pale white horse, an’ he knowed everlastin’ death was on he trail. Den he look at de gates one more time an’ ain’ pay no ’tention to de flame an’ discount de groans he heared. He ain’ hesitate no more, but went over de top an’ enter de flames like a varmint guine to he den, an’ de Lord like to kill He Self laughin’.
He say He ain’ never waste much time on sports, but He has to take He mind off He regular business sometimes. He say He hound never has run better, an’ it gee Him so much pleasure to think er how He outdone de devil. He say it ain’ no nuse for de devil to be closin’ he gates an’ settin’ he self up ’gainst Him. He say whenever He starts a sinner for hell, He moest generally puts him dere.
SOURCE: E. C. L. Adams, Nigger to Nigger, 214–17.
Dr. Edward Clarkson Leverett Adams published two volumes of folktales from South Carolina: Congaree Sketches (1927) and Nigger to Nigger (1928). Adams set great store by the sermons he heard in black churches, where “the best poetry in America” flourished. In Nigger to Nigger, Tad, Scip, and others tell their stories to “Uncle Ned” in such a way that “We talkin’ to we.” These stories contain conversations about chain gangs and lynching as well as about social and moral injustices in general. “Any story of injustice or cruelty to the black people sets him afire,” one journalist wrote about Adams, and his two collections try to transmit those stories to a broader audience. The tale about Old Brother trying to enter Heaven is irreverent in multiple ways, most obviously in its casual treatment of God and Jesus, less obviously in its mimicking of patrollers chasing down a runaway slave in the flight to hell scene. The story does not feature a preacher, but it stages a struggle that might easily have made it into a homily.
PART XIV
FOLKLORIC COUSINS ABROAD: TALES FROM CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICAN CULTURES
Creole is the term often used to characterize the rich mix of cultures that characterize Caribbean regions. While Europeans owned the estates that produced sugar, tobacco, and other agricultural products and served as colonial officials, African slaves labored in the fields and worked as servants. Thankfully, the capitalist model of exploitation and depletion did not operate in the sphere of folk culture, and the island inhabitants produced stories and song that shamelessly borrowed and combined elements to create culturally relevant narratives. The anthropologist Melville Herskovits wrote about syncretic creativity and its power to take bits and pieces from different cultures to make something new. Caribbean storytelling cultures show that process in action. The tales below have more than a touch of magic, and many illustrate the genius of a combinatory imagination that mingles tradition and innovation.
THE ORANGES
Once there was a little boy. His mother died on the day he was born, and his father took a second wife. This woman was wicked, and she made the boy work all day long. After sunset, when the day was over, she refused to give him anything to eat.
One day the boy discovered three oranges on the table. He was very hungry. They were round, ripe, yellow, and looked like three golden balls. He looked here. He looked there. He saw that no one was around. The oranges were shining brightly. He reached his hand out and took one. It was so sweet! He had never imagined oranges this sweet. They were very tiny. He looked at the other two oranges and thought of his stepmother. What would she say? How she would grumble! But hunger is stronger than shame. He ate another orange, then paused for just a moment before downing the last one.
When the stepmother returned from the garden, she noticed right away that her oranges were missing. She asked: “Where are the oranges I left on the table? Did you see my oranges? Whoever took my oranges had better get down on his knees and start praying, because I’m going to skin him alive.”
The little boy was terrified when he heard those words. The other children in the house began crying because they were so hungry. The stepmother wouldn’t give them any food at all.
“You have eaten my oranges and now you will see what I’m going to do about it.”
The little boy was unable to sleep. The nex
t day he went to his mother’s grave and asked her to help him. While he was praying he noticed there was an orange seed on his pants. He brushed it off, and it landed on the ground. Suddenly two small roots sprouted from the seed and plunged into the ground. A small green shoot appeared. As the boy watched all this happening, he began to sing:
Orange grow, grow my orange!
Orange grow, grow my orange!
Ay! My orange, ay! my orange!
You are making me weep, my orange!
The orange tree kept growing, and, as the boy sang, it grew faster.
My orange, flower, flower my orange!
My orange, flower, flower my orange!
Flowers began to blossom on every branch of the orange tree.
My orange, bear fruits, bear fruits my orange!
My orange, bear fruits, bear fruits my orange!
The flowers fell and turned the ground white. You could see a small green ball where the flowers had blossomed.
Orange, grow big, grow big my orange!
Orange, grow big, grow big my orange!
You could now see big green oranges in the tree.
Orange, ripen, ripen my orange!
Orange, ripen, ripen my orange!
The oranges turned yellow and looked as if they were made of gold.
Bend down branch, bend down my orange!
Bend down branch, bend down my orange!
A branch from the orange tree bent down. The child took an orange and ate it. Then he remembered the debt he owed. He took as many oranges as he could carry and returned to his stepmother’s house.
“Look at this lazy boy! Where were you and what have you been up to? Hand over those oranges.”
“I brought them for you, mother. Yesterday you scolded me about eating the oranges, and now I’ve found new ones to take their place.”
The stepmother grabbed the oranges without a word of thanks. She did not peel them, but just bit into the orange and then swallowed it whole. “What delicious oranges! Show me where you got them.” The boy pretended that he had not heard what she was saying. “If you don’t show me the way, I’ll crush you with the heel of my shoe.”
The little boy took her over to the cemetery. She saw the orange tree and ran over to it. The boy sang:
Orange, rise up, rise up my orange!
Orange, rise up, rise up my orange!
The orange tree grew taller and taller, so tall that the stepmother looked tiny.
Orange, break, break my orange!
Orange, break, break my orange!
Suddenly there was a loud noise—thunder, boom, boom! The tree crashed right down on the woman, and her body landed on the graves in the cemetery. The boy returned home and found the children there. They were all hungry. He had killed their mother, and now it was his job to take care of them. He returned to the cemetery and asked the orange tree to grow so that he would have food for them.
From that day on, every morning, you could see a little boy going to town with a load of oranges. It is the little boy I have been talking about. After he picks the oranges, he always remembers to tell the tree to rise up. It rises up very high, and its trunk grows very small. That is why you cannot see it, and that is why even I have never seen it. But I know it is there.
SOURCE: Adapted from Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, Creole Tales from Haiti, 229–32.
Living out a worst-case scenario in a household where he is starved not only of food but also of love and affection, the hero manages to rescue himself. The striking contrast between the beauty and sweetness of the oranges from the tree at the mother’s gravesite and the bitter depredations of the stepmother captures an opposition that serves as the motor of many fairy-tale plots. Luminous objects provide salvation, both aesthetic and spiritual, and have the power to crush the forces of evil.
“The Oranges,” from Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, “Creole Tales from Haiti,” Journal of American Folklore 50 (1937): 229–32. Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press.
THE PRESIDENT WANTS NO MORE OF ANANSI
Anansi and all his smart ways irritated the President so much that the President told him one day: “Anansi, I’m tired of your foolishness. Don’t you ever let me see your face again.” So Anansi went away from the palace. And a few days later he saw the President coming down the street, so he quickly stuck his head into the open door of a limekiln.
Everyone on the street took off their hats when the President passed. When he came to the limekiln, he saw Anansi’s behind sticking out. He became angry and said, “Qui bounda ça qui pas salué mwé?” (Whose behind is it that doesn’t salute me?) Anansi took his head out of the limekiln and said, “C’est bounda ’Nansi qui pas salué ou.” (It’s Anansi’s behind which doesn’t salute you.)
The President said angrily, “Anansi, you don’t respect me.”
Anansi said: “President, I was just doing what you told me to do. You told me never to let you see my face.”
The President said: “Anansi, I’ve had enough of your foolishness. I don’t ever want to see you again, clothed or naked.”
So Anansi went away. But the next day when he saw the President coming down the street he took his clothes off and put a fish net over his head. When the President saw him he shouted, “Anansi, didn’t I tell you I never wanted to see you again clothed or naked?” And Anansi said, “My President, I respect what you tell me. I’m not clothed and I’m not naked.”
This time the President told him, “Anansi, if I ever catch you again on Haitian soil I’ll have you shot.”
So Anansi boarded a boat and sailed to Jamaica. He bought a pair of heavy shoes and put sand in them. Then he put the shoes on his feet and took another boat back to Haiti. When he arrived at Port-au-Prince he found the President standing on the pier.
“Anansi,” the President said sternly, “didn’t I tell you that if I ever caught you on Haitian soil again I’d have you shot?”
“You told me that, Papa, and I respected what you said. I went to Jamaica and filled my shoes with sand. So I didn’t disobey you because I’m now walking on English soil.”
With its playful puns, this Haitian tale about an encounter between the highest authority (the President, who is also known as “Papa”) and irreverent Anansi enacts the slippage between the literal and the figurative in language. Anansi the Trickster wins each of the rounds by craftily taking advantage of the double register in language and turning it against the President.
“The President Wants No More of Anansi,” from Harold Courlander, ed., The Drum and the Hoe, 1960. Reprinted by permission of the Emma Courlander Trust.
THE NIGHT BEAUTY
There was once a girl so pretty that everyone called her the Night Beauty. Her brothers and sisters were jealous of her. They wished her dead, but no one knew how they felt. They kept their sister in the house all day long.
“You get sick so easily. It’s better that we work double time in the fields than sit by your bedside when you become ill,” they told her.
Whenever there was a dance or a wake in the neighborhood, the brothers and sisters said, “Just look at your face! You have dark circles under your eyes. One of us will stay home with you. Don’t cry. We’ll give you a full report on everything that happens.”
One day, the girl was sitting quietly by the window, leaning on the sill and looking out at the butterflies, when the King’s son happened to pass by. What a pretty girl! His heart leaped for joy. He returned in the afternoon, knocked on the door and spoke with everyone in the house. The next day he returned. He could not stay away, and he spent as much time as he could there. His love for her was wonderful.
He sent a huge bouquet of flowers to the Night Beauty. There were only roses in the bouquet. The eldest brother, the one who was the most jealous of his sister, threw the flowers on the ground, trampled them, and then strangled his sister. He carried the corpse as far away as he could. Then, after sunset, he dug a grave in a cornfield.
In the evening, the K
ing’s son came to visit and saw that everyone was in tears. “What has happened?” he asked. And the answer: “The Night Beauty is not here. She is nowhere to be found!”
A search took place, and everyone looked all over, by day and by night. Nothing! Three years passed by. The King’s son married another woman, but he could not get the Night Beauty out of his mind. He gave some money to her relatives. They bought land, and the cornfield was part of the land they purchased.
One day they were digging, and a small bone leaped from a hole and landed in the road. The younger sister of Beauty was passing by and heard its song:
Come over here, my dear sister.
Dear sister of mine, come here.
Come over here, my dear sister.
Dear sister of mine, come here.
Alas! The Night Beauty was killed
Because of a bouquet of roses!
The girl was terrified, and she ran off to find her mother and older brother. When she took her mother over to the bone, it began to sing:
Come over here, dear mother of mine.
Dear mother of mine, come here.
Come over here, dear mother of mine.
Dear mother of mine, come here.
Alas! The Night Beauty was killed
Because of a bouquet of roses!
The woman was unable to move. The brother found them, and he heard:
Come over here, you murderer.
Murderer, come over here.
Come over here, you murderer.
The Annotated African American Folktales Page 59
