The Annotated African American Folktales

by Henry Louis Gates

  To answer this question, I must make a seeming digression. After the conclusion of your exercises, one of your Trustees, and a personal friend of my own, was almost disposed to lament that he himself had not been born a Negro. What a fine thing, he said, to belong, as you belong, to a race that has need of the heart and hand of every one of its members!

  How excellent to do, as some of you who hear me are doing, or will do; to sacrifice something for the sake of one’s race; to be willing to attend a poorer school, because you can not go to the better one without renouncing your racial ties, to abstain from a career of profit, because that is not the direction in which you can best aid and serve your race. Such a racial unity, where it exists, it makes life seem grand and simple.

  My friend’s remark set me to thinking. What race do I myself belong to? For my ancestors, I would have answered; they were English. But my state to-day, is not English. It is filled up with immigrants of many other nationalities, accustomed to speak other languages, and educated, so far as they are educated, in other literature. Irishmen, Germans, French, Canadians, Italians, Portuguese, Russians, Armenians, Polish Jews, have entered to fill up the void left by the progress and promotion of the English. These people, and their descendants, form a large majority of the city population, and are rapidly overrunning the country also. The children of the immigrants, however, are nothing if not Americans. They are willing to hear nothing of Ireland, Germany, Italy, or Portugal. They sing with confident enthusiasm “Sweet land of liberty * * * * land where my fathers died.” The Frenchman Riviere or Dubois passes as Brooks or Wood, and when he returns to his native village, is apt still to retain that appellation as a matter of pride. The offspring of these people, in a few generations, will forget that their stock did not come over with the pilgrims. The Russian Jew speaks no Russian, but a dialect of German, a language which in all his wanderings, he has retained with obstinacy; but in America, he has cast aside its use, and adopted the English tone. The Jew retains his identity, only on account of his religion; but the children of the rest would be offended, if excluded from the American name and right. Yet I can hardly feel that I have any racial affinity with them. In the South the English stock has hitherto continued to occupy the field, and the white race, there, as a Virginian gentleman informed me, is synonymous with the English race; but this advantage, if it be one, does not affect the Northerner. Am I then without a race? No, there is still one kinship sufficiently wide to admit me,—the human race.

  Now as to the “materiality” of these remarks. As I cannot claim alliance with any race less inclusive than humanity, so I desire to possess not Folk-lore, not the ideas or notions of a particular race. Each race has its distinctive customs, ideas, manners; civilization has but one set of customs and ideas for all races. The race is formed to be merged in the unity of races, as rivers flow to disappear in the ocean. There are not different kinds of botany, or astronomy, or art, or morality, or religion, for whites or negroes, any more than for European and American. The little brook is born on the mountain, it falls in a silvery cascade to the valley, it widens and deepens, and loses in the end its separate existence in the mighty sea.

  Folk-lore, then, the mass of racial ideas and habits, is lost in this mental ocean; these special forms of life cease to have any continuing existence in fact. Should they therefore possess no further existence in memory? On the contrary. Man is memory; the more memory, the more humanity. This is true of not only pleasant recollections; cruel and unhappy memories also help to make up the mind; like the strings of a harp, when rightly sounded; not one but is capable of contributing to the music. The drops of material ocean may know nothing of their past history; but those of the human sea should be able to tell of the height to which they rose, the depth through which they have passed. I am speaking then, not with regards to the past, but the future, when I say that it is of consequence for the American Negro to retain the recollection of his African origin, and of his American servitude. For the sake of the honor of his race, he should have a clear picture of the mental condition out of which he has emerged: this picture is not now complete, nor will be made so without a record of song, tales, beliefs, which belongs to the stage of culture through which he has passed.

  Let me now point this general theme by illustrations of particular fields included in Negro American Folk-lore.

  Perhaps the most valuable distinctive property of the American Negro is his music. In newspaper controversy, a silly discussion has arisen as to whether the Negro really has any characteristic music, not borrowed from the whites. That such a debate could be carried on is evidence in itself of the necessity of Folk-lore societies, for the doubt is rendered possible only by the absence of any proper collection either of African or of American Negro folk music. In recommending such collection I am not proposing a work of simple curiosity. On the contrary, Negro music in Southern States is a treasure of which any race in the world might be proud. It is, or was, full of spirit, originality, melody, and suggestions. Unhappily, this quality is not sufficiently understood by the Negroes themselves. Too much in haste to appropriate the possessions of the whites, they are not aware that they are obtaining nothing as valuable as what they are surrendering. The power of original composition, by ear, belonging to a whole people, the ability on the part of a whole race to carry in its head a melody and harmony which has naturally grown out of a sentiment, is a precious gift, in which Northern whites are utterly deficient. It is indeed sad to observe that these touching and beautiful compositions, often breathing the very soul of music, are gradually being deserted in favor of the cheap, inartistic and nearly worthless music of the concert hall and songbook. It may be that Folk-lore societies, by diffusing a juster notion of the value of the Negro folk-music, can arrest its decay. If not, the record will still remain, as a perpetual boon to the musicians of the future.

  The second kind of lore of which I shall speak is tales. One class of these have become pretty generally known as the tales of Uncle Remus. These are animal folk-tales, which in great part, make their hero the rabbit, celebrate the victory of skill over brute force. These compositions have their worth, of a somewhat different nature from that which I have claimed for the songs. In this case, the interest is in great part that of comparative study. These tales are by no means solely the possession of Negroes; on the contrary, a good many are nearly cosmopolitan. Proceeding from some common center, they have traveled about the world, and that by several different routes, meeting in America by the way of Africa, by that of Europe, and it may be, also by that of Asia. So extraordinary a phenomenon in itself excites curiosity to a high degree. Without attempting here to explain this relation, I shall only observe, that the universal diffusion of many tales constitutes a striking counterpart to the great diversity of racial customs. We have thus the most striking exhibition of the substantial mental unity of the human race, seeing that in the most primitive communities the same elements have recommended a story. That the mental variety of stocks is the result, not of original natural diversity, but of environment, is thus most strongly enforced, and in that doctrine might be found the strongest possible hope for the future of your own race, if it were not that such encouragement is now rendered unnecessary by the visible evidences every day before our eyes.

  As to another highly interesting class of tales which relate to religious belief, to spirits and demons, and the like, I will only remark that the best way to correct superstitious notions is to collect and study them. When all are gathered and made to elucidate each other, what is false and absurd is at once seen to be false and absurd. Thus, in order to get rid of a disgraceful custom, or of ancient credulity, the best way is not to try to ignore its existence, but to face and find out what it is.

  It is of the utmost consequence, as a possession of their former condition, to note the numerous customs, hitherto altogether unnoted, or imperfectly observed, that entered into this condition. The truer mental state of the race under slavery, entirely incompre
hensible to those who looked on from the outside, will thus appear.

  All this material will become lucid and full of picturesque and poetic interest, when we have full accounts of primitive African music, belief, and habits, when we have detailed accounts of the several tribes. It will doubtless be, also, that this tendency once introduced, it will become customary for American Negroes to attend to their genealogical record, and endeavor to discover, so far as they may, from what particular African source their own family was derived.

  It is altogether probable that America, through the American Negro, is destined to exert a mighty influence in the continent of Africa. It is the opinion of one of the best qualified observers, not only that the Africans in their own land are in a certain degree in character similar, but that American Negroes still have a great affinity with the race from which they were derived. The United States is the star of hope to the African. What the Negro is becoming, as we hope, that the African and Africa must become. There will certainly be in the so-called Dark Continent Negro civilizations, the impulse of which will be derived from the educated Afro-American, who in becoming entirely an American will be no more ashamed of the continent of his origin, than the Anglo-American is ashamed of England. In promoting these mighty world movements, the advance of science will play a part. All political influence, of any sort, is foreign to the purposes of science; the Negro race, physically, will remain and wish to remain a separate race; and all the information which it can obtain relative to its antecedents, regarding its primitive and natural way of feeling, will be a weapon in his hand. We must know the truth about the plantation Negro, to deal with the plantation Negro; it is always the truth that makes free.

  I have devoted my time, not to a discussion of Folk-lore, but to showing, as I trust I have succeeded in doing, that the study has its face towards the future, not towards the past. But I must not cease without a word for the sake of pure science. Science has no need to ask of any knowledge, whether it will be useful; for all knowledge is of necessity useful. It would seem hardly necessary to urge this of the study of popular traditions. If the English speaking world could obtain its pre-Christian Folk-lore, the ancient songs, tales, and beliefs of the English race, it would be willing to wipe out with a wet sponge, if necessary, all but the very greatest names in English literature. But you, more fortunate, have still the power of obtaining the traditions of your ancestors, and of preserving them with that pride that always should characterize every race in regard to its ancestral treasures.

  Mrs. Cooper of Washington was next presented to the audience and read the following paper.

  PAPER BY MRS. ANNA J. COOPER

  In the direction of original productiveness, the American Negro is confronted by a peculiar danger. In the first place he is essentially imitative. This in itself is not a defect. The imitative instinct is the main spring of civilization and in this aptitude the Negro is linked with the most progressive nations of the world’s history. The Phoenecians imitated the Egyptians, the Greeks borrowed from the Phoenecians, the Romans unblushingly appropriated from the Greeks whatever they could beg or steal. The Norman who became the brain and nerve of the Anglo Saxon race, who contributed the most vigorous and energetic elements in modern civilization, was above all men an imitator. “Whenever,” says one, “his neighbor invented or possessed anything worthy of admiration, the sharp, inquisitive Norman poked his long aquiline nose,” and the same writer adds, “wherever what we now call the march of intellect advanced, there was the sharp eager face of the Norman in the van.” It is not then where or how a man or race gets his ideas but what use does he make of them that settles his claim to originality. “He has seen some of my work,” said the great Michaelangelo of the young Raphael when he noticed an adroit appropriation of some of his own touches. But Raphael was no copyist. Shakespeare was a veritable freebooter in the realm of literature, but Shakespeare was no plagiarist.

  I heard recently of a certain great painter, who before taking his brush always knelt down and prayed to be delivered from his model, and just here as it seems to me is the real need of deliverance for the American black man. His “model” is a civilization which to his childlike admiration must seem overpowering. Its stream servants thread the globe. It has put the harness on God’s lightning which is now made to pull, push, pump, lift, write, talk, sing, light, kill, cure. It seems once more to have realized the possession of Aladdin’s wonderful lamp for securing with magic speed and dexterity fabulous wealth, honor, ease, luxury, beauty, art, power. What more can be done? What more can be desired? And as the Queen of Sheba sunk under the stupendousness of Solomon’s greatness, the children of Africa in America are in danger of paralysis before the splendor of Anglo Saxon achievements. Anglo Saxon ideas, Anglo Saxon standards, Anglo Saxon art, Anglo Saxon literature, Anglo Saxon music—surely this must be to him the measure of perfection. The whispered little longings of his own soul for utterance must be all a mistake. The simple little croonings that rocked his own cradle must be forgotten and outgrown and only the lullabies after the approved style affected. Nothing else is grammatical, nothing else is orthodox. To write as a white man, to sing as a white man, to swagger as a white man, to bully as a white man—this is achievement, this is success.

  And, in all imitations that means mere copying, the ridiculous mannerisms and ugly defects of the model are appropriated more successfully than the life and inner spirit which alone gave beauty or meaning to the original. Emancipation from the model is what is needed. Servile copying foredooms mediocrity: it cuts the nerve of soul expression. The American Negro cannot produce an original utterance until he realizes the sanctity of his homely inheritance. It is the simple, common, everyday things of man that God has cleansed. And it is the untaught, spontaneous lispings of the child heart that are fullest of poetry and mystery.

  Correggio once wandered from his little provincial home and found his way to Rome, where all the wonder of the great art world for the first time stood revealed before him. He drank deep and long of the rich inspiration and felt the quickening of his own self consciousness as he gazed on the marvellous canvasses of the masters.

  “I too am a painter,” he cried and the world has vindicated the assertion. Now it is just such a quickening as this that must come to the black man in America to stimulate his original activities. The creative instinct must be aroused by a wholesome respect for the thoughts that lie nearest. And this to my mind is the vital importance for him of the study of his own folklore. His songs, superstitions, customs, tales, are the legacy left from the imagery of the past. These must catch and hold and work up into the picture he paints. The poems of Homer are valued today chiefly because they are the simple unstudied view of the far away life of the Greeks—its homely custom and superstitions as well as its more heroic achievements and activities. The Canterbury Tales do the same thing for the England of the 14th century.

  The Negro too is a painter. And he who can turn his camera on the fast receding views of this people and catch their simple truth and their sympathetic meaning before it is all too late will no less deserve the credit of having revealed a characteristic page in history and of having made an interesting study.

  ZORA NEALE HURSTON, “HIGH JOHN DE CONQUER”

  American Mercury (October 1943), 450–58

  An African prince who was sold into slavery, John the Conqueror (or John de Conquer and John the Conker) is the high mythical counterpart to the humble John of the John and Old Master tales. The root of a plant called ipomoea jalapa (related to the morning glory and sweet potato) is called John the Conquer root. Used in voodoo as one of the parts of a mojo bag, it was said to bestow power over others, grant good fortune in gambling, and cast sexual spells.

  Zora Neale Hurston’s 1943 essay, “High John de Conquer,” offers a glowing account of John’s significance as the heroic embodiment of hope and the promise of freedom. High John begins as “a whisper” and becomes a real presence in the day-to-day lives of ordinary p
eople, a bearer not just of hope, but also of the liberating power of song, story, and laughter. High John shares some traits with the protagonist of tales about John and Old Massa. If he is the infallible hero who leads and liberates, his lowly counterpart is an ordinary man gifted with the cunning of the mythical trickster. In those more earthy, realistic tales, we witness strategic victories, small and large, that emerged in the struggle for things ranging from the next meal to freedom.

  One of Hurston’s informants was at first reluctant to share her knowledge about John de Conquer. She feared that “smart colored folks” like Hurston were “shamed of the things that brought us through”—a stark reminder that education, for all its obvious advantages, inevitably led to the disavowal of a cultural heritage that had once formed the core of African American identity. The folklore of bondage was faced with the same challenges as was the case with what has been called “the wonderful music of bondage.” Collecting tales kept them from disappearing, but it may also have diluted them, in part because the activity of preservation was carried out by those with a distance from antebellum slavery and with a “white man’s education” (Sundquist 1992, 28).

  Eric Sundquist has pointed out that Hurston captured African American vernacular at a critical moment, preserving narratives of subservience and rebellion encoded in a secret language that enabled slaves to communicate under the harshest of disciplinary regimes. She rewrote the foundational arts of a culture “in a modern idiom but left the reader—the white reader in particular, but perhaps the black as well—with an admonition: ‘He can read my writing but he sho’ can’t read my mind’ ” ( 91). Hazel V. Carby sees in Mules and Men an attempt to “make the unknown known and a nostalgic attempt to preserve a disappearing form of folk culture.” In her view, Hurston ignores the migration of African Americans to cities and represents their culture as primarily rural and oral in an essentializing gesture that places the folk outside of history (1990, 80). But just how encrypted are the tales? Richard Wright once described a conversation in which he was accused by a social scientist from the West Indies of revealing “racial secrets to the white race.” “Listen,” he replied, “the only secret in Asia and Africa and among oppressed people as a whole is that there is no secret.” His outraged interlocutor threw up his hands “in disgust” and declared, “You have now revealed the profoundest secret of all” (1957, 42–43). Tales of John de Conquer and John and Old Master reveal some of the open and not-so-open secrets of black communal history, giving us an insider’s look at spirited forms of opposition to a disciplinary regime that worked hard to deny any kind of edge let alone a victory.