African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Days When the Animals Talked

Black History Month is over for this year... but there are still lots of wonderful African American books from the Internet Archive that I want to feature here at the blog, and the book for today is one of my very favorite Brer Rabbit story collections: The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They Came to Be by William J. Faulkner.

The book is divided into two parts: there are 11 stories from slave times, followed by 22 animal stories, most of them featuring Brer Rabbit. Here are the titles linked to their page at the Archive: Simon Marries Ellen / Simon Challenges the McCrackens / Fishing With Bare Hands / Simon and the Pater-rollers / How the Slaves Helped Each Other / Simon Sees a Ghost / The Ways of a Witch / How the Slaves Worshipped / A Slave's Escape / A Riddle for Freedom / Brer Rabbit Goes A-Courting / Brer Wolf's Magic Gate / Brer Bear Gets A Taste Of Man / Brer Tiger And The Big Wind / Brer Rabbit Keeps His Word / Brer Possum And Brer Snake / Brer Wolf Plants Pinders / Brer Wolf's Second Pinder Patch / Brer Fox Tries Farming Too / Brer Fox Tries Farming Too / Brer Rabbit's Protest Meeting / The Tar Baby Tricks Brer Rabbit / Run, Brer Gator, Run! / Brer Rabbit And Brer Cooter Race / Brer Fox Meets Mister Trouble / Brer Wolf Wants The Honey / Brer Rabbit Dances For A Wife / Brer Rabbit And His Riding Horse / How The Cow Went Under The Ground / Who Stole Brer Gilhard's Sheep / Brer Wolf And Brer Fox Get A Big Surprise / Brer Rabbit Rescues His Children / Who Got Brer Gilyard's Treasure?

The illustrations are by Troy Howell, and you can see there on the cover of the book, Brer Rabbit is a Black man! (Look at the hands holding the pipe.) Here's Howell's illustration for the famous folktale of Brer Rabbit making Brer Wolf his riding horse:

William Faulkner, who was born in 1891 in South Carolina, heard these stories from Simon Brown, who has a historical marker in Society Hill in Darlington County, South Carolina (Historical Marker Database) which reads: "A former slave from Virginia, Brown lived in Society Hill around 1900 and for years was employed by Lawrence Faulkner's widow to work on her farm. His small house was adjacent to the Faulkner house on this site. A gifted story-teller of black folk tales, Brown's allegories were posthumously recorded by the Smithsonian Institution."

William Faulkner has a historical marker of his own; it's located on the Fisk University campus in Nashville, Tennessee (Historical Marker Database). It reads: "William J. Faulkner. 1891-1987, a Congregational minister, folklorist and author, lived at this site from 1935 to 1947. He served as Fisk University's Dean of Men from 1934 to 1942 and as Dean of the Chapel from 1943 to 1953, During his tenure, he reorganized the Fisk Union Church into a Congregational Church structure. In 1942, Faulkner also served as the President of Nashville's NAACP."

So, if the only Brer Rabbit stories you've heard are the ones recorded by Joel Chandler Harris, attributed to a fictitious "Uncle Remus," I hope you will take a look at this beautiful collection of stories as told by the very real Simon Brown.

The Days When the Animals Talked:

Black American Folktales

and How They Came to Be

by William J. Faulkner