African Diaspora at Internet Archive: South Carolina and Virginia

I've been focusing in the past days on the work of folklorist Elsie Clews Parsons and her work with African American storytellers in the United States and in the Caribbean, and I've got two more works to share with you today.

The first is a collection of stories, plus riddles, rhymes, and ring-games, that Parsons published in the Journal of American Folklore 1921: Folklore from Aiken SC.

Here is a list of the story titles linked to their Internet Archive pages: Playing Godfather: The Grease Test / Playing Godfather: Tar Baby: Mock Plea / Wife calls (Playing Godfather): Rabbit makes a Wolf his Horse / Fatal Imitation / First Out / Buried Tail / Woman-Cat / Rabbit's Short Tail / Out of her Skin / Trouble in this World / Playing Dead Twice on the Road / Fishing with Tail / The Talking Mule / The Password / The False Message: Take my Place / The Plug / In the Well / The Murderous Mother / Three Little Pigs / The Five Kids / Three more Fools / Feasting on Dog / Sure to die / A Big Black Man with Derby on / In the Bag / Nobody but You, Directly / Moon Stories / You can’t get to Heaven ’til you die / Master's Meat and Lard / Sympathy / Mr. Hard-Time / Box Lighter / Peanut-Planting / Rooster Fights / The Fiddle / Toad-Frog's Tail / Riddles / Verses / Ring-Games.

The second is a collection of stories and riddles that Parsons published in 1922: Folk-Lore from Elizabeth City County, Virginia.

This work is based on the efforts of Alice Bacon at the Hampton Institute (you can read more about her remarkable life and career at Wikipedia), and Bacon is credited as a co-author of the work, although she died in 1918. In the 1890s, Bacon led the Hampton Folklore Society which was dedicating to collecting and publishing African American folklore materials from students at the Institute. Much of the material was published in The Southern Workman,  and Parsons then worked with the unpublished materials, bringing them together with new material that Parsons collected when she was at the Hampton Institute.

Here is a list of those stories and titles: Incriminating the Other Fellow / Playing Godfather / Playing Godfather: Tell-Tale Grease / Tell-Tale Grease / Tar Baby: Mock Plea / Tar Baby: The Lord Dines / Playing Godfather: Tar Baby: Mock Plea / Take My Place / False Message: Take My Place / In the Bag / Watcher Tricked: Fox Flies / Lion Brooks no Rival / The Ugliest Animal / Picking a Quarrel / Buzzard Makes Terrapin his Riding-Horse / Why Frog Lives in the Water / Little Pig and Wolf / Dog and Dog-Head / Keeping Pace / Relay Race / I Once Had a Brother / Trouble / The Escape / The Password / In the Bee-Tree / Playing Dead Twice in the Road / Cartload of Fish / Rabbit seeks Meat / Above Ground and Below Ground / Dancing out Sand / Fatal Imitation / In Liquor / Why Dogs Chase Cat / Nobody but You and Me / Who dat says "Who dat says 'Who dat?'" / Magic Flight / Flower of Dew / The Little Girl and Her Snake / The Test / Soul or Sole / Mate to the Devil / Woman-Cat / Broom-Charm / Out of Her Skin / The Six Witches / Can't set Still / The Old Woman, Her Daughters, and the Kid / Haunted House / Haunted House / The Dismembered Ghost / Buried Treasure / Haunted Bridge / The Single Ball / What Darkens the Hole / The Slave Turns / Sweet-Potatoes / Master's Hog / What did You Say? / Master's Fowls / Saving Hog / Going to Heaven / The Lord and Langton / Hunting on Sunday / The Frightened Guest / Dividing the Souls / Not Too Lame / Skeleton / First Out / Rabbit-Meat / Brick on Her Head / Choosing a Wife / Hot Hands / Chair on His Head / The Deer-Stalker / Clock Runs Down / Moon Cheese: Irishmen at the Well / Bricks and Mortar / Englishman and Irishman / Watermelon / Mare's Egg / Mother of All the Ticks / Three Ends / String Beans / You, Naither / Understand / Lumber Business / Yah and Yea / Judgment Day / Cobble, Cobble, Cobble! / Silver Dollar / Toad-Frog / Green Irishmen / Trunk / Why Shingle? / Three More Fools: MrHard-Times / Pamelance / Who Fills the Penitentiaries / Punishment after Death / Beating Dead Dog / Where's MrMcGinnis? / The Lord's Family / Horse and Cart / Who Struck Patrick? / Missing Word / Corn in the Ear / Which Way Does the Road Go? / Spreeing / Curly Tail and Straight Tail / To Torment Already / Officers Only / Rank / No Extra Expense / In the Camp Reading-Room / Length of Service / Riddles.

The materials that were published in The Southern Workman were later reissued in a beautiful book by Donald Waters; I'll share information about that book next time. Meanwhile, both of these collections as published in the Journal of American Folklore await you at the Internet Archive, just a click away!

Folklore from Aiken SC

by Elsie Clews Parsons

Folklore from Elizabeth City County, Virginia

by Alice Bacon and Elsie Parsons