African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Terrapin's Pot of Sense

And since I wrote about Harold Courlander's big African American Anthology and his Haitian storybooks in yesterday's blog post, I didn't want to neglect this fantastic book of African American stories from the United States: Terrapin's Pot of Sense.

This is actually one of my very favorite African American story collections. It has 31 stories, and the title story, "Terrapin's Pot of Sense," is an American version of the famous African story told about both Tortoise and Anansi where the trickster has decided to gather up all the wisdom in the world and greedily keep it for himself. (Needless to say, this plan does not succeed.) As in Courlander's many African story collections, there are notes in the back about the stories which do a great job of pointing out the African origins of the stories and also world folklore parallels.

Here is a list of the story titles linked to their Internet Archive page; it's a mix of animal stories and also stories about people: Waiting on Salvation / Reform Meeting / Rabbit, Fox, and the Rail Fence / Buh Rabbits Tight Necktie / Terrapins Pot of Sense / Slow Train to Arkansas / Buh Rabbit's Human Weakness / Buh Rabbit's Big Eat / Buh Fox's Number Nine Shoes / Buh Rabbit's Tail / The Well / Rabbit Scratches Buh Elephant's Back / Buh Mouse Testifies / Buh Rabbits Graveyard / Buh Rabbit and the King / The Texas Sandstorm / Hot Times / The Champion / The Skull / Old Master and Okra / The Do-all Ax / The King and Kuffie / Old Boss, John, and the Mule / Crossing the River / Old Boss and George / Devil in Church / Preacher and the Devil / What the Preacher's Talking About / Sharing the Crops / Death and the Old Man / The Moon's a Woman.

The delightful illustrations are by Elton Fax, an African American artist born in 1909 whose great success as an illustrator paved the way for later artists like Jerry Pinkney and others. You can read more about his life and career (he went to high school with Cab Calloway!) in this Wikipedia article. Here's his illustration of Buh Bear and Buh Fox:

You might remember Elton Fax as the illustrator of many of Verna Aardema's early collections of African folktales, like Tales from the Story Hat; just look at Buffalo and Hyena here! 

Harold Courlander and Elton Fax were both giants of their time, and I am so glad that there are LOTS of their books that you can  find at the Internet Archive... and Terrapin is a great place to start exploring!

Terrapin's Pot of Sense

by Harold Courlander