African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Roger Abrahams

Since Helen read a story from Roger Abrahams' African Folktales book, I thought I would use that as a prompt to do two more books from Roger Abrahams today, carrying on with this week's theme of excellent scholarly resources.

I'll start with The Man-of-Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture, published in 1983.

The book is a collection of essays by Abrahams covering a range of topics connected to poetic performance throughout the area of the Caribbean known as the West Indies (see Wikipedia), with essays dating back to the 1960s when Abrahams was doing field research in the Antilles.

Abrahams dedicated this book to John Szwed, who is his coauthor on this book, also published in 1983: After Africa: Extracts From British Travel Accounts and Journals of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries Concerning the Slaves, Their Manners, and Customs in the British West Indies. (Abrahams died in 2017, but John Szwed, who was born in 1936, is still with us!)

Each of the chapters of this book contains fascinating material... and there is even a chapter on Anancy Tales, which opens with testimony that dates back to 1816 from Matthew Gregory Lewis; you can find out more about Lewis here.

Plus of course I want to include both of Abrahams' monumental anthologies of African and African American folktales!

African Folktales:

Traditional Stories of the Black World

African American Folktales:

Stories from Black Traditions in the New World

All of these excellent books are just a click away at the Archive, all because of Conrolled Digital Lending, which creates a scholarly library that we can all access.

 The Man-of-Words in the West Indies:

Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture

by Roger Abrahams

After Africa: Extracts From British Travel Accounts and Journals

by Roger Abrahams and John Szwed

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: African American Folktales

Like with the Virginia Hamilton book from yesterday, today's author, Roger Abrahams, is someone who will be familiar to readers from the African phase of this project too. Earlier I wrote about Abrahams's book African Folktales: Traditional Stories of the Black World, and here is today's book: African American Folktales: Stories from Black Traditions in the New World, which is the best anthology IMO for learning about African storytelling traditions in the Americas.

The book contains 107 stories, organized into different sections as follows (these are links to the specific story pages at Internet Archive):

PART I. Getting Things Started: How the World Got Put Together That Way

Never Seen His Equal / The Man Makes and the Woman Takes / Bringing Men and Women Together / The Fight over Life / The Wind and the Water Fighting / The Word the Devil Made Up / The Knee-High Man Tries to Get Sizable / Pig’s Long Nose and Greedy Mouth / Getting Common Sense / Hankering for a Long Tail / The Devil’s Doing / The John Crows Lose Their Hair / Tadpole Loses His Tail / The Owl Never Sleeps at Night / Why Hens Are Afraid of Owls / The Gifts of Dipper and Cowhide / Buh Nansi Scares Buh Lion / Testing the Good Lord / MrPossum Loves Peace / Get Back, Get Back / No Justice on Earth

PART II. Minding Somebody Else’s Business and Sometimes Making It Your Own

Meeting the King of the World / MrBamancoo Gets Dropped / The Tug-of-War between Elephant and Whale / Tiger Becomes a Biding Horse / The Telltale Pepper Bush / Making the Stone Smoke / The Latest Song / The Signifying Monkey / The Singing Bones / A Boarhog for a Husband / The Woman Who Was a Bird / My Mother Killed Me, My Father Ate Me

PART III. Getting a Comeuppance: How (and How Not) to Act Stories

What Makes Brer Wasp Have a Short Patience / Between the Fiddler and the Dancer / Being Greedy Chokes Anansi / The Doings and Undoings of the Dogoshes / Spreading Fingers for Friendship / Don’t Shoot Me, Dyer, Don’t Shoot Me / Little Eight John / The Poor Man and the Snake / The Little Bird Grows / Tricking All the Kings / The Feast on the Mountain and the Feast under the Water / Hide Anger until Tomorrow / Buying Two Empty Hands / Cutta Cord-La / Brer Bear’s Grapevine / A Foolish Mother / Old Granny Grinny Granny / You Never Know What Trouble Is until It Finds You / He Pays for the Provisions / The Cunning Cockroach / Little Boy-Bear Nurses the Alligator Children / The Girl Made of Butter / Poppa Stole the Deacon’s Bull / The Trouble with Helping Out / The Rooster Goes Away in a Huff

PART IV. How Clever Can You Get? Tales of Trickery and Its Consequences

Why They Name the Stories for Anansi / Brother Rabbit Takes a Walk / The Lion in the Well / A License to Steal / The Race between Toad and Donkey / Crawling into the Elephant’s Belly / A Strange Way to Sleep / Goobers Gone, Rabbit Gone / Assaulting All the Senses / Brer Rabbit’s Riddle / The Horned Animals’ Party / Anansi Plays Dead / Anansi Climbs the Wall / Dancing to the River / “Trouble” Coming Down the Road / No Chicken Tonight 

PART V. The Strong Ones and the Clever: Contests and Confrontations

Golden Breasts, Diamond Navel, Chain of Gold / The Flying Contest / Loggerhead / Trying to Get the Goldstone / Stackolee / Escaping, Slowly / Turning into Nóuna—Nothing / The Old Bull and the Young One / Fasting for the Hand of the Queen’s Daughter / Weak in the Day and Strong at Night / Jack Beats the Devil / Three Killed Florrie, Florrie Killed Ten

PART VI. Getting Around Old Master (Most of the Time)

They Both Had Dead Horses / You Talk Too Much, Anyhow / Making the Eyes Run / Making a Wagon from a Wheelbarrow / The One-Legged Turkey / John Outruns the Lord / A Flying Fool / Horses Stay Outside / The Sinking of the Titanic / Competition for Laziness / John Outwits MrBerkeley / Black Jack and White Jack / Philanewyork / The Barn Is Burning

PART VII. In the End, Nonsense

Big-Gut, Big-Head, Stringy-Leg / A Chain of Won’ts / Animal Talk / A Comic Conversation / A Smoking Story / The Things That Talked / Endings

There are notes on all the stories in the back, plus informative introductions to each section, along with a comprehensive bibliography. It's a perfect jumping-off point to learn more about both African American and Caribbean storytelling traditions.

Abrahams is also the author of other important books on African American culture, especially language and storytelling. You can find out more about his long career as a scholar here at Wikipedia. Abrahams died just a few years ago, in 2017; here is his obituary in the New York Times.

Here are just a few of his other books that you can find at Internet Archive:

Talking Black

Positively Black

Singing the Master

Meanwhile, if you want a comprehensive overview, just spend some time with Abrahams's African Folktales and African American Folktales, both of which are ready and waiting at the Archive.

African American Folktales:

Stories from Black Traditions in the New World

African Folktales at Internet Archive: Abrahams' African Folktales

I'll finish up this week of anthology recommendations with another outstanding scholar, Roger Abrahams, a contemporary of Harold Sheub (from yesterday's post); you can read about Abrahams' life and career at Wikipedia. Abrahams did most of his own work in the United States and the Caribbean, looking at African traditions in the Americas, and he is also the author of a wonderful anthology:  African Folktales: Traditional Stories of the Black World. It's just a click away at the Internet Archive.

There are 93 stories in the book from all over Africa, organized thematically: the first part contains "tales of wonder from the great ocean of story," the second part contains "stories to discuss and even argue about" (dilemma tales!), the third part (my favorite) contains "tales of Trickster and other ridiculous creatures: tales to entertain," the fourth part contains two epic tales, and the final part contains a hodgepodge of stories which Abrahams calls "making a way through life." It's an excellent collection with notes on each story and detailed bibliography.

You can also see other books by Roger Abrahams at the Internet Archive; I'll be sharing these books here when I move on from African folklore recommendations to books from the Americas... but that will be a while: there are so many excellent African folklore books yet to recommend!

So, here's all of Week 6 on one page, concluding with this great collection by Roger Abrahams:

African Folktales:

Traditional Stories of the Black World

by Roger Abrahams