African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Louisiana Creole Dialect

Following up on yesterday's post about Creole and Cajun folktales, I wanted to share this book about Louisiana Creole, which includes a selection of folklore included: Louisiana Creole Dialect by James Francis Broussard.

The folklore section contains proverbs, medical lore and other superstitions, poetry and tales. (Click on the image for a larger view.) The materials are in Creole and in French; there are no English translations:

There are even selections from La Fontaine's French fables translated into Creole!

So, if you are curious about Louisiana Creole, this bilingual collection of proverbs, folktales, and poems is a fun wayt o indulge that curiosity!

Louisiana Creole Dialect

by James Francis Broussard

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: More Stories from Louisiana

After the "Lapin" stories from Louisiana yesterday, I wanted to follow up with three more wonderful collections of stories from Louisiana, each of which contains stories that are part of the African diaspora storytelling tradition in Louisiana, especially in both Creole and Cajun traditions.

The first book is Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana, edited by Barry Jean Ancelet:

The book uses a bilingual presentation, so here is the famous African folktale type of the well's guardian, a.k.a., the tar baby (click on the image for a larger view); this is 2. Bouki et Lapin et le bonhomme en coal tar / Bouki and Lapin and the Little Tar Man as told by Martin Latiolais of Catahoula:

There is information about each storyteller and their performance, along with comparative folktale-type notes.

Next up is Swapping Stories: Folktales From Louisiana, edited by Carl Lindahl, Maida Owens, and C. Renée Harvison.

This is also a serious work of storytelling scholarship with detailed information about each story and each storyteller. You can find a version of Lapin, Bouki, and the Tar Man in this book also: Le petit bonhomme en Coal Tar told by Wilson "Ben Guine" Mitchell, whom you can see in this photo:

And the third book I wanted to share is by a Cajun storyteller I've featured before in this blog, J. J. Reneaux. This book is Cajun Folktales.

Reneaux explicitly acknowledges the contribution of African American storytellers to Cajun storytelling traditions: "African motifs gradually blended into the Cajun melting pot; comic animal characters like the trickster Lapin and his dull-witted companion Bouqui wrestled over human-like problems, bringing laughter to the Cajuns' hard lives."

The book by Reneaux that I had written about at this blog before focused exactly on those animal characters: How Animals Saved the People: Animal Tales from the South, beautifully illustrated by James Ransome.

So if you've ever wondered about Creole and Cajun stories, plus other storytelling traditions from Louisiana, just jump on it; all these books are just a click away at the Internet Archive, thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending.

Cajun and Creole Folktales:

The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana

by Barry Jean Ancelet

Swapping Stories: Folktales From Louisiana

by Carl Lindahl, Maida Owens, and C. Renée Harvison.

Cajun Folktales
by J. J. Reneaux

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Lapin of Louisiana

For today's post, I wanted to share two books about "Lapin," the trickster rabbit of Louisiana. They both are by Sharon Arms Doucet, and the first is Why Lapin's Ears Are Long and Other Tales of the Louisiana Bayou, published in 1997.

The illustrations are by David Catrow. Here's Lapin with Madame Tourtue (Mrs. Turtle):

The second book is Lapin Plays Possum: Trickster Tales From the Louisiana Bayou, published in 2002. 

The illustrations for this book are by Scott Crook. Here's the Tar Bébé (Tar Baby) that Bouki has created to trap Lapin:

Doucet is a Cajun writer and also a musician, and Cajun culture is itself a multifaceted mixture of French, Native American, African, and Afro-Latin Creole. Each book also includes a glossary of Cajun English words that are used in the stories.

And you can find out more about Cajun English at Wikipedia.

"Lapin" (the French word for rabbit) is a famous trickster in the Cajun and Creole cultures of Louisiana. You'll also find "Bouki" here, which is the Wolof word for "hyena," who was rabbit's sidekick in the African stories, and his name lives on here, even though the hyenas of Africa are not remembered. I really like how Doucet explains that in her afterword to Lapin Plays Possum:

The trickster Compère Lapin and his sidekick, Compère Bouki, have been pestering each other since before they left their native soil of western Africa over two centuries ago. In the early 1700s, they were brought to North America by the African men and women who were captured and sold into slavery. They quarreled all the way to French-speaking Louisiana, where folks have been telling their stories around the hearth and on the porch ever since, in both the black Creole and the white Cajun communities. Lapin's famous cousin ended up on the East Coast and is known to all as Brer Rabbit. Bouki started life in Africa a hyena. But since hyenas tend to be scarce in Louisiana, he has evolved into a vague dog-wolf character, always large on size but short on brains.

I also really like the way the stories are connected with one leading to another to another, so that Bouki finally gets his revenge in the final story... although Lapin gets away once again, with Bouki getting tangled in the briar, kind of like the way Lapin got tangled up with the tar baby, but of course Lapin gets the last laugh!

Why Lapin's Ears Are Long and

Other Tales of the Louisiana Bayou

by Sharon Arms Doucet

Lapin Plays Possum: Trickster Tales

from the Louisiana Bayou

by Sharon Arms Doucet

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Carter Woodson

Today's post is a bit different than usual: instead of African American storytelling, I wanted to share a book of African stories which Carter Woodson published in 1928, with the intention of the book being used in schools. It's a remarkable book for 1928 which both documents which sources were readily available at that time, and also the effort to put African stories into the school curriculum. Here is the book: African Myths by Carter Woodson.

The full title from the title page states Woodson's intentions clearly: "African Myths, together with proverbs; a supplementary reader composed of folk tales from various parts of Africa, adapted to the use of children in the public schools."

In retelling the stories, Woodson has relied on the versions in published collections (so in that sense, this is not really African Diaspora storytelling), but he has simplified the language, as he explains in the introduction: "These are presented here without modification of thought but in the simplest language possible to reach the minds of children of the lower grades of public schools." In the back of the book there is a pronunciation guide to help with the African names.

There are 39 stories in the book, along with some proverbs. Here are the titles of the stories: Creation ~ Why the Sun Shines by Day and the Moon by Night ~ How Animals Came Into the World ~ The Origin of Lake Tanganyika ~ The Beginning of Death ~ Why Children Belong to the Mother ~ The Ingrate ~ The Jealousy of the Blind Man ~ The Race for a Wife ~ The Deer and the Snail ~ Ohia and His Sorrows ~ Why Some Women Never Eat Mutton ~ The Fairy Wife ~ The Disobedient Daughter's Marriage ~ Kindness Misunderstood ~ The Dog and the Leopard ~ How the Dog Became the Friend of Man ~ The Cats and Fowls ~ Why Chickens Live With Man ~ Why the Hawk Catches Chickens ~ The Fox and the Goat ~ Why Goats Live With Man ~ The Lion, the Leopard, and the Dog ~ The Leopard, the Tortoise, and the Bush Rat ~ The Lioness and the Cow  ~ Why the Hippopotamus Lives in the Water ~ Why the Bush Fowl Calls Up the Dawn  ~ Why the Cat Catches Rats ~ The Crocodile's Relatives ~ The Reward for Honesty  ~ The Squrrel and the Spider ~ The Toad and the Kite ~ The Antelope and the Jackal ~ The Leopard and the Hare ~ The Rabbit and the Antelope ~ Beware of Bad Company ~ The Partnership of the Elephant and the Rabbit ~ Three Rval Brothers ~ The Legend of Ngurangurane.

The stories are illustrated with original illustrations for this book, but the name of the illustrator is not given. Here's an illustration for the story about why women do not eat mutton; see the sheep there who has come to the dance (this is not your average sheep!):

There is no indication for the source of the stories, which is a definite lack here; there is also no geographical or tribal information provided. If I can find time, I will see if I can provide an index of Woodson's sources for the stories. Since all of his sources would now be in the public domain, it should not be too hard to do with a bit of Googling.

Carter Woodson was an enormously influential historian and writer; you can read more about his life and work at Wikipedia, and of course you can find many of Woodson's books at the Internet Archive, including African Heroes and Heroines, The Mind Of The Negro As Reflected In Letters Written During The Crisis 1800-1860, and probably his most famous book: The Mis-Education of the Negro (a book which has its own Wikipedia article).

So, cast your mind back to almost 100 years ago, and enjoy this school book of African stories, thinking about what such stories would have meant to its young readers then!

African Myths
by Carter Woodson

African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Dance, Nana, Dance

To start the new week, I wanted to share this marvelous BILINGUAL book of folktales from Cuba which contains quite a few Afro-Cuban stories. The book is Baila, Nana, Baila / Dance, Nana, Dance by Joe Hayes:

Be sure to check out the detailed author's notes in the back of the book to learn more about the African storytelling traditions that you can see in these stories, starting with the first story, Yams Don't Talk. Here's the note to the story: (click on the image for a larger view)

The illustrations are by Mauricio Trenard Sayago, a Cuban artist now based in Brooklyn, and you can see how the book is laid out, with the English and Spanish texts on the same page (click on the image for a larger view):

Most materials about African Diaspora stories in Cuba are books in Spanish, so we are very lucky to have this book in both Spanish and English that opens the door to this storytelling world. Highly recommended, and just a click away at the Internet Archive thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending!

Baila, Nana, Baila / Dance, Nana, Dance

by Joe Hayes