African-American folktales refer to the storytelling and oral history practices of enslaved African Americans from the 1700s through the 1900s and African Americans descendants. Common themes in African-American folktales include tricksters, life lessons, heartwarming tales, and slavery. African Americans created folktales that spoke about the hardships of slavery, telling stories of folk spirits who could outwit their slaveholders and defeat their enemies. These folk stories gave hope to enslaved people, suggesting that folk spirits would liberate them from slavery.
Folktales have also been misused to perpetuate negative stereotypes about the African American community, from minstrel shows to academic journals. One of these figures is High John de Conqueror. He often symbolized empowerment for newly freed slaves, It was said that if they needed him, his spirit resided in a local root. Other common figures in African American folktales include Anansi, Br'er Rabbit, and Uncle Monday. Many folktales are unique to African-American culture, while African, European, and Native American tales influenced others. In the present, the impact of African American folklore is apparent in Hip-hop music, where themes like gangsters and pimps are influenced by the "badman" and "trickster" archetypes.
In some contexts, folklorists employ the terms "culture keepers" or contemporary "griots" to refer to the people who contribute to the preservation of African American folklore through sharing and creation.
African-American folklore African-American folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of African Americans as expressed in its oral traditions, customs and customary rituals, and material culture.
African-American folktales overview African-American folktales are a storytelling tradition rooted in Africa. These folktales are a testament to a rich oral tradition that spread when Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves. Most African-American folktales fall into one of eight categories of tales: origin stories, trickery and trouble, triumph over natural or supernatural evils, comic or heartwarming, God and the devil, life lessons, ghosts and spirits, slaves and their enslavers. Many revolve around anthropomorphic animals with the same morals and shortcomings as humans, providing a sense of relatability. New tales voice the African experience in the Americas; however, many tales still maintain the traditional style and tell of their African roots. Although many of the original stories evolved since Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves, their meanings and life lessons have remained the same.
History Enslaved Black people frequently crafted stories featuring animals such as rabbits, foxes, bears, wolves, turtles, snakes, and possums, imbuing them with the traits of the individuals they encountered in the unfamiliar setting of the plantation.
Themes African-American tales place emphasis on beginnings and transformations, whether focused on a character, an event, or the creation of the world. Some examples of origin stories include "How Jackal Became an Outcast" and "Terrapin's Magic Dipper and Whip", which respectively explain the solitary nature of jackals and why turtles have shells.
Trickery and trouble
Tricksters in folk stories are commonly amoral characters, whether human or animal who succeed through deception and exploiting the weaknesses of others. They use their wits to resolve conflict and achieve their goals. Two examples of African-American tricksters are Br'er Rabbit and Anansi.
Tricksters in African-American folktales take a comedic approach and contain underlying themes of inequality, compared to other folktales that label their tricksters as menaces. The National Humanities Center notes that trickster stories "contain serious commentary on the inequities of existence in a country where the promises of democracy were denied to a large portion of the citizenry, a pattern that becomes even clearer in the literary adaptations of trickster figures".
African-American folktales do not always contain an actual trickster. Sometimes, they operate around themes of trickery tactics. For example, Charles Chesnutt collected a series of stories and created The Conjure Woman (1899). One of the trickster's tactics in the story is "how an enslaved man is spared being sent from one plantation to another by having his wife, who is a conjure woman, turns him into a tree. The trickery works until a local sawmill selects that particular tree to cut".
In other tales, personified animals try to imitate the trickster, though it backfires on them. An example is in Crawling Into the Elephant's Belly, in which Yawarri, an anteater, follows Anansi, the trickster, and blackmails him to be brought to the king's elephants. Yawarri's family is starving, and he is upset at Anansi because of all the elephant meat Anansi is eating, which is the king's property. After jumping the wall, Anansi instructs Yawarri on how to get inside the elephant, telling him only to take a small piece of meat from the elephant so the king will not notice. However, since Yawarri is starving, he eats at the inside of the elephant until it dies. At sunrise, the king finds him in the beast's belly and kills him. This shows how an ordinary citizen can get wrapped up in the scheme of a trickster. Other tales that display this theme are "Why They Name the Stories for Anansi" and "A License to Steal", although there are many more.
Comic heartwarming tales Comic and heartwarming African-American folktales "stimulate the imagination with wonders and are told to remind us of the perils and the possibilities." The stories are about heroes, heroines, villains, and fools. Some examples: "The Red Feather": responds to the intertwining of cultures, ending with heroes bringing forth gifts. "Rabbit Rides Wolf": is a story that represents the amalgamation of African and Creek descent where a hero emerges during a time of conflict.
Teaching life lessons African folklore is a means to hand down traditions and duties through generations. Stories are often passed down orally at gatherings by groups of children and elders. This type of gathering was known as "Tales by Midnight"and contained cultural lessons that prepared children for their future. These anthropomorphic animals made the stories compelling to young children, and included singing, dancing, or themes such as greed, honesty, and loyalty.
One example used by generations of storytellers for African children is the "Tale of The Midnight Goat Thief", which originated in Zimbabwe, and is a tale of misplaced trust. A hare betrays the trust of a loyal baboon, framing him for the death of a goat. After the baboon's friend, a jackal, hears about what happened to him, he tries to replicate what the hare did to the baboon to get revenge. However, the hare outwits the jackal and finds a way to counter his actions. When the sun rises, the jackal is caught red-handed with the blood he planned to frame the hare with. The moral of the story is to be loyal and honest, and to not copy the ways of the cunning, as they may outwit you.
Spiritual
Ghosts and spirits African-American tales of ghosts and spirits were commonly told of a "spook" or "haint" or "haunt," referring to repeated visits by ghosts or spirits that keep one awake at night. Another type of haint, or spirit, feared in Gullah culture and connected to Hoodoo is the plat eye. The plat eye is a one-eyed ghost that can morph into various forms. It is said to be conjured when a person buries the head of a murdered man inside a hole with treasure.
The story "Possessed of Two Spirits" recounts a personal experience in conjuring magic powers in both the living and the spiritual world, a common trope in African-American folklore. The story "Married to a Boar Hog" emerged during the American Revolution against the British. The story is of a young woman who marries a supernatural entity, such as a boar, and is saved from her disease, such as leprosy, clubfoot, or yaws. "Married to a Boar Hog" is passed down from British Caribbean slaves in reference to their African origin and the hardships they endured. Night Doctors, although based on some factual occurrences, have been mythical creatures identical to bogeymen.
God and the Devil African-American folktales show how the world was formed and the foundations of morality. Supernatural conflicts between God and the Devil are often the main focus of these tales. However, man versus man, and slave versus master are also popular disputes. There is typically a "negotiator" in these tales who is actively trying to persuade "the judge" to side with their position. However, if the judge, or God, does not like the outcome of the situation, they will often invoke a countermeasure to bring order to the situation. In these tales, the God, or gods, are inherently good and do not invoke wrath upon the people, even if the subject veers off the path of righteousness. Whereas, the devil, or devils, are sometimes a personification of evil. Additionally, there is often a transaction between God and man in these tales, one in which God is willing to help man, but only if the man is "offering sacrifices and performing rites and ceremonies in a manner acceptable to the god".
An example of one of these tales is "Never Seen His Equal". The opening dialogue of this tale discusses how only man has seen his equal, but God has not. It then describes how the devil opposes God and, in Genesis, ultimately manifests himself as a serpent to trick Adam and Eve who reside in the Garden. This tells the story of the fall of man through Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit when tempted by the serpent, and how women now have to have pain in childbirth and men have to work for survival.
Slavery
Although many slaves during this time could not read or write, they could recite folktales as a method of relaying information to each other, sharing vital knowledge that would aid in their survival. In African-American tales, the depiction of slavery often employs a rhetoric that may appear unconventional by modern standards, as the language transmitted across generations deviates from the typical racial narrative. When confronted with the harsh reality of slavery, African-American folktales served as a method to cope with the situation and document their history of slavery in America. An example of a work that conveys the African-American slave experience in America is The Conjure Woman. This collection of short stories, written by African-American author Charles W. Chestnutt, deals with the theme of racial identity from the perspective of a freed slave.
Chesnutt's tales depict the challenges encountered by freed slaves in the post-war South, offering a reflective view on the difficulties of those who were marginalized during this period.
Chesnutt's language surrounding African-American folklore derived from the standards of the racial narrative of his era. By using vernacular language, Chesnutt was able to deviate from the racial norms and formulate a new, more valorized message of folk heroes. Chesnutt writes "on the other side" of standard racial narratives, effectively refuting them by evoking a different kind of "racial project" in his fictional work.
Examples High John de Conqueror