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[CONTENTS]

The Folk-Lore Society
FOR COLLECTING AND PRINTING
RELICS OF POPULAR ANTIQUITIES, &c.

ESTABLISHED IN
THE YEAR MDCCCLXXVIII.

Alter et idem.

PUBLICATIONS
OF
THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY
LV.
[1904]

JAMAICAN SONG AND STORY:

ANNANCY STORIES, DIGGING SINGS, RING
TUNES, AND DANCING TUNES

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
WALTER JEKYLL:
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ALICE WERNER,
AND APPENDICES ON
TRACES OF AFRICAN MELODY IN JAMAICA
BY
C.S. MYERS,
AND ON
ENGLISH AIRS AND MOTIFS IN JAMAICA
BY
LUCY E. BROADWOOD.

Published for the Folk-Lore Society by
DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACRE
LONDON
1907

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Mr. Jekyll's delightful collection of tales and songs from Jamaica suggests many interesting problems. It presents to us a network of interwoven strands of European and African origin, and when these have been to some extent disentangled we are confronted with the further question, to which of the peoples of the Dark Continent may the African element be attributed?

The exact relationship between the "Negro" and Bantu races,—which of them is the original and which the adulterated stock (in other words, whether the adulteration was an improvement or the reverse),—is a subject quite beyond my competence to discuss. It seems certain that the Negro languages (as yet only tentatively classified) are as distinct from the singularly homogeneous and well-defined Bantu family, as Aryan from Semitic. Ibo, at one end of the area, has possible Bantu affinities, which await fuller investigation; the same thing has been conjectured of Bullom and Temne at the other end (Sierra Leone); but these are so slight and as yet so doubtful that they scarcely affect the above estimate.

The difference in West Coast and Bantu folk-tales is not so marked as that between the languages; yet here, too, along with a great deal which the two have in common, we can pick out some features peculiar to each. And Mr. Jekyll's tales, so far as they can be supposed to come from Africa at all, are not Bantu. The name of "Annancy" alone is enough to tell us that.

Annancy, or Anansi is the Tshi (Ashanti)[1] word for "spider"; and the Spider figures largely in the folk-tales of the West Coast (by which we mean, roughly, the coast between Cape Verde and Kamerun), while, with some curious exceptions to be noted later on, he seems to be absent from Bantu folk-lore. His place is there taken by the Hare (Brer Rabbit), and, in some of his aspects, by the Tortoise.

We find the "Brer Rabbit" stories (best known through Uncle Remus) in the Middle and Southern States of America, where a large proportion, at any rate, of the negro slaves were imported from Lower Guinea. Some personal names and other words preserved among them (e.g. "goober" = nguba, the ground-nut, or "pea-nut") can be traced to the Fiote, or Lower Congo language; and some songs of which I have seen the words,[2] look as if they might be Bantu, but corrupted apparently beyond recognition.

But the British West Indies would seem to have been chiefly supplied from Upper Guinea, or the "West Coast" proper (it really faces south, while Loango, Congo, etc., are the "South-West Coast"—a point which is sometimes puzzling to the uninitiated). Among the tribes to be found in Jamaica, Mr. Jekyll tells me are the Ibo (Lower Niger), Coromantin (Gold Coast), Hausa, Mandingo, Moko (inland from Calabar), Nago (Yoruba), and Sobo (Lower Niger).

Mr. Jekyll furnishes a bit of confirmatory evidence in the list of names ([p. 156]) given to children according to the day of the week on which they are born. These are immediately recognizable as Tshi. As given in Christaller's Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (1881), the boys' names are identical or nearly so (allowing for the different systems of spelling) with those in Mr. Jekyll's list. They are: Kwasi, Kwadwo, Kwabena, Kwaku, Kwaw (or Yaw), Kofi, Kwame. (Mr. George Macdonald, in The Gold Coast Past and Present, gives Kwamina, instead of Kwame, probably owing to a difference of dialect.) The girls' names are less easily recognizable, but a careful scrutiny reveals the interesting fact that in some cases an older form seems to have been preserved in Jamaica. Moreover, the sound written w by Christaller approaches that of b, which seems to be convertible with it under certain conditions, all the girls' names being formed by means of the suffix ba = a child. Conversely, ekpo in the mouth of a West Coast native sounds to a casual ear like ekwo.

The boys' names have "Kwa" (= akoa, a man, slave) prefixed to that of the day, or, more correctly speaking, of its presiding genius. These latter are: Ayisi, Adwo, Benã, Wuku, Yaw, Afi, Amin. The names of the days appear to be formed from them by the omission of the initial A (where it exists), and the addition of the suffix da, with some irregularities, which no doubt a fuller knowledge of the language would explain: Kwasida, Dwoda, Benada, Wukuda, Yawda, Fida, Memeneda (Meminda). The week of seven days does not seem to be known elsewhere in Africa, except as a result of Moslem or Christian influence. The Congo week of four days is puzzling, till one remembers that it, too, rests on a division of the lunar month: 7 × 4 instead of 4 × 7.[3]

The Tshi, Ewe and Yoruba languages are genderless, like the Bantu. (The word ba has come to mean "a daughter" when appropriated as a suffix to feminine names; but, properly, it seems to mean "a child" of either sex.) This fact explains the appearance of such personages as "Brother Cow" (see also Mr. Jekyll's note on [p. 107]), and the wild confusion of pronouns sometimes observed: "Annancy really want that gal fe marry, but he couldn' catch him."—"When the gal go, him go meet Brother Death,"—etc.

The few words given as "African" by Mr. Jekyll seem to be traceable to Tshi. "Massoo" (pp. [12], [13]) is mã so = to lift. Afu ("hafoo," "afoo," [p. 18]) is not in Christaller's Dictionary, except as equivalent to "grass," or "herbs"; fufu is a food made from yams or plantains boiled and pounded; perhaps there is some slight confusion. Nyam is not "to eat," but enãm is Tshi for "meat," as nyama (in some form or other) is in every Bantu language. The nonsense-words in the songs may be corrupted from Tshi or some cognate language, but a fuller knowledge of these than I possess would be necessary in order to determine the point.

Transplanted African folk-lore has a peculiar interest of its own, and one is very glad to find Mr. Jekyll doing for Jamaica what Mr. Chandler Harris, e.g. has done for Georgia. But the African element in the stories before us is far less evident than in "Uncle Remus," and is in many cases overlaid and inextricably mixed up with matter of European origin. At least eleven out of the fifty-one stories before us can be set down as imported, directly or indirectly, from Europe. I say directly or indirectly, because an examination of Chatelain's Folk-tales of Angola and Junod's Chants et Contes des Baronga shows that some tales, at any rate, have passed from Portugal to Africa. Such are La fille du Roi (Ronga), which is identical with Grimm's The Shoes that were danced to pieces, and with the Slovak-gypsy story of The Three Girls (Groome, Gypsy Folk-tales, p. 141). But in the absence of more detailed and direct evidence than we yet possess, it would be rash to assume that they have passed to America by way of Africa, rather than that they have been independently transmitted.

The eleven stories above referred to are: [II.] Yung-kyum-pyung, [III.] King Daniel, [VI.] Blackbird and Woss-woss, [X.] Mr. Bluebeard, [XVII.] Man-crow, [XVIII.] Saylan, [XXI.] Tacoma and the Old-witch Girl, [XXVI.] The Three Pigs, [XXXI.] Pretty Poll (another version of [III.]), [XXXIX.] Open Sesame (variant of [VI.]), [VII.] The Three Sisters. But some of these, as I hope to show presently, also have genuine African prototypes, and it is a question how far these fading traditions have been amalgamated with fairy-tales told to the slaves by the children of their European masters. The last named is one of a small group of tales ([VII.], [XXIV.], [XXXIV.], [L.]) which I cannot help referring to a common African original.

By far the greater number of the stories in this book, whether, strictly speaking, "Annancy stories" or not, come under the heading of animal-stories, and are of the same type as "Uncle Remus," Junod's "Roman du Lièvre," and numerous examples from various parts of Africa. It will be remembered that, in most of these, the difference between animals and human beings is not very clearly kept in view by the narrators. As M. Junod says, "Toutes les bêtes qui passent et repassent dans ces curieux récits représentent des êtres humains, cela va sans dire. Ils sont personnalisés par un procédé linguistique qui consiste à mettre devant le nom de l'animal un préfixe de la classe des hommes." (This is a point we must come back to later on.) "Ainsi mpfoundla, le lièvre ordinaire, devient dans le contes Noua-mpfoundla.... La Rainette, c'est Noua-chinana, l'Eléphant, Noua-ndlopfou.... Leurs caractères physiques particuliers sont présents devant l'imagination du conteur pour autant qu'ils donnent du pittoresque au récit. Mais on les oublie tout aussi aisément dès qu'ils ne sont plus essentiels à la narration." This feature constantly meets one in Bantu folk-lore: the hare and the elephant hire themselves out to hoe a man's garden; the swallow invites the cock to dinner and his wife prepares the food, in the usual native hut with the fireplace in the middle and the nsanja staging over it; the hare's wife goes to the river to draw water, and is caught by a crocodile; the tortoise carries his complaint to the village elders assembled in the smithy, and so on. M. Junod seems to me to overrate the conscious artistic purpose in the narrators of these tales: the native mind is quite ready to assume that animals think and act in much the same way as human beings, and this attitude makes it easy to forget the outward distinctions when they appear as actors in a story. No doubt this haziness of view is increased by the popular conception of metamorphosis as a possible occurrence in everyday life. When, as has more than once been the case, we find men firmly believing, not only that they can, under certain circumstances, turn into animals, but that they actually have done so, we may expect them to think it quite easy for animals to turn into men.

The prefix given by the Baronga to animals, when they are, so to speak, personified in tales, may seem a slight point, but it is not without interest. The Yaos in like manner give them the prefix Che (Che Sungula, the Rabbit, Che Likoswe, the Rat, etc.), which, though usually translated "Mr.," is of common gender and used quite as often in addressing women as men. In Chatelain's Angola stories the animals sometimes (not always) have the honorific prefix Na or Ngana, "Mr."; the latter is sometimes translated "Lord." In Luganda folk-lore the elephant (enjovu) is called Wa Njovu. In Zulu, Ucakijana (to whom we shall come back presently) is the diminutive form of i-cakide, the Weasel, put into the personal class. I do not recall anything similar in Nyanja tales, but cannot help connecting with the above the fact that animals, whatever class their names may belong to, are usually treated as persons in the tales. Not to be unduly technical, I would briefly explain that njobvu (elephant) and ng'ona (crocodile) would naturally take the pronoun i, but in the stories (and, I think, sometimes in other cases) they take a, which belongs to the first, or personal class. Now, the reader will notice how often the animals in the stories before us are distinguished as "Mr." or "Bro'er" (cf. pp. [20], [23], [31], [86], etc.), though the Jamaica people seem to be less uniformly polite in this respect than Uncle Remus. "Brer Rabbit" is so familiar as to be taken for granted, as a rule, without further question; but, years before he had become a household word in this country, we find a writer in Lippincott's Magazine[4] remarking, "The dramatis personæ are honoured with the title Buh, which is generally supposed to be an abbreviation of the word 'brother,' but it probably is a title of respect equal to our 'Mr.'" The "but" seems hardly called for, since both assertions are seemingly true. We might also compare the Zulu u Cakijana (1st class), who is human or quasi-human, while i-cakide (2nd class) is the name for the Weasel.

Annancy, then, is the Spider, and as such he is conceived throughout the folk-lore of West Africa. If he seems, as he continually does, to take on a human character, going to Freetown to buy a gun and powder (Cunnie Rabbit, p. 282), or applying to a "Mory man" for amulets (ib. p. 139), he only behaves like all other animals, as explained above. A Temne authority (ib. p. 93) maintains that "Spider was a person" in old times, and did not look the same as he does in these days, "he done turn odder kind of thing now." But this looks like an attempt at rationalising the situation, possibly in response to European inquiries. The change of shape alluded to at the end of the Temne Tar-baby episode is comparatively a minor matter: he was formerly "round lek pusson," but became flattened out through the beating he received while attached to the Wax Girl. In the Gold Coast stories, too, Anansi is quite as much a spider as Brer Rabbit is a rabbit; but in Jamaica, though he still retains traces of his origin, they are somewhat obscured—so much so that Mr. Jekyll speaks (pp. [4]-[5]) of the "metamorphic shape, that of the Spider," which he assumes, as though the human were his real form, the other only an occasional disguise. In "[Annancy and Brother Tiger]" we find that he has to "run up a house-top" to escape the revenge of the monkeys, which accounts for some of his habits to this day. In "[Yung-kyum-pyung]" (a version of Rumpelstilzchen, or Tom Tit Tot), the only hint of his spider character is contained in a mere allusion (quite external to the story) to his "running 'pon him rope." In "[Brother Death]," Annancy and all his family cling to the rafters, hoping to escape from Death; but it scarcely seems in character that they should be incapable of holding on long. They drop, one after another, Annancy last ([p. 33]). He is always in danger from Cows ([p. 107]): "Anywhere Cow see him, he reach him down with his mouth"; and he lives in a banana branch ([p. 119]) for fear of Calcutta Monkey and his whip. His moral character is consistently bad all through; he is a "clever thief"—greedy, treacherous, and cruel, but intellectually he does not uniformly shine. He has to call in the help of a wizard in his love affairs; "Monkey was too clever for him" on more than one occasion; he has to be extricated from the slaughter-house ([p. 23]) by Blackbird and his army of Wasps, and in "[Man-crow]" he is signally discomfited. In other cases his roguery is successful, and he is described as the greatest musician and "the biggest rascal in the world" ([p. 62]). Much the same is the character given to Mr. Spider in "Cunnie Rabbit." Not one amiable trait is recorded of him.

A Gold Coast story,[5] however, shows him arbitrating between a Rat and a Panther in very much the same way as the Yao Che Sungula settles the difficulty between the Man and the Crocodile,[6] making the latter go back into the trap whence he had too confidingly been released, in order to show how it was done. Once having got the ungrateful Panther back into the trap, the Spider advises the Rat to leave him there.

As there is a Gold Coast tradition which affirms the human race to be descended from the Spider,[7] it might be expected that he should sometimes appear in a more favourable light, and also that those peoples who had lost this myth, or never possessed it, should concentrate their attention on the darker side of his character. At the same time, even in what may be called his own home, he does not appear as infallible. A very curious story, given by Zimmermann in his Grammatical Sketch of the Akra or Gâ Language, shows us the Spider and his son in the character of the two sisters who usually figure in tales of the "Holle" type,[8] and, strangely enough, it is the father who, by his wilfulness and indiscretion, forfeits the advantages which the son has gained. During a time of famine the young spider crawls into a rat-hole in search of a nut which has rolled into it, and there meets with three unkempt and unwashed spirits, who desire him to peel some yams and cook the peelings. He does so, and they are changed into large yams. They give him a large basket of yams to carry home, and teach him a spell which is not to be imparted to any one else. He repeatedly obtains supplies from the same source, but at last is followed by his father, who insists on going in his stead. He derides and disobeys the spirits, loses his yams, and is flogged into the bargain.

We have mentioned the comparative absence of the Spider from Bantu folk-lore. I have been able to discover only two references to him in East Africa, both to be found in Duff Macdonald's Africana. The first is in a creation-myth of the Yaos (i. 297), which informs us that when Mulungu was driven from earth by the conduct of mankind, who had set the bush on fire, he went, being unable to climb a tree as the Chameleon had done, to call the Spider. "The spider went on high and returned again, and said, 'I have gone on high nicely,' and he said, 'You now, Mulungu, go on high.' Mulungu then went with the spider on high. And he said, 'When they die, let them come on high here.'" The other is in the story of "The Dead Chief and his Younger Brother" (ii. 322)—also Yao. The dead chief gives his brother four bags to enable him to overcome the obstacles which his enemies put in his way; he opens the first on coming to a large tree in his path—a wood-moth comes out and gnaws a way through. From the second bag comes out a manis (scaly ant-eater), which digs a way under a rock, and from the third (which he opens when he comes to the bank of a river) a spider, which "went to the other side," and, presumably (though this is not expressly stated), made a bridge with its web for him to cross.[9]

Mr. R.E. Dennett (Folklore of the Fjort, p. 74) gives a Lower Congo story, telling how the Spider brought fire down from Nzambi Mpungu in heaven, and won the daughter of Nzambi (Mother Earth) by so doing. In an Angola story (Heli Chatelain, p. 131) the Spider is mentioned as affording a means of communication between heaven and earth, by which the Sun's maidservants go down to draw water, and his daughter is ultimately let down to be married to the son of Kimanaueze. But the Spider only comes in incidentally; it is the Frog whose resourcefulness makes the marriage possible. The notion of the spider's web as a ladder to heaven is one that might occur independently in any part of the world, and there is no need to suppose these tales to be derivatives of the Hausa one given by Schön.[10]

So far, the appearances of the Spider in Bantu folk-tales are so infrequent as to be almost a negligible quantity. We find him, however, playing a tolerably conspicuous part in the folk-lore of the Duala. These, living in the German territory of the Kamerun, may be considered the north-western outpost of the Bantu race, and their language, unmistakable in its general character, has departed, perhaps more widely than any other, from the normal Bantu standard. Herr Wilhelm Lederbogen, formerly of the Government School, Kamerun, has collected a large number of stories, some of which are published in the Transactions of the Berlin Oriental Seminary (see Afrikanische Studien for 1901-1903). These comprise 67 "Tierfabeln" and 18 tales of the ordinary märchen type. The latter (some of them recognizable as variants of tales current in Bantu Africa) introduce animals along with human beings, and the incident of the Spider being consulted as a soothsayer repeatedly occurs. "Die Spinne tritt immer als Wahrsagerin auf" says the collector in a note. But the malignant aspect of Anansi seems to be absent.

The late W.H.J. Bleek, who supposed the animal-stories which he had collected from Hottentots and Bushmen to be characteristic of and peculiar to these races, had built up a somewhat elaborate theory, scarcely borne out by the facts as known to us to-day, in connection with this point. Briefly, it amounted to this: that a fundamental limitation in the Bantu race, which had prevented, and always would prevent, their advancing beyond a certain point, was denoted by the absence of grammatical gender in their languages, their supposed incapacity for personifying nature, and their worship of ancestors, as opposed to the alleged moon-worship of the Hottentots.[11] The Zulus, he says, believe that the spirits of the dead appear to them in dreams, and also show themselves to the waking eye in the shape of animals, usually serpents. "No personification of the animal takes place, however, such as we find, for instance, in the mythical world of our earliest [Teutonic] literature. The imagination of the ancestor-worshipper does not even, as a rule, show us the animal as possessing the gift of human speech; it is only supposed to perform acts well within its capacity as an animal, though such acts are considered, in the case of individual animals supposed to be possessed by the spirits of deceased persons, as emanating from the spirits." Thus, a serpent, known by various tokens to be an idhlozi, may enter a hut and consume the meat left for it, or it may engage in combat with other snakes which must be supposed to represent the enemies of the deceased. Animals thus revered by ancestor-worshippers always have the distinguishing characteristic that they have once been human beings; and spirits, unless they appear as animals, are always invisible. "A personification of the animal world (such as we find in our own fables), or even of other things (as in the mythologies of Europe), is utterly absent from this primitive, prosaic way of looking at things." The poetic impulse implied in such personification can only arise, in Bleek's view, among the speakers of a sex-denoting language. The linguistic argument I cannot here reproduce in detail; its tendency is sufficiently shown by the following quotation, which bears directly on our subject:

"The form of a sex-denoting language, by exciting sympathy even for creatures not connected with us by human fellowship, leads in the first instance to the humanization of animals, and thus especially gives rise to the creation of fables. Even on the lowest stage of national development, we find the Hottentot language accompanied by a literature of fables, for which we may vainly seek a parallel in the literatures of the prefix-pronominal languages."

The validity of Bleek's theory was seriously doubted by the late Dr. C.G. Büttner, in 1886, and the masses of fresh material which have come to light during the last forty years, have completely altered the aspect of the question. The Hottentot myth of the Hare and the Moon, to take but one example, which appears among the Zulus as the tale of Unkulunkulu and the Chameleon, is told by the Anyanja (of the Shire Highlands and Lake Nyasa) of the Chameleon. The Duala have the same Chameleon story; and there is a Gold Coast version, in which the two messengers are the Sheep, who linger on the way to graze, and the Goat, who arrives first with the tidings that man shall not return after death. The Krūmen of the Ivory Coast say that Nemla (a small antelope probably representing, if not identical with, the "Cunnie Rabbit" of Sierra Leone), maliciously, not accidentally, rendered inoperative the remedy against death provided by the fetich Blenyiba. Who is responsible for the original version it is perhaps impossible to settle. But there can be no question of recent borrowing; and supposing that the Bantu did derive the myth from their predecessors (now represented by the remnant of the Bushmen, and perhaps the Pygmies), this would surely prove them at least capable of assimilating fresh ideas and thus advancing beyond the line so inexorably traced for them from the beginning. It may be remarked in passing that there seems some probability of the Bantu Anyanja in the Shire district having largely absorbed, instead of exterminating as was elsewhere the case, a smaller-sized race who previously occupied the country. In the same way, the Abatembu of the Cape Colony are the descendants of a Bantu clan amalgamated with the Bushman tribe of the 'Tambuka, and traces of similar fusion could no doubt be discovered elsewhere. But we doubt its being necessary to the introduction of animal-stories into folk-lore,—or, in general, of ideas connected with the personification of nature.

The Zulu tales which Bleek had before him present a character very different from that of the Hottentot beast-fables. But a comparative study of Bantu folk-lore suggests at least the possibility that they may have been developed out of animal-stories. Hlakanyana is conceived of as certainly human, and reminds us of Tom Thumb; but some of his adventures are identical with those of the Hare, the Jackal, or Brer Rabbit. Cakijana shows still clearer traces of animal origin. The episode of Hlakanyana's demanding a digging-stick in exchange for the birds he accuses his companion of having eaten, and the sequence of exchanges which culminates in his acquiring a cow,[12] is in substance the same as the story told by the Anyanja about the Hare (kalulu) which was given in Folk-Lore for Sept. 29th, 1904. This again reminds us of "The Man who Lived by Overreaching Others" (Dr. Elmslie in Folk-Lore, vol. iii.), and of a Sukuma story given by Herrmann,[13] in which a boy gives his grandmother some honey to keep for him, and, coming back after a time, and finding she has eaten it, makes her give him some corn in exchange. The corn is then exchanged for an egg, the egg for sticks, the sticks for a knife, and the knife for a cow's tail, for which, by the same trick as in Dr. Elmslie's story, he obtains a cow. There is no suggestion of trickery in the Nyanja story, whereas it is brought out very strongly both in Hlakanyana and the Sukuma example.

We shall have occasion to refer, later on, to more than one instance where a story is found in two forms, one having animals, the other human beings, as its characters.

The animals figuring in folk-tales must necessarily vary with the locality of the tale, and in cases where a story has travelled (or possibly where the same idea has arisen independently in different places) it is interesting to note the changes in its dramatis personæ. Thus, the incident of the race between the swift creature and the slow seems to be found in the folk-lore of every country. In Africa the winner is always, so far as I know, the Tortoise, as Brer Terrapin is in "Uncle Remus." The Jamaica version in the volume before us substitutes the Toad, while the defeated party is the Donkey. In a Konde (North Nyasa) variant, the protagonists are the Elephant and the Tortoise, in a Duala one, the Ngoloñ (a large kind of Antelope) and the Tortoise. Another version of the Duala story, contained in Märchen aus Kamerun, by the late Frau Elli Meinhof, has the Hare and the Tortoise, but with the explanation that by "hare" is meant "eine kleine Antilopenart, eseru genannt." The curious thing is that Njo Dibone, the native authority for the tales, himself suggested the name of "hare," but added "Hase ist nicht wie hier,[14] sondern hat kleine Hörner." It is not stated whether he had himself seen the European hare, but apparently he thought the two animals so far similar that Hase would be the nearest available rendering for eseru. This may throw some light on the question why the Dorcatherium gazelle, or possibly the Royal Antelope, Neotragus, is called "Cunnie Rabbit" in Sierra Leone English.

The Tortoise plays a conspicuous part in the folk-lore both of Bantu and West African Negroes. In Yoruba tradition he takes the place of the Spider with the Fantis, all mankind being descended from him. Perhaps this is not strange, when we consider how much there is about him which would appeal to the primitive mind as uncanny and mysterious. A recent writer in the West African Mail[15] says on this subject: "The original conception of the tortoise culminated in a belief concerning its attributes that, in the eyes of these [Niger] Delta natives, elevated it to the sovereignty of the beasts of the forest.... Absolutely harmless and inoffensive in himself, the tortoise does not prey on even the smallest of insects, but subsists entirely on the fallen fruits of the forest"—or, in some cases, on fungi. "In the gloomy forests of the Delta there are only two enemies capable of doing him any serious harm. The one is man, who is able to lift him up and carry him bodily away, which, however, he does not do, except in those instances in which the animal is regarded as sacred, and required in connection with certain religious ceremonies. His other and most dangerous enemy is the python, who having first of all crushed him by means of the enormous power of constriction which it can apply, swallows him alive, shell and all. But pythons large enough to do this, unless the tortoise happens to be very young and small, are very scarce, so that he has not much to apprehend in that quarter. To the elephant—herbivorous, like himself—he is too insignificant, for unlike the mosquito or the sand-fly, he has no sting; and although they meet in fable, in real life the hippopotamus and himself are not much thrown together. From the leopard or the bush-cat, he has nothing to fear, for their teeth cannot penetrate his shell, nor can [their] claws do him any damage. Thus it is that ... the tortoise has been practically immune from attack and therefore destruction—a fact that in a great measure explains his longevity."

If we add to this his power of living for a long time without food, his silence, the extreme slowness and caution of his movements, his instinct of keeping out of sight, and the peculiar air of dogged determination with which he sets about overcoming or circumventing obstacles, it is "easy to understand how in process of time the word which stood for tortoise became a synonym for cunning and craft, and a man of exceptional intelligence was in this way known among the Ibo as 'Mbai,' and among the Ibani as 'Ekake,' meaning a tortoise. For although he of the shell-back was slow, he was sure, as the old Greek Aesop tells us.... This sureness, in the native mind, implied doggedness and a fixed determination, while silence and secrecy implied mystery and a veiled purpose behind which it is impossible to get."

The tortoise of African folk-lore is sometimes, in fact usually, the land-tortoise (as implied in the above extracts), of which there are several species, living either in forest-country or in deserts like the Kalahari. In Angola, the story of "Man and Turtle" (Chatelain, p. 153—identical with "Mr. Fox tackles Old Man Tarrypin" in "Uncle Remus") refers to a kind which, if not aquatic, is evidently amphibious. We find tortoise stories all over Negro and Bantu Africa; we have Temne, Bullom, and Yoruba examples, besides Duala, Konde (Nyasa), Yao, Nyanja, Herero, Bemba, Congo (Upoto), Angola and Sesuto ones. This does not exhaust the list I have made out, and further research would no doubt bring to light many more. One of these is the well-known "tug-of-war" story, which in "Uncle Remus" has the title "Mr. Terrapin shows his strength." We have two versions of this (agreeing in their main points) from the Kamerun, one told by the Duala, the other by the Yabakalaki-Bakoko tribe. Here it is the Elephant and the Hippopotamus whom the Tortoise induces to pull against each other. The American Negro substitutes the Bear for one of these competitors, and then, apparently at a loss for a wild animal strong enough to take the place of the other, makes "Brer Tarrypin" tie "Miss Meadows's bed-cord" to a root in the bed of the stream. But it is interesting to find two native African versions in which other animals are substituted for the Tortoise. The Temne (Cunnie Rabbit, p. 117) gives his part to the Spider, while the Bemba people (North-eastern Rhodesia) make the Hare the hero of the adventure. Col. Monteil gives a Mandingo variant, introducing a different motive for the contest: the Hare has borrowed a slave apiece from the Elephant and the Hippopotamus, and when pressed for payment hands each of his competitors in turn the end of a rope, with the words, "Tu n'as qu'à tirer sur cette corde, le captif est au bout."[16]

Another Temne story collected by Miss Cronise, "Mr. Turtle makes a riding-horse of Mr. Leopard," is paralleled by an Angola one (Chatelain, p. 203) in which it is Mr. Frog who plays the trick on Mr. Elephant. In the New World, it will be remembered that Brer Rabbit has usurped the part.

In M. René Basset's Anthology of African Folk-tales[17] is included a tale about a monkey and a tortoise from Baissac's Folklore de l'Ile Maurice which recalls a Nyanja one obtained by me at Blantyre and printed in the Contemporary Review for September, 1896. In the latter it is the iguana, not the monkey who robs the Tortoise; but in both, the Tortoise exacts retribution with a cold-blooded relentlessness suggestive of Shylock. A Brazilian negro story is also given, which looks like a variant of one told in Calabar to account for the fact that the Tortoise's shell is composed of separate plates, as though it had been broken to pieces and put together again.

But we look in vain for the tortoise in these stories of Mr. Jekyll's. Even in the race-story, as we have seen, the part which in Africa is so peculiarly his own, is taken by the Toad. Probably this is because the land-tortoise is not found in Jamaica, and the great turtle of the seas is not a creature whose ways would come under the daily observation of the peasantry. In the same way familiar animals have been substituted for unfamiliar ones in a great many cases, though not in all. Mr. Jekyll thinks "Tiger" is a substitute for "Lion," but it seems equally possible that "Leopard" is meant. All over South Africa, leopards are called "tigers" by Dutch, English, and Germans, just as hyenas are called "wolves," and bustards "peacocks" (paauw). "Tiger" is used in the same sense in German Kamerun, and probably elsewhere in West Africa. Lion and elephant are known—perhaps by genuine tradition—to Uncle Remus; but they seem to have faded from the recollection of the Jamaica negroes; indeed, the lion is not found in their original homes, being absent from the whole West Coast as far as Sierra Leone.

"Brer Rabbit," so characteristic a figure of Bantu folk-lore that his adventures are related from one side of Africa to the other (though in the west he is less frequently met with north of Angola), only appears in two of Mr. Jekyll's stories, in none of which we can recognize anything of his traditional character. In "[Annancy and his Fish-pot]," he is unscrupulously victimised by Annancy, and subsequently dies of fright and worry; in "[Snake the Postman]," he escapes from Annancy's machinations, but there is no indication that he could ever be considered a match for "that cravin' fellah." In "[John Crow and Fowl-hawk]" he is merely alluded to ([p. 142], "This company was Rabbit"). In "[Dry Bone]," he is induced by Guinea-pig to carry the unwelcome load, but succeeds in passing it on, for the time being, to Annancy. Finally, in "[Gaulin]," he cuts a poor figure as the unsuccessful suitor. A Bantu story by no means complimentary to the Hare's intelligence is given by M. Junod,[18] and seems to have reached Louisiana[19] as "Compair Lapin et Michié Dinde," where the Rabbit gets his head cut off under the belief that the Turkey has removed his when he puts it under his wing to sleep. M. Junod thinks this must refer to a second species of Hare, a by-word for stupidity, as the other is for cuteness; but it is at least worth noting that the same story is told by the Basumbwa (south of Lake Victoria) of the Hen and the Tiger-cat.

Besides Annancy himself, and the "Tiger" already mentioned, we have, in these stories, either domestic or quasi-domestic animals: Cow, Hog, Dog, Puss, "Ratta," etc., or creatures indigenous to Jamaica, such as John-Crow, Chicken-Hawk, Sea-Gaulin, Candle-Fly, Crab and Tarpon. Some stories, for which I fail to recall any exact parallel, either in Africa or Europe, may be of purely local origin; this is most likely to be true of those which profess to explain some elementary fact in natural history, such as the inability of two bulls to agree in one pasture ("[Timmolimmo]"), or the hostility between dogs and cats. Even were this not so, the amount of local colour introduced (as always where tales are transmitted orally) could change them almost beyond recognition. This often has a very quaint effect, as in "[Parson Puss and Parson Dog]," who are evidently conceived as ministers of some rival Methodist denominations, and in the references to weddings, funerals, and dances possibly ending up with a free fight, as in "[Gaulin]," "[How Monkey manage Annancy]," "[Doba]," etc. Annancy's inviting the animals to his father's funeral and slaughtering them (with the exception of Monkey, who is too clever for him) reminds us of the Temne "Mr. Leopard fools the other animals,"[20] but in this, Leopard himself pretends to die. Cunnie Rabbit's test, "Die pusson nebber blow," is less ingenious than that applied by Brer Rabbit in "Uncle Remus:"[21] "When a man go to see dead folks, dead folks allers raises up der behime leg en hollers wahoo!" (In Mr. Owen's version, they "grin and whistle.") In the Sesuto story[22] the Monkey suspects a trick and escapes, when the Hare persuades the Lion to entrap the other animals by shamming death. Perhaps the baptism of the crabs ("[Annancy in Crab Country]") may be connected with "Mr. Spider initiates the fowls,"[23] where the Temne Spider, assuming for the nonce a quasi-religious character, gathers his victims together to celebrate the Bundo mysteries, and massacres them wholesale.

"[Annancy and Hog]" (XXXII.) is a fragmentary story, not very easy to understand as we have it, but something has evidently dropped out. The sentence "An' when Hog think him done up Annancy him done up him own mother" may point to some original similar to the Fiote story given by Mr. Dennett, in which the Leopard's wife is induced to eat her husband's head.[24] But in that case it is difficult to understand the connection with the opening incidents.

In "[John-Crow and Fowl-hawk]" (XLVI.) we may have a reminiscence of the class of stories represented by the Yao "Kalikalanje," in which an unborn child is promised by the mother in return for a service rendered her by some person or animal. The resemblance, however, is not very marked, and the incident is quite lost sight of in the later part of the story.

"[Annancy and Death]" is curious, and, as it stands, not very intelligible. Death, as a person, is introduced into several African stories,[25] and even (in one from the Ivory Coast) together with the Spider, but none of these have anything parallel with the one before us. The last part, however, where Annancy and his children are clinging to the rafters, and Death waiting for them below, recalls the story to be found on pp. 224-226 of Cunnie Rabbit. The Spider and his family take refuge in the roof when pursued by the Leopard, and he sits on the ground and catches them as they drop one by one. Last of all, the wife, Nahker, "he say he done tire, en Spider say: 'Yo' wey (= who) big so? Fa' down now, yo' go get de trouble.' Nahker fa' down, Lepped yeat um. Spider he one lef' hang." He escapes, however.

In "[Dummy]," Annancy wins a bet and the hand of the King's daughter by inducing "Peafowl" to make the dumb man talk. This "Peafowl" does by the sweetness of his song; but in a Duala story given by Lederbogen as "Der Tausendfuss und das stumme Kind," the means adopted more nearly resemble the time-honoured recipes for detecting changelings in this country. The Mouse advised the dumb child's parents to consult the Spider, who told them to hang up a centipede over the fireplace, set on a pot of water just underneath it, and leave the child sitting beside the fire. They did so, and went out. As soon as the steam rose from the water, the centipede, feeling the heat, began to struggle, and the dumb child watching it cried out in his excitement, "Father! there is a centipede going to fall into the pot."

"[William Tell]" is puzzling. There is no single point of contact between the owner of the witch-tree and the mythical archer of Europe. It is most probable that the name (a likely one to remain in the memory) had been picked up by some negro story-teller who did not know the tale belonging to it and simply attached it to the first character that came handy. The "sings" by means of which Annancy fells the tree occur frequently in native African stories; we need only mention the incident (found not only in the Xosa "Bird that made Milk," but in a Duala tale, and elsewhere) of the song which made the hoed garden return to grass and weeds, and that of Simbubukwana's sister[26] who sang "Have legs, have arms," and the boy who was without those members immediately grew them. The notion of spells to be sung, however, does not seem to be confined to any country or race.

I do not remember any exact parallel to "[Dry River]" (XXXIII.), but the incident of the river rising is found in Africa with several different sequels. In a Nyanja story which I have in MS., some children go out into the bush to gather wild fruit, and are cut off on their return by the rising of the river. They are helped across by "a big bird, with one wing, one eye and one leg" (one of the "half-beings"[27] whose place in Bantu folk-lore has not yet been fully worked out), and charged not to tell who took them over. One boy tells his mother, and is drowned on the next expedition, his companions getting across in safety. In "The Village Maiden and the Cannibal" (Mrs. Martin's Basutoland, its Legends and Customs), the girls cannot cross the swollen stream till they have thrown a large root into the water, and complied with the directions. The last girl, who is reluctant to obey, but finally gives in, is not drowned, but she and her sister have an adventure with cannibals of a not uncommon kind, which may be referred to Mr. Jacobs's "Flight from Witchcraft" type. Two other stories, a Kinga (North-east Nyasa) and a Machame (Kilimanjaro) one, have the same opening incident (in the one case, however, it is a rock and not a river which enlarges itself and blocks the way), but continue in quite a different way—the girls are helped by an animal (in one case a jackal, in another a hyena) who subsequently insists on marrying one of them. The Machame tale, to which we shall have to return presently, as it belongs to the group to which we refer "[Yellow Snake]" and some others, goes on to relate how the girl escaped from the hyena's village; the Kinga one takes an entirely different course.

"[Leah and Tiger]" is one of the stories which can be most unhesitatingly identified as African; and, as it happens, the examples at present known to me are nearly all Bantu. Perhaps the closest parallel is the Suto "Tselane" (Jacottet, p. 69),[28] where, however, the girl, instead of being secluded by her father to avoid the trouble which her refusal to marry threatens to bring upon him, herself insists on staying in the house her parents are leaving. As in the Jamaica version, they bring her food every day, and sing to let her know of their approach. The cannibal on the prowl (represented in Jamaica by the "tiger") imitates the mother's voice, but fails; after swallowing a red-hot hoe, he succeeds at the first trial. He does not eat Tselane, however, and so end the story with a warning against obstinacy; he puts her into a bag to carry her home, and rests on his way at a hut, which proves to be her uncle's. While he is resting inside the hut, leaving his bag outside, the family discover the girl and let her out, substituting a dog and some biting ants. In other versions it is bees and wasps, or snakes and toads; but the result is always the same—the death of the cannibal. The incident of swallowing red-hot iron to soften the voice is found also in "Demane and Demazana" (Theal) and elsewhere. In a curious Masai story, "The Old Man and his Knee" (Hollis, The Masai: Language and Folklore, p. 153), the "enemies" (not said to be cannibals) carry off the old man's two children by means of the same stratagem. After failing in the first attempt they consult a medicine-man to find out how they can "make their voices resemble an old man's." He tells them merely to go back, and eat nothing on the road. They eat a lizard and an ant, and their voices do not produce the desired effect. On trying again, and this time complying exactly with the doctor's directions, they deceive the children and get the door opened. This incident is preserved in "Leah," and, like the Masai "enemies," Tiger thinks that such a trifle as the guava and "duckanoo" cannot possibly do any harm. The Masai story concludes with the killing of the old man by making him swallow a hot stone—an incident which crops up in various connections in the Hare stories, but seems out of its place in this one. On the whole (though I do not like to hazard a conjecture) it seems more probable that the Masai had picked up this tale from some of their Bantu neighbours than that the Bantu should have adopted it from them.

As regards the imported stories, it seems reasonably clear that "[Yung-Kyum-Pyung]" is a "Rumpelstiltzchen" story which has accidentally become associated with Annancy. Though the superstition on which these stories are based exists in Africa as well as in other parts of the world, and is one of the factors in the custom of hlonipa, I do not remember any tale embodying it in this form, though there are numerous examples of those which turn a tabu of some sort.

"[King Daniel]" is the story of the jealous sister, best known, perhaps, in the ballad of "Binnorie." But it has African prototypes as well, though the resemblance to these is not so close, in which the crime is discovered by the song of a bird—sometimes the metamorphosed heart of the victim. In "Masilo and Masilonyane" and the Kinga "Die Reiherfeder,"[29] one brother (or companion) kills the other; in "Unyengebule" (Callaway) the husband kills the wife, and here it is her feather head-dress which turns into a bird. "[Pretty Poll]" (XXXI.) is a variant of this story.

Another pair of variants, apparently, are "[Blackbird and Woss-woss]" and "[Open Sesame]." But the former of these, it seems to me, corresponds much more closely with a Nago story of the Lizard and the Tortoise, given by M. Basset (Contes populaires d'Afrique, p. 217); and it should be remembered that the Nagos of Yoruba are one of the tribes represented among the Jamaica negroes. The lizard finds a rock containing a store of yams, and overhearing the words used by the owner "Stone, open!" obtains food for himself in time of famine. He imparts the secret to the tortoise, and they go together, but the tortoise lingers behind to load himself with all he can carry, and not knowing the word fails to get out, and is killed when the owner returns. He revives, however, and gets the cockroach to stick his shell together, thus presenting a point of contact with other aetiological myths about the Tortoise. The rescue by the army of wasps I have been unable to match.

"[Man-crow]" is the story, which exists in so many variants, where the hero is robbed of the fruit of his achievement by an impostor stepping in at the last minute. The nearest parallel which occurs to me is "Rombao" (probably obtained from a Portuguese source by the Quilimane natives who related it to Mr. Duff Macdonald), where the hero kills the whale and cuts out its tongue; the captain who finds it dead claims his reward, but is discomfited by Rombao's appearance with the tongue.

"[The Three Pigs]" will be readily recognized as the familiar English story, and corresponds pretty closely to the version in Mr. Jacobs's English Fairy Tales. A version current among the negroes of the Southern States is given by Mr. Owens in the paper in Lippincott's Magazine already referred to. This version, entitled "Tiny Pig," omits the two incidents of the apple-tree and the butter-churn; but curiously enough these appear as "Buh Rabbit" episodes in another part of the same paper, the apple-tree having become a pear-tree, and the churn a tin mug which Buh Rabbit puts over his head, while he hangs various articles of tinware about his person.

"[Sea-Mahmy]" introduces several different elements. The mermaid herself is probably of European extraction,[30] and the device by which Blackbird brings Annancy to the feeding-tree might be a far-off echo of the Daedalus and Icarus myth. But Annancy's trick for conveying Trapong to his house and eating him recalls one of the stock incidents of Bantu folk-lore—the one where Hlakanyana, or the Hare, or some other creature, induces his dupe to get burnt or boiled by pretending to undergo the process himself and to escape with impunity. The Suto Hare[31] commends this as a device for attaining immortality—in which there is a faint suggestion of Medea's caldron. I was at first disposed to refer this episode to the "Big Klaas and Little Klaas" (or the "Getting-to-Heaven-in-a-Sack") group; but the inducement to enter the sack, which is so great a point in these, is here wanting. It is found in a Zanzibar story ("Abu Nuwasi na waziri na Sultani") in Dr. Velten's collection,[32] where Abu Nuwas is sewn up into a sack to be thrown into the sea, and induces another man to take his place by saying that he is to be drowned for refusing to marry the Sultan's daughter. This is evidently an Arab tale, though I do not remember it in the Arabian Nights.

The exotic tales to be found in Bantu Africa come mainly from two sources—Arab and Portuguese. The former is exemplified at Zanzibar and all down the Mozambique coast; the latter in Angola and Mozambique. We have already referred to an example obtained at Delagoa Bay by M. Junod; but "Bonaouaci" (Chants et Contes, p. 292), though the names are Portuguese, and the local colouring goes so far as to introduce the Governor of Mozambique in person, is in substance identical with one of the "Abu Nuwas" stories given by Dr. Velten, the incident of the egg-production being nearly the same in both, as well as the two other impossible tasks set the hero—sewing a stone and building a house in the air. I fancy the same is the case with "Djiwao," though the incidents have been a good deal remodelled, and the concluding episode—the boiling of the chief Gwanazi in the pot he had intended for Djiwao, is the purely Bantu one alluded to in the last paragraph—in a somewhat unusual setting. "Les trois vaisseaux,"[33] again, is an Arabian Nights story, of which a curious version has been obtained at Domasi, probably brought from the coast by some member of a Yao trading caravan. Mr. Dennett's No. III., "How the wives restored their husband to life," looks like a much altered and localized form of this. If so it might have reached the Congo through the Portuguese. We also find it on the Ivory Coast[34] where it might have come from an Arab source through Mandingoes or Hausas.

The stories of "Fenda Maria" and "Fenda Maria and her elder brother Nga Nzuá"[35] ("The Three Citrons" and "Cinderella"), are good examples of transplanted stories invested with local colour by successive generations of narrators, till, as Mr. Chatelain says, "the fundamental idea of exotic origin has been so perfectly covered with Angola foliage and blossoms, that science alone can detect the imported elements, and no native would believe that [these tales] are not entirely Angolan."

A curious stage in the migration of stories is exemplified by the "Taal" (or Cape Dutch) versions of Oriental stories imported into South Africa by the Malays, and existing in a purely traditional form among the coloured people. One of these was printed by Mr. H.N. Müller in De Gids for Jan., 1900, but I think hardly any attempt has been made to collect them. And here I may mention that Herr Seidel's Lieder und Geschichten der Afrikaner[36] contains a Nama version of the Lear story, taken down and translated by Herr Olpp, of the Rhenish Mission, who seems quite unaware of its real origin, in spite of the very obvious parallel in Grimm's Hausmärchen. He says in a note: "Diese Begebenheit kann sich nur in der Kap-Kolonie ereignet haben zu einer Zeit in welcher Kolonisten sich schon angesiedelt hatten und unter den Eingeborenen wohnten. Der Name der Tochter spricht dafür und enstammt dem Holländischen." Now the youngest daughter's name is "Katje Leiro"—surely, all things considered, not such a very far cry from Cordelia.

It is interesting to trace the African elements in these imported tales as distinct from those which are merely derived from West Indian surroundings. Thus Mr. Bluebeard's three-legged horse (compare also the three-legged horse in "[Devil and the Princess]") is, as explained in the footnote, a "duppy"; and the duppy, whatever the derivation of his name, seems to be West African in origin. Duppies are the souls of the dead, "capable of assuming various forms of men and other animals."[37] Some of these forms are monstrous, as the "three-foot horse" already alluded to, the "long-bubby Susan," and the "rolling calf." The informant who is responsible for these statements also says that "the duppy in human form generally moves along by spinning or walking backwards." Perhaps this may explain the mysterious "[Wheeler]" (LI.) who has his habitation in a hollow tree, and seizes the hand of any unwary person who puts it into the hole. What he would have done if not requested to "Wheel me mile an' distant," remains obscure; but apparently the persons making the request are whirled through the air and then dropped at the place where Annancy (who has previously passed through the experience unscathed) has prepared a trap for them. The story suggests—though the resemblance is not very close—the episode of "The Stone that wore a Beard" in Cunnie Rabbit (p. 167), where the Spider, having had a narrow escape from the magic powers of the bearded stone (a transformed "devil") utilises them for the destruction of his acquaintances. Those who remark on the peculiarity of the stone are struck down unconscious, and Spider exercises all his ingenuity in inducing his victims to say, "Dah stone get plenty bear'-bear'!" Cunnie Rabbit will not say the words till Spider has himself done so, and has suffered the consequences; both are afterwards rescued by Trorkey (Tortoise). Somewhat similar to "[Wheeler]" is the magic jar in [XLV.]—which might, however, be due to a distorted reminiscence of "[Bluebeard]." Spirits are often believed on the Gold Coast to take up their abode in trees, as well as to assume the form of animals. The usual Tshi name for them appears to be bonsum or bossum: the word "duppy" I have been unable to trace.

The method of divination in "[Mr. Bluebeard]" is one I do not remember to have met with, though it may be akin to the "magic mirror of ink." The magic drum by which Calcutta Monkey ([XXXVIII.]) finds out Annancy's whereabouts is African. I do not recall any parallel story, but drums are much used by witch-doctors and in ceremonial dances, and in some cases auguries are drawn from their sound. But Monkey first discovers Annancy to be the thief by cutting the cards, which of course is European.

Two stories, "[Annancy and the Old Lady's Field]" (XVI.) and "[Devil's Honeydram]," introduce the incident of a woman compelled to dance against her will—in one case to dance herself to death. In both cases the music seems to be the compelling power; but it is not clear whether, in "Devil's Honeydram," the knowledge (and use in the song) of the woman's name has anything to do with the spell. If so, the idea is so universal that one can scarcely refer to it as specially African. It is interesting, though perhaps scarcely pertinent to the matter in hand, to note that the Akikuyu believe their images (of which Mr. Scoresby Routledge has brought home specimens) to have the power, if held up before people, of compelling them to dance.

The folk-lore of Jamaica, as given in the interesting papers published in Folk-Lore, 1904-5, is decidedly of a composite character. The negroes have, as there pointed out (1904, p. 87), "adopted many of the most trivial of English superstitions," while at the same time preserving some reminiscences of their African beliefs. These are especially seen in the notions respecting "duppies," which again are perceptibly influenced by Christian ideas, cf. the efficacy of the name of Christ (p. 90) and the statement that the "rolling calf" is the spirit of a person not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell, or the recipe of "sitting on a Bible" to get rid of a duppy. The directions for "killing a thief" (p. 92) belong to the system (universal throughout Negro and Bantu Africa) of guarding crops by means of "medicine," or "fetish," or whatever one likes to call it: the technical name in Chinyanja is chiwindo. I do not remember any of the particular forms of chiwindo here enumerated; and the silver threepence to be planted with the "guinea yam" is a civilized addition, but the principle is the same. The methods of "finding out the thief," on the other hand, which follow on p. 93, are certainly English—the Bible and key, and the gold ring, hair and tumbler of water. There is a third alternative:—"A curious kind of smoke, which, when it rises, goes to the house of the thief, etc."—but it is too vaguely stated to enable us to pronounce upon it.

Among funeral customs we find the following (p. 88): "If a person dies where there are little children, after the body is put into the coffin, they will lift up each little child, and calling him by name, pass him over the dead body." According to a Sierra Leone paper this custom is observed there; but it is not stated by which of the tribes who make up the extremely mixed population. It may even be found on investigation that some of the freed slaves brought the notion back from the New World. The same authority states that it is considered unlucky to whistle, and adds the rationalizing explanation that whistling attracts snakes, lizards, and other undesirable creatures into the house. In Jamaica, you must not "whistle in the nights, for duppies will catch your voice."

The proportion of native and acquired, or African and European ideas in these superstitions can only be determined by a much more detailed examination than I can make here, and one based on fuller materials than are yet accessible.

In conclusion, I would briefly glance at five stories which I have grouped together as derived from a common African original, and which present several features of interest, though I am unable to examine them as much in detail as I should like to do. These are "[The Three Sisters]" (VII.), "[Gaulin]" (XXIV.), "[Yellow Snake]" (XXXIV.), "[John Crow]" (XLIII.), and "[Devil and the Princess]" (LI.). The type to which these may be referred resembles the one registered by Mr. Jacobs as the "Robber-Bridegroom"; but the African prototypes are certainly indigenous, and it might seem as if the stories Mr. Jacobs had in view were late and comparatively civilized versions of the corresponding European and Asiatic ones, the Robber being the equivalent of an earlier wizard or devil, who, in the primitive form of the story, was simply an animal assuming human shape. The main incidents of the type-story are as follows:

(1) A girl obstinately refuses all suitors.

(2) She is wooed by an animal in human form, and at once accepts him.

(3) She is warned (usually by a brother) and disregards the warning.

(4) She is about to be killed and eaten, but is saved by the brother whose advice was disregarded.

A Nyanja variant of this story, where the bridegroom is a hyena, corresponds very closely with the Temne "Marry the devil, there's the devil to pay" (Cunnie Rabbit, p. 178)—even to the little brother who follows the newly-wedded couple, against the wishes of the bride, and who is afflicted—in the one case with "craw-craw," in the other with sore eyes. A translation of the Nyanja story may be found in the Contemporary Review for September, 1896. In Mrs. Dewar's Chinamwanga Stories (p. 41) there is a variant,—"Ngoza,"—where the husband is a lion. In the Machame story, previously alluded to, the hyena, having befriended a girl, marries her, and she escapes with some difficulty from being eaten by his relations. Yet another variant is "Ngomba's Balloon" in Mr. Dennett's Folklore of the Fjort. Here the husband is a Mpunia (translated "murderer")—apparently a mere human bad character, and Ngomba escapes by her own ingenuity.

In the Jamaican stories it strikes one that the idea of transformation is somewhat obscured. We are told how "[Gaulin]" (Egret) and "[John Crow]" provide themselves with clothes and equipages—the latter a carriage and pair, the former the humbler local buggy;—and this seems to constitute the extent of their disguise. Yellow Snake is said to "change and fix up himself"—but the expression is vague. Gaulin, however, can only be deprived of his clothes (and so made to appear in his true shape) by means of a magic song. The "old-witch" brother, who has overheard the song, plays its tune at the wedding and thus exposes the bridegroom, who flies out at the door. "John-Crow" is detected by a Cinderella-like device of keeping him till daylight, and his hurried flight through the window (in which he scraped the feathers off his head on the broken glass) explains a characteristic feature of these useful but unattractive birds.

In neither of these is the bride in any danger: but in "[Yellow Snake]" her brothers save her when already more than half swallowed; in "[Devil and the Princess]," she escapes by the aid of the Devil's cook, who feeds the watchful cock on corn soaked in rum. In this story, too, it is not the girl's brother, but the "old-witch" servant-boy, who warns her; and, as he is cast into prison for his pains, he has no hand in the release. In two cases ("[Gaulin]" and "[John Crow]") Annancy is one of the unsuccessful suitors, and, in the former, "Rabbit" is another. (He, apparently, takes no steps to change his shape, being rejected on the ground that he is "only but a meat," i.e., an animal.) In the Nyanja story, Leopard and Hare are mentioned as meeting with refusals, before the Hyena arrives on the scene. "[The Three Sisters]," while keeping one or two points of the original story, is much altered, and seems to have introduced some rather unintelligible fragments of an English ballad (as to which see [Appendix], [p. 286]). The Snake is never accepted; and the youngest of the sisters, who answers him on behalf of all, would seem to represent the "old-witch" brother who detects his true character. His "turning into a devil" is another alien element—perhaps due to Biblical recollections, and the concluding assertion that he "have chain round his waist until now" seems to refer to something which has dropped out, as there is no previous allusion to a chain in the story as it stands. Of all the five, "[Yellow Snake]" is, on the whole, the closest to what we may suppose to have been the original; "[Devil and the Princess]" is in some respects complete, but has acquired several foreign features, and "[John Crow]" has quite lost the characteristic conclusion. It is to be hoped that we may one day succeed in discovering, if not all the African variants of this story, yet enough to render those we possess more intelligible, and to afford materials for an interesting comparative study.

A. Werner.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

The stories and tunes of this book are taken down from the mouths of men and boys in my employ. The method of procedure has in every case been to sit them down to their recital and make them dictate slowly; so the stories are in their ipsissima verba. Here and there, but very rarely indeed, I have made a slight change, and this only because I thought the volume might find its way into the nursery. The following list exhausts the emendations: (1) It was not his fat that Tiger took out when he went bathing, but his viscera; (2) The "Tumpa-toe" of one of the stories is "Stinking-toe"; (3) Dog always swears, his favourite expression being, "There will be hell here to-night," and the first line of one of the dance tunes runs really: "Hell of a dog up'tairs"; (4) "belly" is replaced by a prettier equivalent.

The district in which I live is that of the Port Royal Mountains behind Kingston. Other districts have other "Sings," for these depend upon local topics. The Annancy Stories are, so far as I know, more or less alike throughout the island. This title seems to include stories in which Annancy himself does not figure at all, but this is of course an illegitimate use of it. The collection in this book is a mere sample both of stories and tunes.

The book as a whole is a tribute to my love for Jamaica and its dusky inhabitants, with their winning ways and their many good qualities, among which is to be reckoned that supreme virtue, Cheerfulness.

W.J.

Jamaica, January, 1906.

JAMAICAN SONG AND STORY.

PART I. ANNANCY STORIES.

When the hoes stop clicking and you hear peals of laughter from the field, you may know that somebody is telling an Annancy story. If you go out, you will find a group of Negroes round the narrator, punctuating all the good points with delighted chuckles. Their sunny faces are beaming, and at the recital of any special piece of knavery on Annancy's part ordinary means of expression fail, and they fling themselves on the ground and wriggle in convulsions of merriment.

Annancy is a legendary being whose chief characteristic is trickery. A strong and good workman, he is invariably lazy, and is only to be tempted to honest labour by the offer of a large reward. He prefers to fill the bag which he always carries, by fraud or theft. His appetite is voracious, and nothing comes amiss to him, cooked or raw. No sooner is one gluttonous feast over than he is ready for another, and endless are his shifts and devices to supply himself with food. Sometimes he will thrust himself upon an unwilling neighbour, and eat up all his breakfast. At another time he carries out his bag and brings it home full of flesh or fish obtained by thieving. He is perfectly selfish, and knows no remorse for his many deeds of violence, treachery and cruelty. His only redeeming point is a sort of hail-fellow-well-met-ness, which appeals so much to his associates that they are ready almost, if not quite, to condone his offences.

Annancy has a defect of speech owing to a cleft palate, and pronounces his words badly. He speaks somewhat like Punch, through his nose very rapidly, and uses the most countrified form of dialect. He cannot say "brother," and has to leave out the th owing to the failure of the tongue to meet the palate, so he says "bro'er." He even pretends he cannot say "puss," and turns it into "push." Strings of little words he delights in, such as, in the [Brother Death] story, the often-repeated "no mo so me no yerry," an expressive phrase difficult to render into good English. It means "I must have failed to hear." The words are "no more so me no hear," equivalent to "it must be so (that) I (do) not hear," the "no more" having something of the force of the same words in the colloquial phrases, "no more I do," "no more I will." When, for instance, to the remark, "I thought you didn't like the smell of paint," we make the rejoinder "no more I do," Priscian strives in vain to disentangle the words and reduce them to rule of syntax, but they mean "Well! I do not." Thus "no more me hear" would be "Well! I do not hear." The "so" introduces the hypothetical element and the "no" before "yerry" is a reduplicated negative.

Thus far for the sense. Now for the pronunciation. The accent indicates where the stress of the voice falls, and unless the accent is caught, the phrase will not run off the tongue. This is how it goes:

nŏ mŏ | sō mě nŏ | yerry.

As an illustration of the necessity of right placing of the accent, take the name of that town in Madagascar, which we so often saw in our papers a few years ago, Antananarivo. Most of us just nodded our heads at it, but never tried, or at least only feebly, to articulate it. With all this "an an" it was the same sort of hopeless business as the deciphering of the hieroglyphics of those writers whose words seem to be composed of nothing but m's. And yet how simple, and easy to say, the word is when we catch the accent. First "an"; then stop a little; "tánana," same values as traveller; and finally "rivo." French sounds for the vowels of course, An-tananarivo. This grouping of accents is that which in music is known as rhythm. Rightly grouped they make musical sense, wrongly grouped—and alas! how often we hear it—musical nonsense. See the stuttering hopelessness and helplessness of án-tán-án-á—there might be any number more of "an-an"s to follow, and compare with this the neat satisfying form Antánanarivo. So let no bungler read in the story of [Brother Death] "no mó so mé no yerry" with halting and panting, but let him reel off as quickly as he can "no mo so me no yerry" with just the accent that he would use in this phrase:—"It is here that I want you." Remember, too, that the o's have the open sound of Italian, and not the close sound of English. So is exactly like sol (the musical note) with the l left out, and not as we pronounce it. And above all, speed.

When the stranger lands in Jamaica and hears the rapid rush of words, and the soft, open vowels, he often says: "Why, I thought they talked English here, but it sounds like Spanish or Italian!" The difficulty in understanding a new language lies in the inability to distinguish the point where one word ends and the next begins. The old puzzle sentence, Caille a haut nid, taupe a bas nid, shows this very well. The ear catches the sound but fails to differentiate the words, and, their real identity being disguised, the listener has a sort of impression of modern Greek or Italian, writing these fragments in his brain oni, bani.

Just as hopeless is negro English to the newcomer, and the first thing to do is to set about learning it. And well it repays investigation. It is the boast of the English language that it has got rid of so much superfluous grammatical matter in the way of genders, inflections and such-like perplexities. True, it has abolished much that was evil, and enables us to speak and write shortly and to the point. But negro English goes a step further, and its form is still more concise. Compare these expressions:

These are a few typical sentences out of a host which might be cited to show the neat, short turn they take in the mouth of the Jamaica Negro.

The rapidity of utterance natural to all the Blacks is exaggerated by Annancy. He generally affects, too, a falsetto tone as in "Play up the music, play up the music," in [Yung-kyum-pyung]. He has a metamorphic shape, that of the Spider. At one moment he is a man "tiefing (thieving) cow," the next he is running upon his rope (web).

As he is the chief personage in most of the stories in this book, it is well to have a perfectly clear idea of the pronunciation of his name. Unnahncy does not represent it badly, but the first letter has actually the sound of short French a as in la. The accent falls strongly on the middle syllable. In "Tacoma" all the syllables are very short. The first has the sound of French ta, and takes the accent; co is something between English cook and Italian con, and it is impossible to determine whether to write the vowel o or u; ma again as in French. The exact relation in which Tacoma stands to Annancy is obscure. In one case he is described as Annancy's son, but, according to most of the stories, he appears to be an independent neighbour.

The stories are obviously derived from various sources, the most primitive being no doubt those which are concerned only, or chiefly, with animals. These may be of African origin, but we should have expected to find the Elephant and not the Tiger. I have a suspicion that Tiger was originally Lion, and that he is the Ogre of Jack the Giant-killer, and other fairy stories brought to Jamaica from England. Ogre would easily be corrupted to Tiger, and with the information, which might have been acquired at the same time, that Tiger was a fierce animal which ate men, his name would find its way into stories repeated from mouth to mouth. This is, however, pure conjecture. How much the stories vary may be seen from the two versions of Ali Baba, in one of which the point is so entirely lost that the door is not kept shut upon the intruder.

The tunes are in the same case as the stories. What I take to be certainly primitive about them is the little short refrains, like "Carry him go 'long" ([Dry Bone]) and "Commando" ([Annancy and Hog]). These suggest tapping on a drum. Again, the same influence that has produced the American Plantation Songs is occasionally visible, as in "Some a we da go to Mount Siney" ([Annancy in Crab Country]). This kind of patter is just what the Negro likes. Some of the tunes are evidently popular songs of the day, as, for instance, the vulgar "Somebody waiting for Salizon" ([Snake the Postman]). But others are a puzzle, showing as they do a high order of melodic instinct. Such are the melodies in "[The Three Sisters]" and "[Leah]," and the digging-tunes, "[Oh, Samuel, Oh!]" and "[Three Acres of Coffee]." These digging-tunes are very pleasant to hear, and the singers are quick at improvising parts. They are an appropriate accompaniment to the joyous labour of this sunny, happy land.

One more word with regard to the tunes. They gain a peculiar and almost indescribable lilt from a peculiarity in the time-organisation of the Negro. If you ask him to beat the time with his foot, he does it perfectly regularly, but just where the white man does not do it. We beat with the time; he beats against it. To make my meaning quite plain, take common measure. His first beat in the bar will be exactly midway between our first and second beats. The effect of this peculiarity in their singing is, that there is commonly a feeling of syncopation about it. The Americans call it "rag-time."

The men's voices are of extraordinary beauty. To hear a group chatting is a pure pleasure to the ear, quite irrespective of the funny things they say; and their remarks are accompanied with the prettiest little twirks and turns of intonation, sometimes on the words, sometimes mere vocal ejaculations between them. The women's voices have the same fine quality when they speak low, but this they seldom do, and their usual vivacious chatter is anything but melodious.

I. ANNANCY AND BROTHER TIGER.

One day Annancy an' Bro'er Tiger go a river fe wash'kin. Annancy said to Bro'er Tiger:—"Bro'er Tiger, as you are such a big man, if you go in a de blue hole with your fat you a go drownded, so you fe take out your fat so lef' it here."

Tiger said to Bro'er Annancy:—"You must take out fe you too."

Annancy say:—"You take out first, an' me me take out after."

Tiger first take out.

Annancy say:—"Go in a hole, Bro'er Tiger, an' make me see how you swim light."

Bro'er Annancy never go in.

As Tiger was paying attention to the swimming, Annancy take up his fat an' eat it.

Then Annancy was so frightened for Tiger, he leaves the river side an' go to Big Monkey town.

Him say:—"Bro'er Monkey, I hear them shing a shing a river side say:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

The Big Monkey drive him away, say they don't want to hear no song.

So him leave and go to Little Monkey town, an' when him go him said:—

"Bro'er Monkey, I hear one shweet song a river side say:—

Then Monkey say:—"You must sing the song, make we hear."

Then Annancy commence to sing.

Monkey love the song so much that they made a ball a night an' have the same song playing.

So when Annancy hear the song was playing, he was glad to go back to Bro'er Tiger.

When him go to the river, he saw Tiger was looking for his fat.

Tiger said:—"Bro'er Annancy, I can't find me fat at all."

Annancy say:—"Ha ha! Biddybye I hear them shing a Little Monkey town say:—

"Bro'er Tiger, if you think I lie, come make we go a Little Monkey town."

So he and Tiger wented.

When them get to the place, Annancy tell Tiger they must hide in a bush.

Then the Monkey was dancing an' playing the same tune.

Tiger hear.

Then Annancy say:—"Bro'er Tiger wha' me tell you? You no yerry me tell you say them a call you name up ya?"

An' the Monkey never cease with the tune:—

Then Tiger go in the ball an' ask Monkey them for his fat.

The Monkey say they don't know nothing name so, 'tis Mr. Annancy l'arn them the song.

So Tiger could manage the Little Monkey them, an' he want fe fight them.

So the Little Monkey send away a bearer to Big Monkey town, an' bring down a lots of soldiers, an' flog Bro'er Tiger an' Annancy.

So Bro'er Tiger have fe take bush an' Annancy run up a house-top.

From that, Tiger live in the wood until now, an' Annancy in the house-top.

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

Go a river fe wash 'kin, go to the river to wash their skins. Pronounce fe like fit without the t.

in a de, into the.

A go drownded, will be drowned.

fe take, short for must have fe take, must take.

so lef', and leave.

fe you, for you, yours.

me me, I will. Annancy is fond of these reduplications.

in a hole, in the hole.

make me see, let me see. Make and let are always confused.

frighten, frightened. Past participles are seldom used.

take, eat, leave, go, takes, eats, leaves, goes. This shortening is always adopted. If a final s is used, it is generally in the wrong place.

shing a shing, sing a song. Annancy's lisp will not always be printed, but in reading, it should be put in even when not indicated.

a river side, at the river's side. The v is pronounced more like a b, and the i in river has the sound of French u.

me a nyam, I was eating, I ate. Nyam is one of the few African words which survive in Jamaica.

make we hear, and let us hear it.

have the same song playing; the past participle again avoided, and its place supplied by the present participle. Song and tune are interchangeable terms, and, even when there is no singing, the fiddle speaks words to those who are privileged to hear; see "[Doba]" and other stories.

Biddybye, by the bye.

a Little Monkey town, in Little Monkey town. So already in this story we have had a standing for to, in, the, at, will, besides being interjected, as in me a nyam and elsewhere.

make we go, let us go.

in a bush, in the bush, in the jungle.

dancing an' playing. No mention of singing, observe.

a wha' me tell you, etc. What did I tell you? Did you not hear me tell you they were talking about you up here? A good phrase to illustrate the use of the interjected say.

Call you name, mention your name.

Monkey them; another common addition.

nothing name so, nothing called so.

a bearer. Bearers are important people in the Jamaica hills where post-offices are few. They often bear nothing but a letter, though some carry loads too.

Jack Mantora, etc. All Annancy stories end with these or similar words. The Jack is a member of the company to whom the story is told, perhaps its principal member; and the narrator addresses him, and says: "I do not pick you out, Jack, or any of your companions, to be flogged as Tiger and Annancy were by the monkeys." Among the African tribes stories we know are often told with an object. The Negro is quick to seize a parable, and the point of a cunningly constructed story directed at an individual obnoxious to the reciter would not miss. So when the stories were merely told for diversion, it may have been thought good manners to say: "This story of mine is not aimed at any one."

II. YUNG-KYUM-PYUNG.

A King had t'ree daughter, but nobody in the world know their name. All the learned man from all part of the eart' come to guess them name, an' no one could'n guess them.

Brother Annancy hear of it an' say:—"Me me I mus' have fe fin' them ya-ya gal name. Not a man can do it abbly no me."

So one day the King t'ree gal gone out to bathe, an' Brother Annancy make a pretty basket, an' put it in a the house where he knew they was going to come fe eat them vittle.

He leave it there, an' go under the house fe hear the name.

When them come, them see the basket, an' it was the prettiest something they ever see in their life.

Then the biggest one cry out:—

And the next one say:—

And the youngest bahl:—

Brother Annancy hear it all good, an' he glad so till him fly out a the house an' gone.

Him go an' make up a band of music with fiddle an' drum, an' give the musicians them a tune to sing the names to.

An' after a week him come back.

When him get where the King could yerry, him give out:—"Play up the music, play up the music."

So they play an' sing:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

After six times sing the Queen yerry.

She say:—"Who is that calling my daughter name?"

Annancy tell them fe play all the better.

Then the Queen massoo himself from up'tairs, an' t'row down broke him neck.

Dat time de King no yerry, so Annancy harder to play de music still.

At last the King yerry, an' him say:—"Who is dat, calling me daughter name?"

Annancy let them sing the tune over and over:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' the King t'row himself off a him t'rone an' lie there 'tiff dead.

Then Annancy go up an' take the t'rone, an' marry the youngest daughter an' a reign.

Annancy is the wickedest King ever reign. Sometime him dere, sometime him gone run 'pon him rope an tief cow fe him wife.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

Me, me I mus' have, etc., I will find out those girls' names. Anybody else would have said:—"Me mus' have fe find them ya (those here) gal name," but Annancy likes to add a few more syllables. His speech is Bungo talk. The Jamaican looks down on the Bungo (rhymes with Mungo) who "no 'peak good English."

abbly no me, except me.

go under the house. It is no absurdity to the narrator's mind to picture the King's house on the pattern of his own. This is a two-roomed hut, consisting of the hall or dining-room and a bedroom. It is floored with inch-thick cedar boards roughly cut and planed, so that they never lie very close. An air space is left underneath, and anybody who creeps under the hut can hear all that goes on above.

bahl, bawl.

hear it all good, hears everything perfectly.

Play up the music. He almost sings, like this:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

all the better, all the harder.

massoo himself, lifts herself up. "Massoo" is an African word. The hall seems to have a sort of gallery.

t'row down, etc., throws herself down and breaks her neck. They always say to broke.

Dat time de King. The turning of th into a d or nearly a d is characteristic of negro speech. To avoid the tiresomeness of dialect-printing, and for another reason to be mentioned by and by, this is not always indicated. The change is introduced occasionally to remind readers of the right pronunciation.

let them sing, makes them sing.

Sometime him dare, sometimes he is there (at home), sometimes he goes and runs upon his web and steals cows for his wife. Other stories will show Annancy's partiality for beef, or indeed anything eatable.

tief, thieve.

Spiders' webs of any kind are called Annancy ropes.

III. KING DANIEL.

There was two young lady name Miss Wenchy an' Miss Lumpy. The King Daniel was courtening to Miss Wenchy, an' the day when they was to get marry Miss Lumpy carry Miss Wenchy an' show him a flowers in the pond. Miss Wenchy go to pick it, an' Miss Lumpy shub him in the pond.

An' she said:—"T'ank God! nobody see me."

Now a Parrot sat up on a tree, an' jes' as Miss Lumpy say "T'ank God! nobody see me" the Parrot say:—"I see you dough!"

Then Miss Lumpy said to the Parrot:—"Do, my pretty Polly, don't you tell, an' I'll give you a silver door an' a golden cage."

And the Parrot sing:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

"Oh do, my pretty Polly, don't you tell, an' I'll give you a silver door an' a golden cage."

But the Parrot wouldn' stay, and he fly from houses to houses singing this tune:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

At last the Parrot got to the table where the young King Daniel was.

An' Miss Lumpy was into a room crying. Many pocket-handkerchief she got wet with tears. An' the Parrot sing the same song:—"I brought, I brought a news to the young King Daniel; Miss Lumpy kill Miss Wenchy loss on becount of young King Daniel."

Then Miss Lumpy call out:—"Oh drive away that nasty bird, for Miss Wenchy head hurting her."

But King Daniel wouldn' have it so, but said:—"I heard my name call. I would like to know what is it."

An' the Parrot fly near upon the King's shoulder an' tell him what become of Miss Wenchy. An' they go an' look in the room an' find her not.

An' pretty Polly take them to the pond an' show them where Miss Wenchy is, an' she was drown.

Then the King call Miss Lumpy an' head him up into a barrel an' fasten it up with tenpenny nails, an' carry him up to a high hill an' let him go down the gully, an' he drop in the gully pom-galong.

An' the Parrot laugh Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

I see you dough. The first three words are pitched high and the voice falls as low as possible on the dough and dwells upon it.

Do, my pretty Polly, etc. I have heard this story many times, and these words never vary. Obviously it was once a silver cage with a golden door.[39]

I brought; brought for bring, as we had broke for break.

loss. It is doubtful what this word represents. It may be loss or lost. Observe becount.

I would like to know what is it, I should like to know what it is, what the matter is. The perverse misplacing of these words strikes a newcomer to the island. In questions they misplace them again and say "What it is?"

find her not. The not has a heavy accent.

gully, precipice.

pom-galong imitates the sound of the barrel as it goes bumping down. The o's have the Italian sound.

IV. TOMBY.

One day there was a gal, an' Annancy really want that gal fe marry, but he couldn' catch him. An' Annancy ask a old-witch man—the name of him was Tomby—an' the old-witch man had a 'mash-up side, an' him was the only man could gotten the gal for Annancy. An' Annancy give the old-witch man a t'reepence to give the gal when him goin' to the market to buy a t'reepence of youricky-yourk. An' the gal take the t'reepence. An' as she walk along the pass to market she meet up one of her friend call Miss Princess Johnson an' she said:—"Good mornin' me love," an' the answer:—"How you do, me dear? Where you a come from now?"

An Miss Justina say:—"Me a come from Tomby yard, an' see de t'reepence he give me fe go buy youricky-yourk."

"Never you bodder with somet'ing 'tan' so. Gi' ahm back him fuppence because him goin' to turn trouble fe you."

"How I manage fe gi' him the fuppence?"

"When you go to the market come back tell him you no see no youricky-yourk."

"An' what you go go buy, Miss Princess?"

"Me go buy me little salt fish an' me little hafoo yam, t'reepence a red peas fe make me soup, quatty 'kellion, gill a garlic to put with me little nick-snack, quatty ripe banana, bit fe Gungo peas, an' me see if me can get quatty beef bone."

"Ah! me missis, Cocoanut cheap a market ya."

"Yes, me love, make me buy sixpence."

An' as they talking they get to market. They buy what they want an' turn back, an' when they reach up Princess yard they tell goodbye an' Justina call in to Tomby.

An' Justina bring back the t'reepence an' sing:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' Tomby very vex as, being a old witch, he knew all what the gal do already. An' he answer:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' he won't take the t'reepence. Now the rule is that anybody take something from old-witch an' can't give it back, it give him power to catch him. An' so comes it that Tomby catch Justina an' send for Mr. Annancy an' make him a present to be a wife. His name was Miss Sinclair, but she becomes now Mrs. Annancy Sinclair.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

Old-witch, a person of either sex possessed of supernatural powers, not necessarily old in years, as will be seen in other stories. The name "white witch" applied to men is familiar to dwellers in the West of England.

'mash-up, smashed up, wounded, lacerated.

youricky-yourk, a nonsense word for some kind of plaster.

pass, path.

Miss Princess. Prince and Princess are common names for boys and girls.

good mornin'. This broad o is always pronounced ah.

yard, a house with its immediate surroundings.

Never you bodder, don't you bother with something which stands so, with that sort of commission.

ahm, frequently used for him.

fuppence, with Italian u having a turn towards o, fivepence in the old Jamaica coinage, equal to threepence English. Princess advises the return of the fuppence because it is going to get Justina (English u and Italian i) into trouble, coming as it does from an old-witch. It would not be guessed that the Jamaica coinage is identical with that of England. Such is, nevertheless, the case in spite of these curious names:

go go buy. It is not only Annancy who uses reduplications. The close English o is replaced in the Negro's mouth by an Italian open o.

hafoo (pronounced hahfoo, really afoo, an African word), a kind of yam.

'kellion, skellion or scallion, a kind of onion which does not bulb.

Gungo, Congo. This pea is not only excellent for soup, but the growing plant improves the soil by introducing nitrogen into it.

ya, do you hear? a common ending to any remark.

tell goodbye. They tell howdy (how do you do?) and goodbye.

Lingo Starban. This should probably be Lingo's tavern, Lingo's tahvern; v and b being indistinguishable as in Spanish and Russian.

'cornful day, a day of scorning or flouting. Justina wishes Tomby to believe that she tried everywhere to get some youricky-yourk, but met only with flouts and jeers.

Hm, hm, grumbling.

a him, it is him, it is that which makes you say:—"Tatalingo, here's your bit," your three quatties. She only had a treppence but the Negro is above accuracy as the Emperor Sigismund was above grammar.

Tatalingo. Lingo's name is now transferred to Tomby. Italian vowels in Tata. In "Finger Quashy" we find Tatafelo as one of the cats' names.

make him a present, make her (Justina) a present to Annancy.

Mrs. Annancy Sinclair. They are not particular in the matter of surnames. A remarried widow is constantly called by the surname of her first husband.

V. HOW MONKEY MANAGE ANNANCY.

One day Mr. Annancy an' his wife sat under a tree an' don't know that Mr. Monkey was on the tree. Mr. Annancy say to his wife:—"You know I really want little fresh." The wife say to Annancy:—"What kind a fresh?"

"How you mean, me wife, fe ax me dat question? Any meat at all. Me wife, you know wha' we fe do. Make we get a banana barrel an' lay it on de bed, make him favour one man, so get white sheet an' yap him up from head to foot, an' sen' go call Bro'er Cow, Bro'er Monkey, Bro'er Sheep, Bro'er Goat an' Bro'er Hog. An' when them come we mus' put all the strange friend them inside de house an' den you fe stay inside de room wi' dem."

Now Bro'er Annancy send fe all his friend, Sheep, Goat, Hog, Monkey. Cow was the minister.

When they come to Annancy yard they met him was crying.

Parson Cow say:—"Don't cry so much, my good friend, because it is the all a we road."

Annancy say:—"Ah, ah! Bro'er Cow, you no know the feeling me have fe me one puppa. Bro'er Cow, as you is the parson, take you frien' in, you will see de ole man 'pon bed."

During this time Mrs. Annancy was inside the room. The Reverend Cow went in to raise up the sheet.

Mrs. Annancy say:—"No; me husban' say nobody fe look on the ole man face till in the morning."

So Cow don't rist.

Mr. Monkey who hear all what Annancy was saying, he an' his wife wouldn' go in the house.

Mr. Annancy say:—"Bro'er Monkey, go inside. Go see the last of the ole man."

Monkey say:—"No, Bro'er Annancy, me sorry fe you too much. If a go in dere a we cry whole a night."

"No, Bro'er Monkey, go in, go keep them other one company for you are me nearest frien'."

Monkey never go.

He has to left Monkey, for Monkey was too clever for him.

An' by that time Mr. Annancy hid his cutlass back of his door well sharpen an' go in the house an' shut the door. It was the only door in the whole house, so he sat back of the door after lock it.

An' after, Bro'er Annancy ask Bro'er Cow to say a word of prayer.

During the praying Annancy was crying.

Hog with an old voice say:—"Keep up Mr. Annancy, keep up Mr. Annancy."

He cry much the better.

The prayer was finish. Mr. Annancy ask Cow to raise a hymn.

The Cow commence with hundred a de hymn, hundred a de page.

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Bro'er Annancy want fe kill Parson Cow, begin with a big confusion, say that him don't like that hymn.

During this time his door was well lock, an' same time Bro'er Annancy draw his cutlass an' raise a fight, say that him don't like that hymn.

An' the poor friend them didn' have anything to fight. He kill the whole of them.

In the morning Monkey laugh, say:—"Bro'er Annancy, If me min come in a you house you would a do me the same."

Annancy say "No."

Him give Monkey a piece of the meat.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

fresh, fresh meat. In the country districts the only meat to be had as a rule is ancient salt beef out of a tub.

favour, look like. In some parts of England the word is still used in this sense.

met him was crying, found him crying.

all a we. All of us have to tread the road of death.

one, own.

who hear, who had heard previously when he was on the tree.

cutlass. Every Negro carries one. It is used for every sort of purpose, but seldom murderously as here.

old voice, voice of simulated grief.

much the better, all the more.

hundred a de, hundredth.

me gullen ho, nonsense words.

confusion, quarrel.

min, been. If I had come in you would have done the same to me.

VI. BLACKBIRD AND WOSS-WOSS.

One day there was a place where they usual to kill plenty of meat. An' Mr. Blackbird has a certain tree, hiding himself. An' every cow them kill Mr. Blackbird see how them kill it. An' going into the house, the house don't lock with no key nor either open with no key. When they want to go in them use a word, say "one—two—t'ree—me no touch liver," an' the door open himself. An' when them want to come out of the house them use the same words "one—two—t'ree—me no touch liver." An' Mr. Blackbird tief them fe true, an' them never find it out.

An' one day Mr. Blackbird write his friend Mr. Annancy to take a walk with him, an' him will show him where he is getting all these meat. An' when he is going him tell Mr. Annancy all the rule, that when he go on the tree he must listen, an' him will hear what them say to open the door both going in an' coming out.

What Mr. Annancy did; when he see the butcher them passing with the meat, Annancy was trembling an' saying:—"Look a meat,—Look a meat."

"Bro'er Annancy hush you mout', you a go make dem shot me."

When the butcher them gone, Mr. Blackbird come down, he an' Mr. Annancy, an' go inside the house the very same as the butcher them do, say "one—two—t'ree—me no touch liver." As they go into the house Blackbird tell him that him mustn't take no liver. An' Mr. Annancy took liver an' put in his bag. An' when Blackbird started out with the same word Mr. Annancy left inside was tying his bag.

Now Mr. Annancy ready fe come out of the house, count "one—two—t'ree—me no touch liver," and by this time he has the liver in his bag.

The door won't open.

Blackbird call him "Come on."

He say:—"The door won't open."

Then he count more than what he was to by get so frighten. He say:—"One—two—t'ree—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten—me no touch liver."

The door won't open.

Mr. Blackbird say:—"Look in your bag, you must be have liver."

The fellow so sweet-mout' say in a cross way "No."

Blackbird leave him.

When Blackbird go home he look an' can't see Mr. Annancy, so him fly a bush an' get up a whole regiment of soldier. Who these soldier was, was Woss-Woss. Mr. Blackbird was the General, march before. When them reach to the place they were just in time, for the butcher were taking Mr. Annancy to go an' tie him on a tree to cut him with hot iron. Word of command was given from Mr. Blackbird, an' by the time the butcher them come to the door with Mr. Annancy the whole world of Woss-Woss come down on them.

They have to let go Mr. Annancy. Not one of the butcher could see. Mr. Blackbird soldier gain the battle an' get 'way Mr. Annancy. They take all the butcher meat an' carry home. Then Mr. Blackbird take Mr. Annancy under his wing an' all his soldiers an' fly to his own country. From that day Woss-Woss is a great fighter until now, so bird never do without them to guard their nest.

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

Woss-Woss. The West Indian wasp hangs its paper nest to the twigs of bushes and trees as a rule, though it does not despise the shelter of the verandah. The wasps live in colonies, making many small nests instead of one big one. The nests are shaped like the rose of a watering-pot with the shank turned upwards.

This story clearly owes its origin to Ali Baba. The conversion of Sesame, which meant nothing to the negro, into one-two-three, which at least means something, is not unnatural.

fe true, literally for true is an expressive phrase conveying the idea of intensity. It hot fe true, it is intensely hot. He tief fe true, he steals terribly. It rain fe true, it is raining very hard. He wort'less fe true, he is a regular scamp. He sinnicky fe true, he is a horrid sneak. His ears hard fe true, his ears are outrageously hard, said of a boy who will not do as he is told. He nyam fe true, he eats immensely. Lazy fe true, abominably lazy. Ugly fe true, exceedingly ugly. The water cold fe true, the water is very cold. White yam burn fe true, the white yam is sadly burnt. Orange bear fe true, the oranges bear heavily. Puss catch ratta fe true, the cat catches any amount of rats. Him favour tiger fe true, he looks for all the world like a tiger, said of a man who has a sullen expression. Me head hurt me fe true, I have a very bad headache. Boot burn me fe true, my boots gall me dreadfully.

by get so frighten, through fright; literally, owing to his getting so much frightened.

must be have, must have.

sweet-mout', sweet-mouthed, greedy.

VII. THE THREE SISTERS.

There was t'ree sister living into a house, an' everybody want them fe marry, an' them refuse.

An' one day a Snake go an' borrow from his neighbour long coat an' burn-pan hat an' the whole set out of clothing. Then he dress himself, an' him tell his friends that him mus' talk to those young lady. An' what you think the fellow does? He get up a heap a men to carry him to the young lady yard. An' when him got there the door was lock with an iron bar. An' when he come he say:—"Please to open the door, there is a stranger coming in." An' he sing like this:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' the eldest one was going to open the door. An' the last one, who was a old-witch, say to her sister:—"Don't open the door," an' she sing:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Then the Snake ask again to the same tune:—

An' the youngest, which was old-witch, sing again:—

An' the Snake turn to a Devil, an' the t'ree sister come an' push on the door to keep it from open.

An' the Devil ask a third time:—

But the last sister won't have it so, an' she said with a very wrath:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' the Devil get into a great temper an' say:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Then the Devil fly from the step straight into hell an' have chain round his waist until now.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

Snake is pronounced with an indefinite short vowel between the s and n, senake.

burn-pan hat, the tall hat of civilized towns. The pan is the usual cylindrical tin vessel used for cooking. When blackened by fire it is a burn-pan or burnt pan. It is pronounced like French bonne.

Gandelow, scotran. The meaning of these words is lost.

roguer. This word is doubtful. Sometimes it sounds like rowgard, at others like rowgod. It may mean "more roguish." The boy who gave me this story often quotes this line from a hymn:

"To break the bonds of cantling sin."

One day I asked him to point it out in his hymnbook. It was conquering. He can say it perfectly well, but he still goes on with cantling. It is not surprising, therefore, that we cannot recover words passed from mouth to mouth for generations.

womankind. Again it is doubtful whether this is a single word or two words. The article would fix it as the latter in pure English, but in negro speech it goes for nothing.

old-witch, though she was a young girl: see notes to [No. IV.] (Tomby).

VIII. WILLIAM TELL.

Once there was a man who name William Tell, an' him have a lots of cow. An' in the yard there was a tree, an' the tree no man can fall it. Any animal at all go under that tree it kill them, an' the name of the tree is Huyg.

An' William Tell wanted the tree to cut down.

An' him offer a cow to any man that kill the Huyg. They shall get the cow.

An' first of all Tacoma went to cut down the tree, an' him couldn' bear the itch, I mean 'cratch of the tree.

An' William Tell made a law that any man come to cut the tree they must not 'cratch their 'kin or else they would lose the cow.

An' Mr. Tacoma were very sorry, an' he was to leave the cow just to save his life.

An' that great man Mr. Annancy heard about the cow an' him got a very sharp axe. An' when Mr. Annancy come, William Tell show him the cow—Annancy glad when he see the cow—an' after he show Mr. Annancy the tree.

Then Mr. Annancy say:—"Ho, me good massa, don't you fret of the tree. If one sing don't send 'way the tree another one must send him 'way."

An' the first sing was:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Big chip, fly! little chip, fly!

He repeat the word over an' over, but the tree don't fall yet.

So him take up another sing again:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' Mr. Annancy never cease till him cut down the tree an' receive his reward.

NOTES.

Huyg for Hag, as they say buyg for bag. The spelling is awkward but it seems the only convenient one to adopt. The sound will be best understood from the second example. Say buy and put a hard g after it. The Huyg seems to combine the qualities of the Upas and Cow-itch (Mucuns pruriens). The last, a common Jamaica weed, looks like a scarlet runner. It bears pods covered with a pretty velvet of hairs which "scratch" or irritate the skin.

sing. Further on there is a collection of these sings.

show me your motion, let me see you begin to topple.

IX. BROTHER ANNANCY AND BROTHER DEATH.

One day Brother Annancy sen' gal Annancy fe go a Brother Deat' yard fe go beg fire.

When the gal go, him go meet Brother Deat' dis a eat fe him breakfas' enough eggs. Brother Deat' give gal Annancy one. Gal Annancy take the egg an', after eat done, put the shell 'pon him finger.

Brother Annancy wait an' wait but can't get the fire, till at last he see the gal a come.

When him see the gal with the egg shell 'pon him finger, him run an' bit off the gal finger slap to the hand. Him take 'way the fire, out it, an' go back to Deat' say:—"Bro'er Deat', de fire out."

Brother Deat' give him fire an' one egg, tell him fe go home.

"Say, Bro'er Deat', I goin' to give you me daughter fe marry to."

So Annancy do marry off Deat' an' him daughter the same day. So him lef' them gone for a week, then come back again fe come see him son-in-law.

When him come him say:—"Bro'er Deat', me son, me hungry."

Brother Deat' no 'peak.

So Annancy begin fe talk to himself: "Bro'er Deat' say me fe go make up fire, but no mo so me no yerry."

After five minutes him call out:—"Bro'er Deat', me make up de fire."

Deat' no 'peak.

"Bro'er Deat' say me fe wash de pot, but no mo so me no yerry."

When the pot wash done, him call out:—"Pot wash."

Deat' no 'peak.

"Bro'er Deat' say me fe to put him on, but no mo so me no yerry."

Soon him say:—"Bro'er Deat', where de vittle?"

Deat' no 'peak.

"Him say me fe look somewhé dé me see enough yam, me fe peel dem put dem a fire, but no mo so me no yerry."

Annancy cook all Deat' food.

When it boil, him take it off. Him say:—"Bro'er Deat', him boil."

Deat' no 'peak.

"Bro'er Deat' say me fe share, but no mo so me no yerry."

Annancy eat fe him share, then turn back say:—"Bro'er Deat', you no come come eat?"

Deat' no 'peak.

"Bro'er Deat' say him no want none, but no mo so me no yerry."

So Annancy eat off all the food him one.

Then Deat' get vex in a him heart, and him run into the kitchen.

"Bro'er Annancy a whé you mean fe do me, say a come you come fe kill me?"

So Deat' catch Annancy an' say:—"Me no a go let you go again, no use, no use."

Then, after, Deat' carry Annancy in a him house an' leave him, gone to get his lance to kill him.

So, after Annancy sit a time an' about to go away, him say:—"Bro'er Deat' say me fe go take piece a meat, but no mo so me no yerry."

When Annancy go to the meat cask, him see the cask full with meat. Him take out two big piece of meat. Then he see fe him daughter hand with the missing finger. Him jump out of the house an' bawl out:—"Bro'er Deat', you b'ute, you b'ute, you kill me daughter."

Deat' catch him again an' was going to kill him, but the feller get 'way, run home a fe him yard.

Brother Deat' follow him when him go home.

Annancy take all him children an' go up a house-top, go hang up on the rafter. Brother Deat' come in a de house, see them up a de house-top.

Annancy say to his family—there was two boy an' the mumma—"Bear up! If you drop de man a dirty dé a go nyam you."

Here come one of the boy say:—"Puppa, me han' tired."

Annancy say:—"Bear up!"

The boy cry out fe de better.

Annancy say:—"Drop, you b'ute! No see you dada a dirty dé?"

Him drop.

Deat' take him and put him aside.

Five minutes the other one say:—"Puppa, me han' tired."

Annancy say again:—"Drop, you b'ute! No see you dada a dirty dé?"

Him drop.

Deaf take him an' put him aside.

Soon the wife get tired, say:—"Me husban', me han' tired."

Annancy say:—"Bear up, me good wife!"

When she cry she couldn' bear no more, Annancy bawl again:—"Drop you b'ute! No see you husban' a dirty dé?"

She drop.

Deat' take her.

At last Annancy get tired. Das de man, Bro'er Deat' been want. Annancy was so smart, no want fe Deat' catch him, so he say:—"Bro'er Deat', I goin' to drop, an' bein' me so fat, if you no want me fat fe waste, go and fetch somet'ing fe catch me."

"What me can take fe catch you?"

"Go in a room you will see a barrel of flour an' you fe take it so fe me drop in dé."

Deat' never know that this flour was temper lime.

Deat' bring the barrel an', just as he fixing it up under where Annancy hanging, Annancy drop on Deat' head PUM, an jam him head in a the temper lime an' blind him. So he an' all him family get 'way.

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

dis a eat, just as he had eaten.

no mo so me no yerry, I must have failed to hear. See [page 3].

Deat' no 'peak, Death won't speak. The comedy is well sustained. Annancy goes through the various stages of preparation for breakfast, pretending that he is carrying out orders from Death which he fails to hear.

put him on, put the pot on the fire.

somewhé dé, somewhere there. The e's are like French é, and dé is said with a strong accent and made very short.

enough yam, plenty of yams.

say a come you come, say do you come.

me no a go etc., I am not going to let you go again.

no use, no mistake about it this time.

bawl. Remember to pronounce it bahl.

b'ute, brute, pronounced byute like the island Bute.

a fe him yard, to his yard.

a dirty dé, etc., on the ground there will eat you.

fe de better, all the more.

Das, that's.

temper lime, tempered lime originally no doubt, but now meaning quick lime. Temper, I am told, means cross. And in further explanation my informant adds: "You can't fingle (finger) temper lime as you have a mind; it cut up your hand."

pum with the shortest possible vowel represents the thud of Annancy's fall upon Death's head.

The Kitchen is outside the house, often at a considerable distance from it.

X. MR. BLUEBEARD.

There was a man named Mr. Bluebeard. He got his wife in his house an' he general catch people an' lock up into a room, an' he never let him wife see that room.

One day he went out to a dinner an' forgot his key on the door. An' his wife open the door an' find many dead people in the room. Those that were not dead said:—"Thanky, Missis; Thanky, Missis."

An' as soon as the live ones get away, an' she was to lock the door, the key drop in blood. She take it up an' wash it an' put it in the lock. It drop back into the blood.

An' Mr. Bluebeard was a old-witch an' know what was going on at home. An' as he sat at dinner, he called out to get his horse ready at once. An' they said to him:—"Do, Mr. Bluebeard, have something to eat before you go."

"No! get my horse ready."

So they bring it to him. Now, he doesn't ride a four-footed beast, he ride a t'ree-foot horse.

An' he get on his horse an' start off itty-itty-hap, itty-itty-hap, until he get home.

Now, Mrs. Bluebeard two brother was a hunter-man in the wood. One of them was old-witch, an' he said:—"Brother, brother, something home wrong with me sister."

"Get 'way you little foolish fellah," said the biggest one.

But the other say again:—"Brother, brother, something wrong at home. Just get me a white cup and a white saucer, and fill it with water, and put it in the sun, an' you will soon see what do the water."

Directly the water turn blood.

An' the eldest said:—"Brother, it is truth, make we go."

An' Mrs. Bluebeard was afraid, because he knew Mr. Bluebeard was coming fe kill him. An' he was calling continually to the cook, Miss Anne:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' Sister Anne answer:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' as she sing done they hear Mr. Bluebeard coming, itty-itty-hap, itty-itty-hap.

Him jump straight off a him t'ree-foot beast an' go in a the house, and catch Mrs. Bluebeard by one of him plait-hair an' hold him by it, an' said:—"This is the last day of you."

An' Mrs. Bluebeard said:—"Do, Mr. Bluebeard, allow me to say my last prayer."

But Mr. Bluebeard still hold him by the hair while he sing:—

An' Sister Anne answer this time:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Then Mr. Bluebeard took his sword was to cut off him neck, an' his two brother appear, an' the eldest one going to shot after Mr. Bluebeard, an' he was afraid an' begin to run away. But the young one wasn't going to let him go so, an' him shot PUM and kill him 'tiff dead.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

three-foot, three-legged.[40] Hand is used for arm in the same way.

itty-itty-hap, imitating the halting gait of the three-legged horse. The voice rises on hap which is said with a sharp quick accent.

fe kill him, to kill her. The use of masculine for feminine pronouns is bewildering at first.

XI. ANNANCY, PUSS, AND RATTA.

One day Annancy an' Puss make a dance, an' invite Ratta to the ball. Annancy was the fiddler. The first figure what him play, the tune say:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

The second tune he say:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Then, as the Ratta dance, the high figure whé him make, him slide in the floor an' him trousies pop. Then the shame he shame, he run into a hole, an' him make Ratta live into a hole up to to-day day.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

This story should be rattled off as quick as possible.

Ratta, rat or rats.

Ying de ying imitates the "rubbing" of the fiddle, as they call it.

take care you go talk, mind you don't talk, mind your tattling tongue.

figure whé him make, caper that he cuts.

trousies pop, trousers burst.

XII. TOAD AND DONKEY.

One day a King made a race and have Toad and Donkey to be the racer. An' Toad tell Donkey that him must win the race, an' Donkey mad when him yerry so. And the race was twenty mile.

An' Donkey say:—"How can you run me? I have long tail an' long ear an' a very tall foot too, an' you a little bit a Toad. Let me measure foot an' see which one longer."

An' Toad say to Donkey:—"You no mind that man, but I must get the race."

An' Donkey get very vex about it.

An' Donkey say to the King:—"I ready now to start the race."

An' the King made a law that Donkey is to bawl at every miles that he might know where he got.

Now that little smart fellah Toad says to the King that he doesn't fix up his business yet, an' will he grant him a little time.

An' the King grant him a day, an' say to the two of them:—"Come again to-morrow."

An' Donkey wasn't agree, for he know that Toad is a very trickified thing.

But the King wouldn' hear, an' say:—"No, to-morrow."

Now Toad have twenty picny. An' while Donkey is sleeping, Toad take the twenty picny them along with him on the race-ground, an' to every mile-post Toad leave one of his picny an' tell them that they must listen for Mr. Donkey when he is coming. "An' when you yerry that fellah Mr. Donkey bawl, you must bawl too." An' Toad hide one of his picny behind every mile-post until him end the twenty mile.

So the race begin.

Donkey was so glad in a him heart that he was going to beat Toad that he say to himself:—"Tche! That little bit a fellah Toad can't manage me, so I must have plenty of time to eat some grass."

So him stand by the way, eat grass and poke him head through the fence where he see some potato-slip, an' try a taste of Gungo peas. An' he take more than an hour fe catch up the first mile-post, an' as him get him bawl:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Ha! Ha! Ha! me more than Toad.

An' there comes the first picny call out:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Jinkororo, Jinkokkokkok.

An' Donkey quite surprise, an' say:—"Tche! How him manage to be before me?"

An' he think:—"Me delay too long with that grass, I must quicker next mile."

An' him set off with a better speed an' only stop a minute for a drink of water. An' as him get to the next post him bawl:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Ha! Ha! Ha! me more than Toad.

An' there come the second picny call out:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Jinkororo, Jinkokkokkok.

An' Donkey say:—"Lah! Toad travel fe true. Never mind, we will chance it again."

So him 'tart, an' when him reach the third mile-post him bawl:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Ha! Ha! Ha! me more than Toad.

An' the third picny behind the post say:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Jinkororo, Jinkokkokkok.

Jackass get vex when he hear Toad answer him, an' he go fe 'mash Toad, an' Toad being a little man hide himself in a grass.

Then Donkey say:—"Hi! fellah gone ahead; make I see if I can catch up the next mile-post before him." An' he take him tail an' touch it like a horsewhip an' begin fe gallop.

An' him get to the fourth mile-post an' bawl:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Ha! Ha! Ha! me more than Toad.

An' there comes the fourth picny answer him:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Jinkororo, Jinkokkokkok.

When him yerry, him 'tand up same place an' trimble, say:—"My goodness King! a whé me a go do? Make me gallop so I knock off all me hoof self upon the hard hard dirty because I must beat the race."

An' he gallop so fast than he ever do before, until when he get to the fifth mile-post he was really tired an' out of breath.

But he just have enough to bawl:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Ha! Ha! Ha! me more than Toad.

When he hear:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Jinkororo, Jinkokkokkok.

This time he really mad, an' race on harder than ever. But always the same story. Each mile-post he catch him bawl:—"Ha! Ha! Ha! me more than Toad." An' always come answer:—"Jinkororo, Jinkokkokkok."

An' Donkey begin to get sad in his mind for he see that he lost the race. So through Toad smartness Donkey can never be racer again.

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

tall foot, long leg. A tall bridge is a long one, not one that stands high above the river.

wasn't agree, didn't agree. Auxiliaries are a snare.

picny. This is the almost universal form of picaninny in Jamaica, varied occasionally by picany.

Tche! the Pshaw! of books and the Tush! of the Psalms. There is a world of contempt in this ejaculation, which is accompanied by an upward jerk of the chin. The vowel is that of French le.

potato-slip. The sweet potato (Ipomœa Batatas) is cultivated by slips or cuttings. Our kind of potato is called "Irish potato."

Jinkororo, etc. This is a capital imitation of the Toad's croaking chuckle. The second bar should be made as out of tune as possible and the kok is on the lowest note of the voice. It is the repeated k's that make the croak so life-like.

take him tail. They are fond of this expression. Other examples are:—"The horse take him mout' fe 'cratch him foot," the horse scratches his leg with his mouth. "Me take me owny yeye an' see it," I saw it with my own eyes.

a whé me a go do? What am I going to do, what shall I do?

dirty, ground.

XIII. SNAKE THE POSTMAN.

One day Annancy ask Snake to be his postman.

Snake ask him how much he is going to pay him.

An' Annancy tell Snake that he know he is a man love blood, an' when him come in the night he will give him a bite off his head.

An' Snake did agree.

An' the first night he give Annancy a bite in his head, an' Annancy feel it very much.

An' the second night when Snake is to come back Annancy invite his friend Mr. Rabbit. An' Annancy usual to sleep out in the hall. An' that night, when his friend Mr. Rabbit did come, he move an' go in the room an' make a very high bed. An' his friend Mr. Rabbit didn' know what Annancy mean to do.

So Annancy put him out in the hall, an' tell him that one of his cousin is sleeping in here too, so he will come in later on; an' when him hear him call he must just get up an' open the door an' see who it is.

An' when Annancy out lamp Rabbit think it very hard, an' say to himself:—"Bro'er Annancy up to some trick."

An' Rabbit wake up an' begun to dig a hole, an' him dig a hole until him get outside the door an' find himself back to his yard.

When Snake come in the night to get the other bite from Annancy him call Annancy.

Annancy wouldn' give answer as him being put Rabbit outside in the hall, an' Snake continually calling until Annancy give answer.

An' when him give answer he begin to wake Rabbit an' thought Rabbit was inside the house. He didn' want was to receive his bite, an' he begun to call Rabbit "Cousin Yabbit," that Rabbit may glad an' give him answer. When him couldn' hear, him say "Godfather Yabbit" An' him call again "Bro'er Yabbit," an' him couldn' hear him. An' he call again "Puppa, Puppa!" an' he couldn' hear.

An' him light the lamp an' come out the hall an' begin to s'arch for Rabbit. An' when him look, him see Rabbit dig a heap of dirt an' come out.

An' Annancy beguns to cry inside the house an' wouldn' open the door. An' he begin to complain to Snake that the first bite him gi' him he 'mash up the whole a him head.

An' Annancy 'tudy a 'cheme, catch up a black pot an' turn it down over him head.

An' as he put out him head Snake bite the pot, t'ought it's Annancy him catch. An the whole of Snake mouth was in sore. An' when he get home he send back to Annancy that he sick an' won't manage to come back another night.

An' Annancy was very glad an' send go tell him that himself is in bed.

An' when the bearer start for home him sing this song:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' from that day Snake broke friend with Annancy.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

The house would have two rooms, first the hall and then the inner room or bedroom. From Rabbit's burrowing operations it appears to have no floor. This was a common condition in the old times, but now it gets rarer and rarer. Only Coolie (East Indian) houses are unfloored.

him being put, he had put.

'tudy a 'cheme, studies a scheme. It is more usual 'tudy a plan. This common, vulgar song is evidently of late origin and probably does not really belong to the story.

XIV. DOBA.

One day Puss make a ball an' invite the whole world of Ratta.

All the Ratta dress in long coat an' silk dress. There was t'ousand of them women, an' men. When them come they bring a little boy an' the mother with a young baby.

When all the Ratta settle, the door was shut, an' the Puss them have them junka 'tick secretly in a them trousies' foot. They made a bargain between themselves that, when the Ratta deep in dancing, Doba must out the lamp, then the licking-match commence.

When the music begin, it sweet Ratta so that they dance till their white shirt-bosom was wet.

The fiddler was Dandy Jimmy Flint.

An' this is what the fiddle say:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

The boy Ratta take notice of what the fiddle say.

Him go to him dada an' whisper:—"Puppa, you no yerry what the fiddle say?"

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

The father say:—"Get 'way, Sir, you little fellah you! It the worst fe carry any little boy out fe met. Go, off, Sir, you lying fellah!"

During this time the boy hear what the music say in truth, went an' dug a hole fe him an' him mumma.

When Ratta in hot dancing the gate-man Puss, Mr. Doba, out the lamp. Then the junka 'tick fly round an' all the Ratta was kill. Blood was cover the floor an' all the Puss take their share.

Only boy Ratta an' his mumma an' the young baby, get way.

If the puppa did take what the boy say him wouldn' dead.

Puss ball was flourish with meat.

If boy Ratta an' his mumma didn' get 'way we wouldn' have no Ratta in dis ya-ya-world again.

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

Ratta, rats.

Puss them. These words are closely joined together.

junka 'tick, short sticks.

trousies' foot, the legs of their trousers. The Negroes are expert in the art of hiding things about their person.

Fighting with sticks is called a licking-match.

sweet (a verb), pleased, delighted.

In these stories the fiddle is often made to sing words which some have the gift of hearing.

Bap! is the knock of the stick, or "lick of the stick" as they say.

twee twee, the squeak of the rat.

no make, don't let.

it the worst fe carry, etc. It is very troublesome to take a little boy out to a meeting. Met, dance, spree, picnic are convertible terms.

Carry is seldom used as in English. They say:—Carry the mule a pastor (to the pasture). When a man carries you over a river on his back he "crosses you over."

Doba, long o as in Dover.

Blood was cover, etc., the floor was covered with blood.

Dis ya-ya, the vulgar English "this here." Ya-ya is said very quickly. It does not come into common speech but is reserved for Annancy stories and is generally found only in Annancy's mouth.

XV. DRY-BONE.

One day Rabbit invite Guinea-pig to his yard.

An' when Guinea-pig go, Rabbit ask Guinea-pig to go an hunting.

An' Rabbit meet up Dry-bone.

An' when him meet up Dry-bone, him t'row down his gun an' him call to Guinea-pig an' tell him:—"I meet with a luck."

An' Guinea-pig tell Rabbit:—"I won't carry none of the Dry-bone, but you must make me carry the birds what we kill."

Rabbit wasn't agree to let him carry the birds, but Guinea-pig coax him until Rabbit consent an' they fix up the bargain: Rabbit was to carry Dry-bone, an' Guinea-pig was to carry the birds.

So they put Dry-bone into the bag, an' Rabbit ask Guinea-pig to help him up.

An' Guinea-pig help him up an' pick up the gun an' carry it.

An' they start home to their yard.

An' when Rabbit got half part the road he found the load getting heavier an' heavier, an' him ask Guinea-pig to take it for a while.

Guinea-pig tell him that he made no promise was to help him with Dry-bone.

Rabbit walk on till the load get so heavy him begin to cry, say that him going to t'row down Dry-bone.

An' Dry-bone fasten on his head an' begin to talk.

He say to Rabbit:—"You take me up you take up trouble."

An' that time Guinea-pig was laughing after Rabbit.

Just then that cravin' fellah Mr. Annancy was passing an' see Rabbit with his load. He thought that it was something good, an' he ask Rabbit that he will help him carry it.

An' Rabbit was very glad to get relief of his trouble.

So Annancy take Dry-bone from Rabbit an' put him on his own head.

An' when Annancy 'tart, he t'ought that Rabbit was coming.

An' Rabbit turn back an' hide a bush an' leave the trouble to Annancy.

When Annancy get home to his yard him find that it was Dry-bone, an' it vex him in a him heart.

An' Annancy want to leave Dry-bone an' go away.

An' Dry-bone find out what Annancy mean to do.

Annancy have a cock in the yard.

Dry-bone tell him that him must watch Annancy, keep him a yard, an' he will pay him.

An' the Cock ask Dry-bone:—"What is your name?"

An Dry-bone say:—"'Tis Mr. Winkler."

So Dry-bone live in Annancy yard.

An' one day Annancy ask him if him don't want to warm sun.

Dry-bone say:—"Yes."

An' Annancy tell him that to-morrow he will put him out a door.

Annancy went away an' make a bargain with Fowl-hawk, that him have a man name of Mr. Dry-bone, him must come to-morrow an' take him up an' carry him an' drop him in the deepest part of the wood.

An' so Fowl-hawk did do.

When the Cock see Fowl-hawk take up Mr. Winkler him sing out:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Mister Winkler, Winkler come give me me pay.

An' Annancy look up a 'ky an' sing:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

help him up, to get the load on to his head. In this story and some others the load once taken up cannot be put down. It sticks to the head of the bearer and, until it reaches its destination, can only be transferred to another head.

cravin', craving, greedy, often sounds like craven. A man who is cravin' is generally cubbich, covetous. This has lost its original meaning of desiring possession of other people's things and is used only in the sense of close-fisted. A cravin' man wants to get hold of what others have got, a cubbich (ends with the sound of rich) one will not part with what he has.

laughing after, laughing at.

him must watch. The Cock must watch Annancy and not let him leave the yard; Dry-bone is helpless, and requires attention.

to warm sun, to warm himself in the sun. So they have:—"Puss warm fire," the cat warms herself by the fire.

a 'ky, in the sky.

Me'll pay fe cock, I will pay the Cock's wages which Dry-bone agreed to give. We pay a person for a thing, but the Negro pays for the person as well.

Walk, talk, warm, hawk, all have the vowel ah. This story refers to the time of slavery. It is almost indisputable that in certain cases, when a slave was in a weak state owing to incurable illness or old age, he was carried out and left to die. To his pitiful remonstrance, "Massa me no dead yet," the overseer made no reply, but went on with his directions to the bearers, "Carry him go along." This kind of barbarity was not practised by owners living in Jamaica. By them the slaves were well treated and such a thing would have been impossible. But when the masters went away they left the control in the hands of overseers, men of low caste who had neither scruples nor conscience.

XVI. ANNANCY AND THE OLD LADY’S FIELD.

One day there was a old lady work a very nice field on a rock, an' an old-witch boy is the watchman.

An' one day Annancy heard about the old-witch boy, an' Annancy send an' invite him to his yard. An when the old-witch boy come, Annancy ask him what his name. An' he says to Annancy that his name is John-John Fe-We-Hall.

An' the boy ask Annancy why him ask him like that.

An' Annancy say:—"Don't be afraid my frien', I very love you; that's why I ask whé you name."

An' by this time the old lady didn't know that the old-witch boy gone to Annancy yard.

An' Annancy have a son is a very clever tief, call Tacoma.

An' Annancy made a bargain that, when him see John-John Fe-We-Hall come, he must walk to the back door an' come out, an' go to the old lady ground an' destroy the provision.

An' when Tacoma come home, Annancy leave John-John out the hall, an' tell him that he is going to get some breakfast for him.

Now the old lady make a law that, if the watchman eat any of his provision, it going to make him sick in a way that he will find out if it is the same watchman tiefing him.[41]

An' being the boy is old-witch, he know that the food Annancy is getting ready is from the old lady field. So when Annancy bring the breakfast he won't eat it.

Annancy tell him that he must eat the food, he mustn't be afraid.

An' the boy say:—"No."

An' Annancy send an' tell the old lady that the man is here clever more than him.

An' when the old lady receive the message from Annancy, he sent to the ground to tell the old-witch boy that he must look out for Mr. Annancy, for him receive a chanice from Annancy.

An' this time the old lady didn't know that the watchman is at Annancy yard.

An' the old-witch boy is a fluter, an' when the old lady want to dance it's the same boy playing for the old lady. An' the old lady have a tune which he is dancing with. An' Annancy ask the boy to play the tune when he is going home, an' Annancy know if the tune play the old lady will dance till she kill herself.

When the boy going home, him took up his sing with the flute:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' when the old lady hear the sing she beguns to dance an' wheel until she tumble off the rock an' dead.

An' Annancy becomes the master of the field until now.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

A rock would be a bad place for a field. Her house was on a rock probably, and her field or provision-ground elsewhere. For Provision-grounds and their contents see [Digging-Sings].

old-witch. Join these words as closely as possible wherever they occur.

Fe-We-Hall. Very humble houses are called So-and-so Castle and So-and-so Hall. Fe we, for us, our. He was John of our Hall.

destroy, take away, so that they are lost to the owner and destroyed as far as she is concerned.

out the hall, out in the hall.

breakfast, the principal repast of the day at twelve o'clock.

the man is here. They delight in this enigmatic language. Annancy speaks of himself. He sends word that the man here (himself) is more clever than her (the old lady). Straightforwardness is a quality which the Negro absolutely lacks. If you try to get at the truth of any story he brings, and cross-question him upon it, he will shuffle and change it little by little, and you cannot fix him to any point. Language with him is truly, as the cynic said, the art of disguising thought.

chanice, more usually chalice, challenge.

Boys constantly carry their musical instruments about with them. The Flute, a cheap kind of fife, and the Concertina are the favourites. They play as they walk along the road.

The tune, which is quick, is sung over and over and gets uproariously and deliriously merry; gasps on an inward breath, which there is no time to take properly, doing duty for some of the notes.

The words are fragments of a song referring to fowls and eggs. It runs:—

XVII. MAN-CROW.[42]

Once there was a bird in the wood name Man-crow, an' the world was in darkness because of that bird.

So the King offer thousands of pounds to kill him to make the world in light again.

An' the King have t'ree daughter, an' he promise that, if anyone kill Man-crow, he will make them a very rich man an' give one of his daughter to marry.

So t'ousands of soldiers go in the wood to kill Man-crow. An' they found him on one of the tallest trees in the woods. An' no one could kill him, an' they come home back.

So there was a little yawzy fellah call Soliday.

An' he say to his grandmother:—"Gran'mother I am very poor. I am going in the wood to see if I can kill Man-crow."

An' the grandmother answer:—"Tche, boy, you better go sleep a fireside than you go to the wood fe go dead."

"Gran'mother, I goin' to town fe buy six bow an' arrow."

So he went to Kingston an' bought them.

An' when him return home he ask his grandmother to get six Johnny-cake roast, an' he put it in his namsack, an' he travel in the wood.

He s'arch until he find the spot a place where Man-crow is, an' he see Man-crow to the highest part of the tree.

An' he call to him with this song:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' the bird answer:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' Soliday shot with his arrow at Man-crow an' two of his feather come out.

An' Man-crow come down to the second bough.

An' Soliday sing again:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' Man-crow answer as before:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' he fire after Man-crow an' two more feather fly out.

An' so the singing an' shotting go on.

At every song Man-crow come down one branch, an' Soliday fire an arrow an' knock out two feather, till five arrows gone.

So Brother Annancy was on a tree watching Soliday what he is doing.

An' the song sing for the sixth time, an' Man-crow jump down one more branch.

An' Soliday put his last arrow in the bow an' took good aim an' shot after Man-crow.

So he killed him an' he drop off the tree.

An' Soliday go an' pick up the bird an' take out the golden tongue an' the golden teeth, an' shove it in a him pocket, an' Soliday come straight home to his grandmother.

An' Annancy come off the tree an' take up the bird, put ahm a him shoulder, cut through bush until he get to the King gate, an' he rakkle at the gate.

They ask:—"Who come?"

He say:—"Me, Mr. Annancy."

An' they say:—"Come in."

An' the King said:—"What you want?"

"I am the man that kill Man-crow."

An' they take him in an' marry him to one of the King daughter an' make a very big table for him an' his family.

They put him in the middle of the table, but he refuse from sit there. He sit to the doorway to look when Soliday coming. (The King then do know that that fellah up to trick.) An' directly Annancy see Soliday was coming, he stop eating, ask excuse, "I will soon be back." An' at that same time he gone outside into the kitchen.

An' Soliday knock at the gate.

An' someone answer him an' ask:—"What you want?"

"I am the boy that kill Man-crow."

An' they said:—"No, impossible! Mr. Annancy kill Man-crow."

An' he take out the golden tongue an' teeth an' show it to the King, an' ask the question:—"How can a bird live without teeth an' tongue?"

So they look in the bird mouth an' found it was true.

An' they call Annancy.

An' Annancy give answer:—"I will soon be there."

An' they call him again.

An' he shut the kitchen door an' said:—"Me no feel well."

All this time Brother Annancy shame, take him own time fe make hole in the shingle get 'way.

They call him again, they no yerry him, an' they shove the kitchen door.

Annancy lost in the shingle up to to-day.

An' the King marry Soliday to his daughter an' make him to be one of the richest man in the world.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

Yawzy. Yaws is a disease very prevalent among the Negroes. It causes ulcers to form on the soles of the feet. In old slave days every estate had its yaws-house for the accommodation of the sufferers. This complaint does not attack the Whites.

six bow an' arrow, a bow and six arrows, we suppose.

Johnny-cake, journey cake made of flour and water fried in lard.

spot a place, spot of place, exact place.

ask excuse, asks to be excused. Pronounce the s like z.

shame, etc., was ashamed and was quietly making a hole in the shingle roof so as to get away.

XVIII. SAYLAN.

There was a man have two daughter. One of the daughter belongs to the wife an' one belongs to the man. An' the wife no love for the man daughter, so they drive her away.

An' she get a sitivation at ten shillings a week, an' the work is to look after two horses an' to cut dry grass for them.

An' every night she put two bundles of dry grass in the 'table.

An' the mother was very grudgeful of the sitivation that she got.

An' one night she carry her own daughter to the pastur' an' they cut two bundles of green grass. An' they go secretly to the horse manger an' take out the dry grass an' put the green grass in its place.

So the horse eat it, an' in the morning they dead.

An' the master of that horse is a sailor.

The sailor took the gal who caring the horse to hang her.

An' when he get to the 'pot a place to hang her he take this song:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' the gal cry to her sister an' brother an' lover, an' they give her answer:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' the lover bring a buggy an' carry her off an' save her life at last.

An' the mumma say:—"You never better, tuffa."

Jack Mantora me no choose any.

NOTES.

This is quite an unusual form of story, but appears to be of some antiquity in my district, where it ranks as an Annancy story.[43]

caring, taking care of. This is so convenient a word that it is used by everybody.

You never better, you will never be good for anything.

tuffa, with Italian u imitates spitting, a sign of contempt.

XIX. ANNANCY AND SCREECH-OWL.

One day Annancy made a dance, an' ask 'creech-owl to be the musician. An' Annancy send an' invite all his friend.

An' when they come Ratta was in long coat an' Guinea-pig too, for Ratta tell Guinea-pig they must wear long coat an' they will get all the gal to dance with.

An' 'creech-owl is a great player, but the only danger he cannot sing in the day.

An' 'creech-owl has a Cock in his yard, an' he sent an' ask Annancy if he can bring a friend along with him.

An' Annancy send an' tell him that 'tis no objectin to bring the friend, an' Annancy tell 'creech-owl that he will get a lots of drink.

At that time Annancy didn't know the friend as yet.

So, as he being hate 'creech-owl, he didn't wish to see no friend of his.

So when the friend come the friend was a Cock.

An' Annancy was very sorry for he knew that the Cock going to crow when day clean, an' 'creech-owl going to know when day is cleaning an' go away.

An' Annancy got some corn, an' get a pint of 'trong rum, an' t'row the rum in the corn, an' let the corn soak in the rum.

An' when the Cock call out to 'creech-owl that he is hungry, he says to Mr. Annancy that he must treat his friend Mr. Cock, an' Annancy took some of the corn an' give to the Cock.

An' it so being that he love corn, Annancy continually feed him with the corn until he get drunk an' fast asleep.

An' Annancy feel very glad in his heart that he is going to kill Brother 'creech-owl for his breakfast.

An' when 'creech-owl playing, his mind was on his dear friend Mr. Cock, an' he continually listen to hear him crow, an' he couldn' hear him.

An' he ask for him.

Mr. Annancy tell him that he is having a rest.

An' 'creech-owl play an' play till day catch him.

An' Annancy got a kettle of boiled water an' dish it out an' ask his friend them to have some tea.

An' 'creech-owl get very sad to see day catch him.

An' Annancy didn' know whé make 'creech-owl wouldn' drink the tea.

So Annancy begin to raise a confusion over it, say, as he won't drink the tea he must made up him mind to sarve him breakfast.

An' 'creech-owl began to cry.

An' the same time Annancy (that wicked fellah!) take up 'creech-owl music, an' ask young ladies an' young gentlemen to assist him in a noble song which he is going to kill Mr. 'creech-owl with.

An' this the song:—

[[Listen]] [[XML]]

An' when Annancy sing the sing done, he catch up 'creech-owl an' wring off him neck, an' get him cook for his breakfast an' becomes the master of 'creech-owl's band of music.

An' from that day Mr. Annancy becomes the greatest player an' the biggest raskil in the world.

Jack Mantora me no choose none.

NOTES.

the only danger, the only danger is. This omission is frequent.

At daylight, or soon after, it is the custom to drink tea. This is generally hot water and sugar with, or more often without, milk. Sometimes they make an infusion of the leaves of lime, orange, mint, fever-grass, cinnamon, pimento or search-me-heart. Coffee and chocolate are also occasionally used. These all grow in Jamaica, but, owing to its high price, actual tea is beyond the reach of the peasant. Lime is, of course, not the English tree of that name, but the tropical one which bears that small juicy fruit which is so much better than the coarser lemon. Fever-grass (Andropogon citratus) has the exact smell and taste of lemon-scented verbena. Search-me-heart (Rhytidophyllum tormentosum) is a pretty wild plant with leaves of green velvet, which on moist days give out a delicious aromatic smell much like Humea.

raise a confusion, get up a quarrel. Annancy resorted to the same artifice when he killed Cow and the other animals at the mock obsequies of his father.

sarve him breakfast, serve for his breakfast.

The song will be found again among the [dance tunes].

sing the sing done, finished the song.

'creech-owl sounds like creechole.

XX. ANNANCY AND COW.

One day Annancy tell his family that he is going in the wood.

Before he start he get some cane-liquor an' pour it into a big gourdy, an' he tell him wife that "me gone."

An' he travel so till he meet three Cow.

An' he tell one of the Cow marnin', say:—"Marnin', Bro'er Cow."

Cow say:—"Marnin', Brother Annancy."

Annancy say:—"Beg you a little water, Bro'er Cow."

When Annancy get the water he said:—"The water no sweet not 't all." An' he say to Cow:—"Come taste fe me water." An' he no make Brother Cow know say a cane liquor him got.

When Cow taste it him lick him tongue.

Annancy say:—"No say fe me water sweeter more than fe you?"

Cow said "Yes."

Annancy said:—"Bro'er Cow, you want to go home with me becausen me have it dé a run like a river? Bro'er Cow, if you want to go with me you fe make me put one wiss-wiss over you harn. But, Bro'er Cow, me have some picny a me yard, dey so fooyish, when time we most yech, dey ma go say 'Puppa bring Cow.' When them say 'Puppa bring Cow' you mus' say 'A so him do.'"

Annancy carry Cow into his yard an' tie him upon a tree, an' tell Cow him goin' to get a yitty breakfus' for him. (Annancy 'tudy trick fe nyam Cow; he was very anxious for his beef.)