In this Book
- Animal Tales from the Caribbean
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Indiana University Press
These twenty-one animal tales from the Colombian Caribbean coast represent a sampling of the traditional stories that are told during all-night funerary wakes. The tales are told in the semi-sacred space of the patio (backyard) of homes as part of the funerary ritual that includes other aesthetic and expressive practices such as jokes, song games, board games, and prayer. In this volume these stories are situated within their performance contexts and represent a highly ritualized corpus of oral knowledge that for centuries has been preserved and cultivated by African-descendant populations in the Americas.
Ethnomusicologist George List collected these tales throughout his decades-long fieldwork amongst the rural costeños, a chiefly African-descendent population, in the mid-20th century and, with the help of a research team, transcribed and translated them into English before his death in 2008. In this volume, John Holmes McDowell and Juan Sebastián Rojas E. have worked to bring this previously unpublished manuscript to light, providing commentary on the transcriptions and translations, additional cultural context through a new introduction, and further typological and cultural analysis by Hasan M. El-Shamy. Supplementing the transcribed and translated texts are links to the original Spanish recordings of the stories, allowing readers to follow along and experience the traditional telling of the tales for themselves.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xii
- Agradecimientos
- pp. xiii-xvi
- Editors’ Introductory Essay
- pp. 1-24
- George List’s Introduction
- pp. 25-28
- The Stories
- 1. Mártara
- pp. 31-33
- 2. The Little Goat
- pp. 34-37
- 3. Of Aunt Vixen with Uncle Jaguar
- pp. 38-40
- 4. The Excursion of Rabbit
- pp. 41-42
- 6. A Humorous Tale of Rabbit
- pp. 45-46
- 8. The Man
- pp. 48-51
- 10. Uncle Rabbit and Uncle Alligator
- pp. 56-57
- 12. The Cunning of Rabbit
- pp. 63-65
- 13. The Saddling of Jaguar
- pp. 66-69
- 14. When Rabbit Lost
- pp. 70-71
- 15. Uncle Rabbit’s Field
- pp. 72-75
- 16. Rabbit and Vixen’s Saloon
- pp. 76-77
- 17. The Man Who Gathered Honey
- pp. 78-81
- 19. The Marriage of Monkey and Frog
- pp. 86-92
- 20. Uncle Rabbit’s Ears
- pp. 93-99
- 21. When the Sun Baptized the Bat’s Son
- pp. 100-102
- Typology and Cultural Analysis
- pp. 103-132
- Ensayo Introductorio de los Editores
- pp. 133-156
- Introducción de George List
- pp. 157-160
- Los Cuentos
- 1. Mártara
- pp. 163-165
- 2. El chivito
- pp. 166-169
- 3. De Tía Zorra con Tío Tigre
- pp. 170-172
- 4. La excursión del Conejo
- pp. 173-174
- 5. El puerco que se burlaba mucho del burro
- pp. 175-176
- 6. Chiste de Conejo
- pp. 177-178
- 7. Cuando Tigre quiso pelear con Conejo
- pp. 179-180
- 8. El hombre
- pp. 181-185
- 9. Tío Conejo y los siete hijos de Tía Tigra
- pp. 186-190
- 10. Tío Conejo y Tío Caimán
- pp. 191-192
- 12. La astucia de Conejo
- pp. 198-200
- 13. La ensillada de Tigre
- pp. 201-204
- 14. Cuento en que Conejo pierde
- pp. 205-206
- 15. La roza de Tío Conejo
- pp. 207-211
- 16. La cantina de Conejo y Zorra
- pp. 212-213
- 17. El sacador de miel
- pp. 214-218
- 18. La querella de Zorra con Gallo
- pp. 219-222
- 19. El matrimonio de Machín con Rana
- pp. 223-229
- 20. Las orejas de Tío Conejo
- pp. 230-237
- Contributors
- pp. 241-242
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