A Word on Words; 3202; Laura C. Jarmon

welcome to were aghast as marcy german we talk about her book wishbone which is referencing interpretation of black folk america the left a long title for area for important subject but many people really don't understand what black full narrative it's i guess if i mention bonjour an uncle remus maybe it begins to have relevance you mention in a frequently in wishbone tell me why it's important and why it became important to you and you're a university teacher and an you know literature word means different things to different people black folk narrative really sort of fallen into disrepute seems to me thinking back

on my own distant distant childhood wandering studio swerve were affair for children when you talk a little bit about why this was important to you well i can start with your ten hertz for most people who study this fall georgiana harris is one of the visuals were collected narratives and publish them and that these are the people who studied him from a sort of scholarly angle but then there are people who use these tales in their daily lives and i'll call them a participant group ok day for them that tells a dynamic and refer to things going on in the world you see jessica tells mike today have fallen into disrepute won't let me go back there and talk about the term itself felt well you say it and i guess when you think about george allen earthly thing the grimm's tales you think about

ballot and alabama to not only pass a vote for somebody like me to tell a story and then write elected really smacks you write you write about the dialect and distribute that might might use of the phrase black folk narrative ok includes more than just details themselves as like couldn't say i sort of wanted to talk about black folk tale and then i discovered that what i had to do was to look at other discourse and other forms of reference besides just the tale itself and so i wound up with the with the phrase black folk narrative and i'm concerned the notion of disrepute you write that dialect and i have an appendix to in this book that tries to talk about the various ways in which the black oh whoa employee aspects of the english language and so one of the things i wanted to do was just to two to make clear to the reader that there are some differences and that some of those differences are explaining that dialect farm would be a point

of insults just because of its attachment to us some of the stereotypes that go along with the parade rep arabica figure and some of the other figures that are in traditional african american solar have to do with it or with it coming out of the slate culture right right and what this book tries to do is look not only at the african american slave culture and what has come after it but especially to look at the sum of the african culture groups that these slaves descended from and the us placed the narratives which we did know today as black folk tales and lauretta tells what place of them inside a context that is traditional to african culture you pretty well knock down the theory that early origin forcefully story for european i try yeah i think that i think if at the agency's how did you succeed in that

but lest the system it's just all right in the details and so on because there are armed for those who are very young know read when us anymore but talk about tar baby as you write about the baby i'm tired baby becomes a sort of the prototype war the african american folktale any and it's its context in traditional african folktale by that i mean to say that the tar baby he says is all about and what i tried to do is place there in a cultural context and this is in and this is in an effort to defeat one of the stereotypes having to do with african americans that you know death is part of the african american framework i don't believe it and so i'd i try to speak to show that there is a call told i mentioned to this

concept of that and i look at the doggone culture for example and art talk about briefly the hour the bbb figure that because the concept of ritual that and the ritual feet and show that the blacksmith angelo on mythology and kay was among the ancestors and helped to set up the current world and its culture and dated by way of stealing fire from heaven so as tool called charade humanity and its current existence and so i'm trying to get a context for not only some of the tales and things that go on and it tells but also for some of the some of the ideas that we have that african americans have to deal with him in the cab in the context of stereotypes and i you know if i if i write

about theft by quite thief in fire it about itself by a white stephen i don't stereotype and i write about that and identify the thief of nafta american then i fall into the trap of stereotyping these tales that deal with our baby and almost inevitably deal with the issue of of song the ethan and because the dialect is they're using an led that is that black i mean so say you dealing with our baby as a symbol i knew to do with our baby of the summit first vote to set up the straw man and then to knock it down and that's the way i read what what you've done i think again i think you've done it very effectively iowa got legitimate

justification for stealing but there also is a concept of wisdom in these tales that you deal with a soul that even if it's the very there is there is wisdom in tomorrow's story no less maybe you know maybe i'm not really the way you're writing a book that's the way i read well you're not far off well one of the things i'm thankful aha of investments that are trying to do is mel kay these tales in traditional african culture ok in fact it only selected for presentation in this book details that i saw as having a common common pastor in both africa and and african american culture so we selected those tar baby is a widespread scheme and typically in the african culture and this is before we get to any dialect in black america jersey

and before we get to a nice to re tightening of black america okay so we'll go back to the african culture traditional african culture not the modern senate sense of things a woman tells him that in the earlier period ok pre european and then what we find is animal figurines ok and we find them often participants and mythology and that's one of the key things i wanted to point out is your tales to extend this the dissent from mythology and what we will find is that this party the pieces will show up and the context i'll need either war in drought ok or food and famine and sell the community then needs to find a way to satisfy this need and community comes together this is a pretty typical state tell the community comes together they all work together to satisfy this nidhi they did for water after a while they have a well and one of the tricks

to figure determine is that he or she is not going to participate in the community effort and thus set about muddying the water well stealing the war and so forth but it's always somehow or another caught and that is holly squat with a sticky gum figured other fascinating know for both and you just would you mention the presence of animals taking on the character of humans parameters are hit but their rabbits and monkeys wolves and hyenas and foxes and and indulge and cats in every form alive is part of the trail there's dialogue there is this conversation between the heroes and villains of the heroes and villains in animal in the animal world but they're operating on

human fall talk a little bit about the need that need to tell stories about humans through symbolic know what one of the i am one of the words that i wanted to use as part of the title for this book is the word mortality which is our reference to discourse on what he had in reference to be a grandma on the other hand in the grandma you find mortality in words like if perhaps other conditionality on condition that but not a direct assertion in the discourse feature you find it in it whether or not the speaker chooses to take full responsibility for whatever claim there has been made now are almost comes to some goal in direction which we hear a lot about before would talk about african american culture in fact during slavery i am apparently the the master group complained frequently that their slaves would not

answer them into direct fashion but we're always be evasive and find ways not to not to respond directly well from what i can see and some aspects of traditional african culture this is a sort of pasture and this refusal to answer directly could be a matter of survival see years the us media ease it seems to be reasonable than that in the storytelling process which could offer to be a part of the ritual and either i'll worship structures then the voice might be of waste that is one that is an an intermediary for ways and so i would sit and i would press build an argument that the animal figure at all maybe that intermediary boards function and now i see the i see that let me just dumb minnesota frozen some of that to show up in the jails and city react when we don't get that all things go

with all things how are things going in is everywhere been in the blackfoot narrative the eyes and the toppings go place dirty tricks on people really it you for alibaba's goal yet self control that the punch line is like that so i got your talk too much or something close to that the comma where the talkies go come from and how that how that metaphor a relates to this life of their historical i like that term propriety because i think that term is appropriate almost any culture in every culture has its values its mores what's right and what's wrong but talking skull things to be symbolic of instances of thing's gone wrong speech for example in the magical read religious context

brings about things it makes things happen so one person speaks gangrene into being whatever it refers to the sea and so here with a talking skull typically what you have someone who is talking to work there instances in which that person ought to hold his or her piece just don't say anything and with the talking's go where he is so awful to people what's happening often is the marriage context where someone has violated tradition regarding marriage and has sought to go out and choose his are all hurt his or her own spots now that brings about problems with the with the culture with the lineage with genealogy and all of that and so it has to be corrected and so when this when this person goes and encounters a skull talking out in the woods somewhere then the skull is an indicator of some impropriety that has occurred

and this call will be the debate in a horrible manner what this individual until the individual's learns the lessons you know or to get culture and get his society his community back on track and to mean it almost always as though more and more danger from an issue i'm saying and then tomorrow a story of women did indeed normally high winds and some of you just joining us were talking with north sudan about her book which one another not a metaphor of the old woman ah the old woman is an ambiguous figure you know sometimes low level of pain and i think it is on one of the one of the scholars explains the old woman in traditional african culture as being someone who is beyond childbearing age and bass can move from one sort of community

she can go back and forth between two or three different stages of a community's development and for that reason we find her a bit ambivalent in ocean whatever on up ultimately she's teaching lessons ok where is the un risen violation as the sufferer and where is performing according to group mores and observing group values is rewarded i mentioned those two closing to me that that in terms of providing was i'm and ann and teaching which these narratives so often seek to do in and providing morrow that both the darkness fell ill one form i think the same test but i might be wrong about the only a violin i agree with you they show they don't make a display of what is the appropriate behavior

and what is the inappropriate behavior talk to me about magic and medicine that is a high level and that's a hard one and when i started working on this book i had no idea that i was going to discover what i and because the tarmac magic and the term medicine our are synonymous in some traditional african cultures om om and but the problem with the concept is that in the context of christianity the concept itself is unwelcome it was apparently arm it's in violation of a love of a faith and belief structure and also hitting against the moral issues and what not magic a belief that one can make happen whatever it is one can

conceive of also the notion that when the famous happen to a person there is some redress nothing is ever finished and closed off permanently so that a person must take responsibility to serve to some extent or what happens to warm magic is on the one hand the solution for our physical ailments and on the other hand a form of redress for monday's four or the years and anxiety when at one point when the narrative with old narrative relies on magic to tell the story even though you know it does offend christian culture there still is a sort of sense of our hourly

behind what magic ultimately produces i asked about wisdom early on in the woods thinks about magic interview with them in those intimate that if the magician in the jail turns bad and the good art creates a positive from a negative and that there is a moral to that to that they'll now again a mile off base here the add on the notion that one has a form of redress for almost any situation back here she encounters as a very positive notion and it certainly works a guest earl defeatism and all kinds of fears and anxieties that people experience in their daily lives and also what their power structures you say and so i think that i am on this this this will weigh in on any individual in a tale consult a diviner

is this is this is typically very much a wholly endeavor when the individual consults a source around us didn't you there's a damaging oh the sacred in that and what i wanted to be true to show was that this time khan sure which makes so much fear in the hearts of african americans has a context that is bona fide and condos all all kinds of morality in the culture that comes from uc the dvd did the times began to take one negative connotations once they are interpreted by a value system different from that which the terms origination once they're outside the narrative ones the house of the narrative been conjuring up in his native is a negative term roots of these terms to strike fear in the

hearts let me ask you about the race that all in the door toward so the hair and the door going to here in the parish the buzzard and the rand the globe about the race i'm going to race the contest is so often turns up in in the uk i am i am i i think i would i would look at the race the contest it a place that probably already in the context of courtship first of all if i want to give you the context of which hit the devices that are used for gaining the spouse the desired spouse and often combat that's what's going on and in those races ok the i'm the the deer and the tortoise you know where they acted after the hand of the hand of a woman and so reporter as being so low

as to come up with at a way to get the hand of the woman and so we have again the trickster figure and this big record shows up across all cultures christopher you did when i was younger a woman its own letting go of some who do have a budget that in a monkey for an ear and a monkey thought that everything was on the square and low and all life on the buzz of them on the right there was a butter the inspector is named after him such a second outstanding figure in this in this world in this material out by either represent a contradiction of sorts you know hit the heat his pastures and the eu is a it's released a

really own something something to look out for african americans to adopt this buzzard figure out and they are all kinds of legends related to the buzzard he and his is relation to africa and then the slave trade in one not that what about buzzer when the key stories about buzz and his is a story wait on the lord the buzzard whoa whoa what he won't go out and get his own food he says now wait on the lord for my salvation and down and whoever fit what your whichever figure he's inclined as with says we want to go and work for your living and he says no no i always someone for my salvation how wilmore in this figure whether it be a hawk or a horse one's art show and art and david ansell about it some new cd now is the hour in the african american context while we talk about

working hard for a living and taking curious the contrast is buzzard not working hard for a living at the same time waiting on the lord chancellors award rewarding for not working for and in their hot winds up or non sharp sharp on them in his band was anita silvey and design there's some ambiguity there you see is i had not known across the table some of song the summer sun who turned out to be so so racial a family and warm new rulers of come from well there's a telling hear from the traditional african culture number eleven me and i wasn't too too comfortable with the tail of the senate some because so many people have done so many things with it cause or no howard stern for example does a lot with that tale and garden she'll hook together some other odd motifs to

go along with it and where the tail comes from i have no idea but i do know that do we have in hear the tale of the brothers who have to go up across the across the universe to go ahead and they have to go to hell all in a quest to retrieve some magic optics ok enable in one of the episodes brother they get the youngest and most esteemed tells them he called them by number numbered number one standstill number to standstill and he's number eleven sight of himself number eleven standstill and this all in arm in response to some of the some of the challenges that they need in their quest and the fed and fun is what it is or are almost a replication of that tale but set in yes they do you think do you think that we've lost something in having

a black man to become tougher in literature yes but i'd i'm not certain that they are is in our world of context that we can place this narrative in and have it had it represent the sort of image that the typical african american believes in for blacks today we can have our own little bitty children imitating dialect speech it won't do and that's where the argument about a particular lot of prerogative we get up and we haven't totally lost her rabbit i think a rat is going to serve the city and once someone figures out how to present for a rabbit in a context that he bet that restores the the repeal to the figure and the reagan i think we

can find in the african context and that was the call of people like mr run out of time like florida and for being with his life all of evil watching your own words on johnson in poetry reading