Louisiana Folktales is a reprint and expansion of Alcée Fortier’s seminal anthology, originally published (with a hyphen between Folk and Tales) for the American Folk-lore Society in 1895. The present addition, with a new introduction by Russell Desmond, adds the original Creole French versions of the tales in Part Three (originally only English translations were given) along with supplemental material that Fortier had published previously. The book’s three main sections are divided into animal tales, fairy tales, and miscellaneous folklore, the first two juxtaposing the Creole French text (left page) with the English translation (right page) for direct comparison, the third section completely separating the two texts. The four appendices contain a succinct practical treatise on Creole grammar; a collection of proverbs, sayings, and songs; a discussion of customs and superstitions; and a groundbreaking study of the Creole dialect originally published in 1880 by Fortier’s colleague, Dr. Alfred Mercier. Although Creole language studies have advanced considerably since Fortier’s time, such that specialized scholars will be better served by contemporary works, the tales collected here are of continuing interest to general readers, and those with a working knowledge of French will find the annotated passages of patois surprisingly accessible.
In his introduction, Russell Desmond situates Fortier’s tales and scholarship along a historical trajectory. For example, Fortier’s Compair Lapin (“Brother Rabbit”) character was preceded in print by Joel Chandler Harris’ transcriptions of Br’er Rabbit tales in Uncle Remus. Desmond briefly speculates on the ancient origins of these tales in European, African, and Indian folklore, then traces their dissemination and printed appearances in the post-bellum South in English and Creole dialect. He also establishes Fortier’s credentials as a distinguished scholar, even as he challenges Fortier’s racist and elitist biases, noting “the great irony that a very prejudiced man like Fortier, who was so callous and indifferent to the civil and social rights of the African-Americans who surrounded him his entire life, should produce, as the most scholarly and original work of his whole career, studies which preserve and analyze the language and culture of the very people whose rights he had so neglected” (xi). Indeed, a cursory glance through Fortier’s notes and commentary on the various tales confirms both his penetrating perceptions and his deep-rooted prejudice. For example, noting the improvisational dimension of oral history and the inclusion of local color into regional variants, he concludes: “It is nevertheless, interesting to note what changes have been made in the foreign tales by a race rude and ignorant, but not devoid of imagination and of poetical feeling” (97). Desmond’s introduction also includes a listing of scholarly folktale collections in English and French.
In his own preface to the collection, Fortier states his goal to present “genuine” folktales “in a faithful but not literal translation” (xv), and then, in the introduction, addresses the difficulty of collecting and representing aural/oral culture, concluding with an insightful appraisal of the Creole dialect as a transformation of French into “a speech concise and simple, and at the same time soft and musical” (xviii). His translations of the tales are indeed lively, engaging, and deeply informed. Part One collects animal tales, most starring Compair Lapin as the clever trickster and Compair Bouki (from the Wolof for Hyena) as his sidekick and dupe in various adventures with other animals, usually involving some form of deception and often containing a moral or mythic element, showing for example why a turkey sleeps with its head tucked in (cf. “Compair Lapin & Mr. Turkey,” page 25). The final tale of this section, “Marriage of Compair Lapin,” is particularly detailed and complex, with embedded proverbs, fables, and myriad plot twists. Part Two contains Märchen, or supernatural tales, populated by humans and animals, filled with fascinating details that reveal topical subjects and regional folkways. Fortier’s broad knowledge of folklore and folktales allows him to compare these variants to older versions, illustrating how they were adopted by and adapted to Louisiana Creole culture, and he is careful to name his sources for each tale. His commentary on patois grammar and usage, explaining, for example, agglutination (e.g., alliterating articles and nouns), laconicism (e.g., dropping the “r” sound or collapsing quelque chose to kichoge), pronoun declension, verb conjugation, and other elements is detailed but clear, useful for philologists yet comprehensible to casual scholars.
Part Three, “Bits of Louisiana Folklore,” culls popular tales, songs, and proverbs, beginning with “Petit Bronhomme Godron” (aka “The Tar Baby”), a popular and widespread tale both in Louisiana and many other cultures. The author’s hand is revealed in the introduction, where Fortier reports that he received a manuscript of the tale from a Mr. Zénon de Moruelle, which he then reproduced “slightly modifiying [sic] some expressions which appeared to me a little too realistic, and changing the orthography to make it accord with my own ideas of the phonetics of the Creole patois.” His notes here are particularly perceptive (aside from his racially condescending remarks), pointing out idiomatic phrases and filler expressions, the performative dimensions of tale-telling (i.e., facial expressions, vocal characterization, interpolated songs), and eclectic allusions to figures of French history and literature, including Le Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne, Louis XVI, Malherbe, Molière, La Rochefoucauld, Saint Louis, alongside more general references like Ponce de León, Dan Rice’s circus, the Bible, Don Quixote, and Sancho Panza. For example, he notes that de León’s legendary quest for a fountain of youth takes on a local variant: “vegetables cut the day before would grow again if sprinkled with the marvelous water” (198).
Appendix I provides a more comprehensive study of Creole dialect, including phonetics, all parts of speech, and forms of address—relatively complete for an amateur philologist or French speaker. Appendix II contains a wonderful collection of proverbs and sayings (most translated and explained) and songs (without English translations). Appendix III is less useful, with a rather fanciful reconstruction of plantation life, in which slaves were, “as a rule, well treated by their masters, and…were contented and happy” (175), but it does list local superstitions and describes interesting folklore, such as a ritual for cutting the last sugar cane plant of the season, a gambling game that involves shooting at a wooden rooster (aka papegai), the legend of ignis fatuus/Jack-a-Lantern, a pecan guessing game, a cure for warts, etc. Appendix IV reprints Mercier’s important study of Creole grammar (in French only), which declines personal pronouns and conjugates verbs, compares patois with old French, discusses the development of an aural dialect from a written language, explores usages (differentiating urban and rural practices, for example), and provides a translation demonstrating how well patois renders Homeric epic poetry.
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[Review length: 1100 words • Review posted on November 14, 2012]