[1] depon here signifies “because of.”
[2] A kettle.
[3] Tall bush peas, one of the commonest and most prized of Jamaica
crop.
[4] Anansi here claims the power of a sorcerer.
[5] Record was poor and could only be taken in part.
[6] See story 96.
[7] The misunderstood warning is inserted from another narrator.
[8] This means, “Eat, eat, eat”;—“Don’t want anything to eat.”
[9] Fire-flies are common in Jamaica.
[10] Pineapple.
[11] Anyone who has a knife can eat pineapple; anyone who has none
cannot eat pineapple.
[12] A duppy is a ghost, spirit, or any supernatural apparition, but
here probably refers to the Devil.
[13] Crow’s name in French stories.
[14] A machete is a broad heavy knife used to clear brush, cut cane,
etc.
[15] So-so means “only.”
[16] Colloquial for “getting me into trouble.”
[17] “A lie, sir!”
[18] Yeye is Jamaican for “eyes”.
[19] “Dry-head is one of the same species, but he is a different man
from them.” “Dry-head is a man always hide himself in the bush to eat
up what Anansi or Tacoomah have,” Parkes says.—He figures as a kind of
old man of the sea in the Anansi stories.
[20] Tack means a “trick”.
[21] A yellow yam, the favorite vegetable food of the negro is called
“afoo yam”.
[22] Fawning means “feigning”.
[23] A cement platform for drying coffee or piment berries.
[24] A kind of plant with poisonous juice.
[25] By himself, alone.
[26] From this point the story follows a Lacovia version.
[27] Wild yam.
[28] “Go-long-go” corresponds with “Dry-head” in other versions. See
note to 22.
[29] “You ate the meat and gave me none.”
[30] A pit in the ground near the sea-coast, into which the waves wash
is called a “sea-ball.”
[31] “A very hasty temper.”
[32] Oonoo is Jamaican for “you.”
[33] “In your district.”
[34] Butterfly.
[35] A Jamaican food-basket, woven deep and square in shape.
[36] A soiled garment should never be left about lest it be used by the
sorcerer to bewitch the owner. Burning such a garment produces a skin
disease exactly like a burn, according to the common belief.
[37] A shallow flaring bowl.
[38] “I thought you were dead.”
[39] Assono is a large animal, unidentified. See story 75.
[40] The repetition is distributive and means “until to-day.”
[41] A local place-name.
[42] A wooden foot-path is laid above the level of high water at the
side of a road likely to be flooded in high water. This is called a
‘water table’.
[43] The pot’s equilibrium was disturbed by the impact.
[44] This is a reference to the common saying, Cockroach never so
drunk, no walk a fowl yard.
[45] A round tin cooking pot is called a “bonpon”. So is a high round
hat.
[46] A trap.
[47] A cooking-pot.
[48] The song sung is the Koromanti Death Song, always used by the
Maroons at a burial.
[49] Carencron.
[50] Sung by Mrs. Williams.
[51] An overseer on an estate.
[52] An estate devoted to cattle-raising.
[53] “Only.”
[54] The proverb is added from an old mammy of over a hundred years.
[55] Framboesia, popularly called “yaws” is a contagious though curable
skin disease common among young negroes of the West Indies. It begins
with a blister and spreads over the whole body. See Lewis, West Indies,
p. 208.
[56] Thomas White’s version of this song is as follows:
Pon, pon, me dearie. Pon, pon, me dearie. Ah, me Nancy, me dear, dear.
Oh, oh, you, oh, oh, you, da me Nancy, da me Nancy, What a fine gal!
[57] Jamaica children compose a “secret song” which they amuse
themselves with at play or sing when they are walking alone.
[58] In a Brownstown version of the same story, the song is as
follows:—
Gashawnee, oh, Gashawnee, oh, Gashawnee, Look how little bit a
Sammy call yo’ name, why.
[59] Pronounced “roon”.
[60] The song appears twice in the story, the first time only four
measures; it was explained that the second time the song must stop as
given because that is how the Anansi Story ends.
[61] The record is uncertain in places.
[62] It is my trade.
[63] The song was sung by Alfred Williams.
[64] The tune is that of the Devil in the Cock and Corn story, number
85.
[65] The dialogue is taken from a popular game.
[66] I asked, “Who is Jock?”—“Jock man dora.”
[67] The record was faulty.
[68] Part of the first of the song is missing; phonograph needle was
put down too late.
[69] The narrator continued with the following which, she insisted,
belongs with the song:
Tom drunk, but Tom no fool, Tom drunk, but Tom no fool,
Trala-la-la-la-la-la.
This last measure may be repeated at will, or the whole three about
Tom. The oftener it is sung, the sweeter the song, in Mother Roden’s
opinion and in that of many others.
This singer was most uncertain; in intonation, repetitions, etc. she
varied exceedingly and agreed that any way the song was repeated to her
by the transcriber was correct, no matter how it was sung. The
transcriber, therefore, will not vouch for these three tunes. The old
woman is a cripple and can neither read nor write. H. R.
[70] Jamaica negroes speak of the groom at a wedding as “the bride.”
[71] Two school-mistresses in Bethlehem, Santa Cruz Mountains, gave the
following list of “born-day names” which belong to negro children in
Jamaica according to the day of the week upon which they are born. See
Jekyll, int. x (l.c.).
An old woman who was telling me of some obeah practises assured me that
the obi-man (sorcerer) did not use a man’s common name when he wanted
to bewitch him, but his “born-day” name.