Week 2: Famous Last Words... me and my drum

It feels like of weird to be writing my Famous Last Words for Week 2... but I am also really glad to be working ahead, and also so grateful to the students who were ready to get started. That prompted me to work really hard last week to get everything ready....... and there are already 9 people who have set up their blogs, which is incredibly cool to see since it is not even Week 0 yet!

And since I'm done with Week 2 now, that means I technically don't have anything due as a student in this class until February 11. That sounds incredibly far away, ha ha, but I'm guessing next week will be pretty busy... and then of course the regular Week 1 and Week 2 will be super-busy like always.

I still can't really believe that this is my last semester of teaching, but at the same time I am really excited for how all the 100-word projects are going. I love being a teacher at OU, but I am also going to love having all the time I need to read and write. So many books to read! So many books to write! After I finish this post, I'm going to work on Brer Rabbit for the rest of the day, yay!

And........ I'll have some time to drum. My husband and I have been watching Ken Burns's beautiful documentary Jazz, and now that I'm drumming every day I can tell that I'm hearing the music differently than before, and I'm especially listening for the drums. So when there was a conga player who was part of Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, I heard that drum sound right away. Apparently Dizzy Gillespie was really into the whole Afro/Cuban jazz scene, and I am going to be so happy when I have time time time so much time this summer to expand my musical awareness. 

(Google pause.........) Okay, I just Googled and found this fabulous video from the Kennedy Center: how cool!

Artes de Cuba: Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience

And here's another music video; this is a song I've been playing along with. I really like this one... in part because of the cute title! Plus it is just the right speed/style for me to play along with. :-)

Crocodile Feet by James Asher

And in the spirit of drums, here's a lovely proverb from Liberia: An untouched drum does not speak.

So...... drum on, people! LIterally and metaphorically. :-)

Topic Brainstorm: Tricksters

Things get so intense during the official first week of classes that I try to work ahead as a student in this class as much as I can during Week 0... and I'm already at the part of Week 2 where I am brainstorming a Storybook to do for this semester. I know I want to do something related to TRICKSTERS, but I am not sure what the best focus will be. Here are four ideas:

Tricksters in the African Diaspora: It would be really cool to pick four stories that are well represented in the African diaspora so that I could compare an African version with a Brer Rabbit version with an Anansi version... maybe even multiple versions of the story. This is definitely the project I am leaning towards since it would take good advantage of the fact that I could tell three stories on one page. I would develop them a little more beyond the 100-word versions, but still keep them short, around 300 words. Web sources:
Anansi.LauraGibbs.net
Rabbit.LauraGibbs.net
... plus African sources online.

African Brer Rabbit and the Southeastern Nations. I would really like to learn more about the back-and-forth between the Brer Rabbit stories of African American storytellers and the storytelling traditions of the Cherokee and other southeastern nations. A key source for this would be Swanton's book: Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians... plus Mooney's Cherokee stories, plus Harris's Brer Rabbit and other Brer Rabbit sources. I'm not quite sure how I would organize this; maybe stories side by side, with three or four stories on a page? 

World Tricksters. This would be a chance to profile some of the best tricksters, each with a page of their own. I could do Aesop's fox and the Reynard tradition, African tortoise stories, African American Brer Rabbit, and Caribbean Anansi. For this one, I would probably do the 100-word stories so that I could include seven or eight stories for each trickster.
Web sources: Rabbit.LauraGibbs.net, Anansi.LauraGibbs.net, illustrated Aesop, and African folktales online.

Aesop's Tricksters in English and Latin. This would be a fun project for figuring out the best way to present my Latin materials using a Google Site set-up. I'm pretty happy with how I am using a blog to do that, but it would be fun to see what Google Sites has to offer. Of the four topics, this is the one I am probably least likely to choose, but it would give me some direction in the fables I'm choosing to work on, focusing on tricksters! Here's the blog where I'm doing that:
Bestiaria Latina ... I haven't been focusing on tricksters there in particular, but I could do that going forward!

And as a trickster from Aesop, here's the fox tricking some other foxes!

The Fox with a Short Tail

Week 2 Story - Tiny Tricksters: Jackal, Monkey, Agouti

I had done a Tiny Tricksters version of the trickster stories in the anthology for the Indian Epics class (stories here), so I thought I would do the same here for Myth-Folklore. The Trickster section of the Anthology had one long story from India; it was not easy to turn it into a 100-word story, but I did it!

The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal

"Help!" yelled Tiger, trapped in a pit.
A passing Brahmin heard him. "I'm scared to help you," he said.
"Don't be scared!" Tiger begged.
The Brahmin helped Tiger out... then Tiger grabbed him.
"Help!" yelled the Brahmin.
Jackal arrived. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I'm HUNGRY!" roared Tiger.
"But I rescued him from the pit!" protested the Brahmin.
"What pit? Where?" Jackal asked.
"That pit! There!" snarled Tiger.
"You could never fit in there," Jackal replied.
"But I did!!" yelled Tiger.
He jumped into the pit, and then realized his mistake.
"This time," said Jackal to the Brahmin, "leave him there."

Of course, I had to leave out a lot of the story, which has different judges before the jackal arrives, etc. But still, I like how it turned out. The idea of the trickster getting someone to do something to prove a point is one of my favorite trickster tricks, and it works really nicely in this story. In the original, the jackal pretends to be very confused... which takes a lot of words. This strategy took fewer words. :-)

This story is actually famous all over the world, so for my microfiction experiment here, I'll include two other versions of this story from totally different sources: one from the Renaissance Latin fabulist Abstemius which features a monkey as the judge instead of a jackal, and also one from Jamaica, which features the trickster Anansi being tricked (Anansi often gets makes makes foolish mistakes when he gets greedy), with Agouti as judge.

The Man who Rescued a Snake

A snake was stuck under a rock.
"Help me!" he shouted at a man who walked by. "Free me, and I'll give you a treasure!"
"I'll help you," said the man, and he freed the snake, but instead of giving him a treasure, the snake threatened to kill him.
As they were arguing, a monkey came by.
"Be our judge, monkey!" they said.
"You'll have to show me exactly what happened," said the monkey.
So the snake got back under the rock, and then the monkey said, "I advise you to leave that ungrateful beast under the rock this time!"

Anansi, Snake, and the Rock

Snake was trapped under a big rock.
"Save me!" Snake shouted when Anansi walked by.
"No!" said Anansi. "You'll eat me."
"I won't eat you, I promise!" shouted Snake. "I'll give you a reward!"
Anansi rolled away the rock.
"Now I'm going to eat you!" said Snake.
"That's not fair!" said Anansi.
Agouti walked by. "Be our judge, Agouti!" they said.
"Well," said Agouti, "you better show me what happened."
"I was under this rock," said Snake, and then Anansi rolled the rock back on Snake.
"Leave him!" said Agouti. "He'll have to find some other fool who trusts him."

Here's what agoutis look like:

Bibliography.
India. Tiger, Brahmin, and Jackal in Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs.
Abstemius. Simius Iudex, Serpens, et Vir (in Latin).
Jamaica. "Nansi and Snake," in The Magic Pot: Nansi Stories from the Caribbean by Odeen Ishmael.

Image source. Agouti - Wikimedia.

Week 2 Story: Tiny Tricksters

 I like tricksters! And there were some good trickster stories in here, so instead of one big trickster story, I did several tiny tricksters. Each of these stories is just 100 words long. There are notes at the bottom.

illustration of The Princes and the Turtle

by Ellsworth Young

1. The Princes and the Turtle

The princes shouted, "Father, we saw a lake monster!
The king's guards went and caught the monster. It was only a turtle, but the princes had never seen a turtle; it frightened them.
"How shall we kill it?" the king asked them.
"Crush it!" said the first.
"Burn it!" said the second.
The third prince feared the water, so he said, "Drown it!"
At this the turtle shrieked, "Please don't drown me, good people!"
"Let the turtle be drowned," commanded the king.
They threw the turtle into the lake.
Laughing, the turtle dove down into the water. "Home at last!"

2. The Crane and the Fish

The lake was drying up.

“Don’t worry, dear fish-friends!” said a crane. “I'll carry you to my home, a big lake nearby.”
The fish agreed, and the crane carried them off one by one. But the crane didn't relocate the fish; he devoured them.
Finally only a crab remained.
“Come on!” said the crane.
But as they were landing, the crab looked down and saw the fish bones, so he grabbed the crane's neck with his pincers.
“Let go!” the crane said, but the crab squeezed.
SNAP!
He then lived happily ever after in the big lake.

3. The Monkey's Heart

Craving Monkey's heart for supper, Crocodile swam to the riverbank where Monkey lived. "Let's go to Banana Island, Monkey!"
"But you know I can't swim."
"Don't worry! I'll carry you."
Greedy for bananas, Monkey jumped on.
Crocodile plunged deep under the water.
"What are you doing?" Monkey shrieked.
"I'm going to eat your heart for supper."
"But I left my heart in the tree!"
Monkey pointed to the fig tree on the riverbank.
"Well, go get it!" shouted Crocodile.
Crocodile swam back to shore, and Monkey leaped into the tree.
"You can fool me once," he cackled. "But not twice!"

4. Crocodile in the River

Crocodile noticed Monkey using a rock to cross the river; Monkey would jump from riverbank to rock, and from rock to riverbank.
"I'll make my back look like a rock," thought Crocodile. "He'll jump on me, and I'll catch him!"
Monkey saw a suspicious new rock in the river. Before he jumped, Monkey said, "Hello, Rock!'
Crocodile said nothing.
Monkey shouted, "Hey, Rock! Why don't you answer me like you usually do?"
Crocodile realized he had to answer. "Hello, Monkey…" he said cautiously.
"Hello to you, Crocodile," Monkey cackled, "and goodbye! I won't be jumping on you today… or ever!"

Bibliography and Notes:
1. Two Turtle Jatakas. From Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt. This resembles the very famous briar-patch story about Brer Rabbit of course: whatever you do, don't throw me in that briar-patch!
2. The Cunning Crane and the Crab. From The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. This story is structured so we see that the fish fall for the crane's trick, but the crab does not.
3. The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart. From Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock. I had to leave out the crocodile's wife who was the one who wanted to eat the monkey's heart.
4. The Crocodile in the River. From The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers. I only did the first half of this story. This is a trickster motif you can find all over; here's a Brer Rabbit version: Heyo, House!

"Week 2 Reading Overview: a semester of tricksters!

I know I want to focus on tricksters and their stories this semester... I've read all the UnTextbook, but I'm doing this assignment to think about what units I want to RE-read in order to find good story material I can use about tricksters this semester. :-)

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4.

Week 3: Aesop 
Week 4: More Aesop

... I'll zoom in on the specifically trickster stories, which will be fun to do! (Plus, I can do some stories that will be useful for my Latin Centum project too.)

Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6.

Week 5: Tales of a Parrot 
Week 6: Santal

These are two important Indian sources that I did not use for the Indian project I did this summer, so it will be good to have a chance to re-visit them now.

Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.]
Week 7: Nigeria 
Week 9: South Africa

After Brer Rabbit, my next Tiny Tales book is going to be about African tricksters, so I can definitely make good use of this reading opportunity!

Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11.
Week 10: California/Southwest 
Week 11: Cherokee

And this one is easy also: after the African trickster book, I'm doing a book about Coyote, and I also need to do something on the back-and-forth story sharing among African storytellers and the tribes of the southeastern U.S., so the Cherokee unit will be good to use also.

Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13.
Week 12: Aesop 
Week 13: Welsh (Emerson)

More Aesop is an obvious choice! I think I'll be done with the class by Week 13, but if I keep on going, taking a look at those Welsh folktales for trickster motifs will be good!

Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15.
Week 14: La Fontaine 
Week 15: Italian

Yes, more Aesop via La Fontaine! Plus there is so much great stuff in Crane's Italian folktale book; I should read through that and just do a big trickster harvest right there.

So, one of the books I really want to read this semester will fit right in with the readings from Weeks 10 and 11:

When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote:

African-Native American Literature

by Jonathan Brennan