The Lion Tells His Own Tale

Abstract

The Lion Tells His Own Tale Daryl Cumber Dance (bio) Sacral Grooves, Limbo Gateways: Travels in Deep Southern Time, Circum-Caribbean Space, Afro-Creole Authority. By Keith Cartwright. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2013. 328 pp. $79.95 cloth; $24.95 paper. Critical Appropriations: African American Women and the Construction of Transnational Identity. By Simone C. Drake. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2014. 208 pp. $35.00 cloth. Ebook available. Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation. By Shirley Moody-Turner. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2013. 192 pp. $55.00 cloth. Ebook available. In a traditional African American folktale, a young boy is puzzled that in every story he reads, the lion, the king of the jungle, is always defeated by the man. The father explains: “Son, the lion will always be defeated until he can tell his own tale.” In recent publications, Keith Cartwright, Simone C. Drake, and Shirley Moody-Turner have given the lie to the historic misrepresentations of African diasporic culture and offered to us images of strong, powerful people that arise through the folklore and stories written by “Lions.” In a remarkably wide-reaching interdisciplinary study of the largely Afroinspired culture of the coastal southern states, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas, Cartwright treats the travels of his subjects with close attention to their rich [End Page 135] folklore. Whether Cartwright is discussing history, language, music, race, religion, folklore, fiction, poetry, or foods, gumbo stands as the dominant icon in this book, representing the blending of the diverse elements of Africa, the Deep South, and the Caribbean. Cartwright’s presentation fascinates and titillates with its detailed discussion of history, its persistent tracing of migrations, its vivid accounts of place, its rhythmic portrayal of music and song, its mesmerizing reproduction of religious practices, its sensual description of foods. By the time I had noted scores of references (actual and figurative) to gumbo, with some explicit recipes and descriptions, I was visualizing a simmering pot, smelling the tempting aromas, tasting the myriad of blended ingredients, even enjoying the socializing of those gathered around the pots in Senegal, New Orleans, the Bahamas, the Sea Islands, Trinidad. After my family and I enjoyed the fantastic gumbo I felt compelled to pause and re-create, I returned to the book. Thus was established a pattern that I expect many readers will follow in experiencing Cartwright’s compelling volume. The reader is intrigued by an account that is based on a remarkable job of research, by new and challenging interpretations, and by the fascinating accounts of a writer who has actually experienced many of the rites, cultures, places, and peoples he describes; then Cartwright’s eloquent and often poetic presentation is so seductive that you realize you are not simply reading a book: you are participating in a ritual; you are experiencing that historical blending of cultures brought about by the travels of the inhabitants of Africa, the Deep South, and the Caribbean; and you are realizing that as a result of this whole process, which is frequently compared to a gumbo, “the Gulf’s mires and blood consecrations have . . . done soaked clean through onto [you].” Throughout the volume Cartwright emphasizes the significance of African culture in societies that tend to prioritize Western culture, challenging us “to enter perceived cultural backwaters with a hippikat (open-eyed) reconsideration of dismissed perspectives and unaccredited gnosis.” And what rich “backwaters” he takes us into, exploring religions, languages, folktales, dances, songs, and literature. He begins with the rites of community in coastal Georgia, South Carolina, and the Anglophone Caribbean, focusing largely on Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow but offering commentary on Jean Toomer’s Cane, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Erna Brodber’s Myal, and Earl Lovelace’s The Wine of Astonishment. [End Page 136] Chapter 2, “Lift Every Voice and Swing,” adds a noteworthy new element to James Weldon Johnson studies, presenting Johnson as an icon of the Creole from Geechee native land with ancestors from Africa, France, Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas, Virginia, and New York. Cartwright provides important new readings of Johnson...