What the Children Said: Child Lore of South Louisiana

Abstract

In 2016, Jeanne Pitre Soileau published her wonderful book Yo’ Mama, MaryMack, and Boudreaux and Thibodeaux, which won both the American Folklore Society's Opie Prize and the Chicago Folklore Prize in 2018. Her collection of children's folklore, recorded in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette from 1969 to 2019, offers important understanding of children's traditions to folklorists, anthropologists, and other scholars, as well as the general public. What the Children Said: Child Lore of South Louisiana includes more than 600 items of children's folklore, many of which appear in transcripts of the author's visits with children. Reading these transcripts helps us perceive the social context of the time when they were recorded, as well as the dynamics of children's interaction.In the preface, Soileau explains her method of collection, to ask children a number of questions, including the following: “Do you play ring games?” “Can you tell me a joke?” “What do you say to tease someone?” “What speeches do you make on the playground?” She uses these questions flexibly, sometimes finding that “the planned questions go out the window, and the children run amok” (p. ix). Her sensitivity to children's needs and preferences reminds me of Iona Opie's approach in The People in the Playground (Oxford University Press, 1993): open, appreciative, and aware of the variability of children's choices.Soileau's introduction offers more details about her fieldwork methods and goals. Emphasizing her “appreciation of the power of children's speech” (p. 3), she notes that the “play and verbal interactions collected in small, controlled situations in schoolyards and playgrounds of south Louisiana” have sometimes involved just one or two young volunteers but at other times have become crowds of children insisting upon attention (p. 5). It is important to note that she has gone beyond schoolyards and playgrounds, the sites most often chosen by children's folklore fieldworkers, to talk with children at day camps, birthday parties, Girl Scout meetings, day care centers, synagogues, and other places. The annotated list of collection sites provides valuable information about all of these locations.Although each chapter has the title of a children's folklore genre (counting outs, ring games, hand games, running and imaginative games, teases, jokes, and others), the transcripts offer plenty of context, so the reader finds much more than a record of items that fit the category. For example, the “Running and Imaginative Games” chapter includes a transcript of a visit to Gates of Prayer Hebrew Synagogue in Metairie, Louisiana, in January 1979. In this transcript, the children eagerly describe Freeze Tag, Stuck in the Mud, King of the Mountain, and Ghost in the Graveyard, but one boy mentions a witch in the middle of a shipwreck in a swimming pool who tries to pull children in when they are riding their bikes. When Soileau asks if a witch is really in the pool, the children shout “NOOOOOO!” with an explosion of laughs (p. 218). Later, the teacher mentions games the children play at Halloween parties, and one boy explains which parts of his cousin's house serve as bases when they play kickball. This open discussion, rich in detail, helps us picture the children's daily lives at home, at their Hebrew school, and in other situations.Another noteworthy aspect of the book is its inclusion of children's discussions of racism and sexism. The author's transcripts show that the children have thought about both racism and sexism and developed their own strategies for coping with them. For example, in the book's first transcript in the introduction, three boys who are cousins talk about ways that children tease each other at school. One of the cousins mentions the insult “burnt cookie,” which suggests that a person's skin is too dark. A cousin who has African American heritage looks uncomfortable, so the other two boys start talking about different kinds of insults and fights, helping their cousin feel better.In the concluding chapter, Soileau states that Iona Opie's choice of the term “people” for describing children is right on target. Children view themselves and each other as people, and they deserve to be acknowledged as individuals in groups with leaders that they choose themselves. Soileau also emphasizes her point that children still play; they do not just watch television. If adults want to learn what children say, they should simply “listen closely while the children play” (p. 282). I hope that others with an interest in children's lore will do just what she suggests.