Black Storytellers
Black Storytellers
When I went to the performance of the “Black Storytellers,” I was surprised at how much fun it was. It was so interesting hearing the stories that were passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition. The people who put on this spectacular performance also do workshops and seminars to promote black storytelling in order to preserve African oral tradition. This is what they call their “Mission Statement.”
The first part of the performance entailed a man playing a drum incredibly well. A lady starts to sing, “humba a way a.” Then people come from the sides and start singing. They holler, “I have a story to tell.” The first story was about how ships came to take Africans as slaves. Twee, wanted to be free and spoke and sang songs about freedom. The story talked about a ship which came with new African slaves to be sold. The people wouldn’t leave the ship and they stomped their feet and refused to set foot on land. Twee decided he was going back to Africa, so he kissed his grandmother goodbye and walked back to Africa on the bottom of the ocean. People followed him back along the bottom of the ocean. The myth is that now oceans are salty because of the tears shed by Twee and his followers who made the journey.
The second story was a very cute story and the person who told it did it so well. It started off with the question, “Why do mosquitos buzz?” A long time ago when animals could talk, it was the job of the Owl to wake the sun. Anyway, Mosquito kept talking in Iguana’s ear, so Iguana put a stick in his ear because he didn’t want to hear Mosquito. Python thought Iguana was mad at him, so he went into a rabbit hole. Because of this, Rabbit got scared and ran out. Crow saw this and thought something was wrong so he crowed which sounded an alarm to everyone. When Monkey saw this, he got alarmed and fell on Owlette, Owl’s baby. Because of this, Owl would not call the sun. Through much dilemma in trying to find out the cause of all this, Lion found out that Mosquito was the...