A second way to discern African influence and heritage is to look at the animals.  African animals frequently appear in Afro-American stories.  Harold Courlander published a Haitian story, “Merisier, Stronger Than the Elephants,” that features a man who wants to be buried in the drum of the elephant king.  Elephants in Haiti?  Of course not.  There are also stories wherein during famines smaller animals crawl into an elephant’s belly to carve away flesh for themselves to eat.  Other animals indigenous to Africa that show up in Afro-American tales are lions, guinea fowl, hippopotamuses, and giraffes.

Food names and the way food is prepared also indicate African influence.  In stories that involve farming, yams and peanuts are often the crops of choice.  Distinct from sweet potatoes, yams are native to the tropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere.  They arrived in the Americas with the enslaved Africans, left over from the two hundred pounds per person carried because slavers found that slaves fared better on the sea voyage if they had familiar foods to eat.  Peanuts, native to South America, had been introduced to Africa by Europeans.  When Africans encountered peanuts in the Americas they called them goobers or groundnuts, terms previously used in Africa.  Brer Rabbit gets into many scrapes because of his fondness for goobers.

Gumbo, a West African word for the okra plant, is also the name of the stew that gets its thickness from okra pods.  Gumbo may have been the stew that is served the guests in another of Abrahams’ Afro-American tales, this one from the southern United States.  Rooster is invited to a party but leaves in disgust when he sees that guests will be served mounds of corn bread.  If he had been a West African rooster, he might have stayed.  He would have known that the corn bread hid other food: meat, stew, pies, and cakes.  In West Africa, food is often served in layers.

Attitudes toward a Supreme Being

Particularly African attitudes toward God and religion frequently show up in Afro-American tales.  Africa is too large and diverse to allow sweeping statements about anything, but, in religion, a few things seem to be universal.  First, there is usually a Supreme Being.  There may be lesser gods, but one entity is responsible for the general order of things.  Second, the Supreme Being is not so far removed from ordinary people as to be unaffected by the circumstances under which they live.  Third, adversity in a person’s life has a direct cause.  Fourth, it is possible to find the cause of the adversity and correct the situation.  Fifth, if approached correctly, the Supreme Being will change one’s circumstances.