African American Trickster Tales

The Animals who Portray the Trickster
In African American Folktales

Oral Tradition and African American Folktales

According to Maulana Karenga, “Black literature does not begin with written aesthetic expressions but with oral ones.” (Karenga, 1993: 416) African American folktales are usually passed down to people by their elders. The folktales taught people lessons, morals, the difference between right and wrong, and also expressed how they felt towards people who enslaved them and did not treat them equally. Karenga states, “Although some African literature was written, much of it was not and still none of what was written was brought by enslaved Africans when they were brought to America.” (Karenga, 1993: 416) That is why African American Folktales were first recorded in the late nineteenth century, although it is to be believed that the folktales were around much earlier.
In some African American folktales emerges a fictional character, the Trickster. �...