Suriname folk-lore

7. Titling

The titles which head the individual stories are not those given by the informants; where informants gave us titles, they will be found at the head of the taki-taki text. The usual heading was of the type of ‘Anansi and Tiger’, although in a few instances, such as that of No. 122, set titles by which the tale is known in Suriname were given. In all instances of stories with well-known themes, we have used the titles that are coming to have currency in the literature to facilitate comparisons. In instances where current catch-phrase titles were replaced by others, as in stories 1-4 ‘Outwitting Creditors’, the choice was dictated by the fact that the point of the stories both in Suriname and West Africa seemed best to fit the title given here. In stories 66 and 67, the title of ‘Enfant Terrible’, is another instance of African affiliations dictating our designation.⁵ The motif of the young boy, born with the full power of speech and the ability to perform feats of valor and cunning, figures very

5 As a matter of fact, we took this title from that of an entire cycle in Tauxier (I).

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widely in one form or another in West African folk-lore, - indeed, this character is not only a folkloristic one, but also figures in the mythology of West African peoples, as, for example, the tɔxɔsu of Dahomey. In most West African collections, it will be found that these ‘precocious-child’ tales form a cycle of appreciable bulk, and their hero shares with the hunter and the twin the ability to perform feats which only the strength given by magic makes possible. But of these three, the ‘precocious child’ is the strongest, the most feared, and the most told of in story. Stories for which current titles were not available were given titles that would supply a clue to the material contained in the tale; where it seemed that two or more general motifs were contained in one story, a compound title containing a description of each of the principal elements of the tale was employed.¹

1 We are indebted to Dr. Parsons for her suggestions on titling, as we are for the titles she has used in her own works.