Swapping Stories Transcript

Swapping Stories Transcript

- [Announcer] This program was funded by grants from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Louisiana Office of Tourism.

- [A.J.] They're talking about the waitress and stuff like that. The fella that he was selling a car, want $200 for it.

- [Cooker] For a car?

- [A.J.] For a car.

- [Cooker] It's not much.

- Oh well, it wasn't much of a car, then. The fellow was looking at it, he even tried to get him to go down on the price. He said, "You take off 10%." And he said, "I'll buy it." He said, "Sure, 10%, 10%. Take off 10%. Sure, I'll take off 10%. Hot dog, 10%." Couldn't figure out what's 10% of 200 though. But right there though, restaurant, he went inside. Someone asked the waitress, she's gonna tell me I know she knows, you know, he said, "Look," he said "I got $200." He said, "Less 10% how much you take off?" She said, "Everything but my earrings and my ear."

- A great storyteller is a real artist in context. Every single situation presents a different opportunity for entertainment. A storyteller knows that if she or he doesn't tell a great story, that story won't be heard again. So a storyteller is in many ways a social psychologist, somebody who has to know what the audience wants, somebody who largely shares the values and the sense of humor of the people that he or she is talking to. And because of that, that person is a master at making a story fit the situation perfectly.

- [Carl] When we listen to a story told by a Cajun or a Creole or an African-American, we often know from the kinds of themes they bring in and the stylistic devices that they bring in, that they've been sharing stories. And in a culture that sometimes we don't think about as being integrated, where we don't see people sharing a lot, we find that the greatest storytellers are exceptions to that rule. The greatest storytellers have been able to cross traditional boundaries of different cultures. And there is a great deal of sharing that goes on in storytelling. And that is one of the reasons why the traditional heritage of animal tales, for example, or magic tales that you find in Louisiana and elsewhere in the country, is incredibly rich. It is a kind of diverse and multicultural experience. To hear someone like Enola Matthews tell a story that combines both Cajun and Creole, and also involves elements from an Irish storytelling tradition.

- Among the other important kinds of stories that we might now know from Disney animated features, or might know from other kinds of cartoons or from story books, are what many of us call fairy tales, what folklorist tend to call magic tales. These tales were essentially the novels and the short stories and the action movies of years past.

- [Carl] When we think of magic tales or fairytales, the first thing we tend to remember is the most incredibly beautiful, violent, sharp imagery that these tales present us. Things like glass mountains or golden bowls or pumpkins that turn into coaches. But as we hear these stories over and over again, we begin to realize that they have just as much to do with our highest values and our greatest aspirations. And some of the great traits of characters that people have. In Enola Matthews's story of "Late Jobs" or "The Three Jobs," there is a situation which a lot of magic occurs but there's something else that's going on very special there. First of all, we remember the ladder of bones that the girlfriend has made for her boyfriend in order that he can ascend the magic tree and pick up the magic eggs at the top of that tree. But as we think about that story more and more what occurs to us more often, is the fact that this is a sacrifice that this girl is making. She is doing everything she can for this young man. And what we're seeing here, as much as a magic story is a love story that's about loyalty, commitment, and what it takes to make a perfect world.

- These are stories about the ancient past and are often set in times even before people arrived on the earth. They're generally considered to be sacred narratives. And they're generally considered to be true in certain ways, but they're not always considered to be literally true, accounts of events that actually happen. Just as often, a storyteller who tells a myth will be talking about a social truth or a moral truth. A great storyteller is the guardian of a tradition of all the storytellers who have gone before that particular person. In the case of Bertney Langley, he learned a great deal from his uncle Bel Abbey. And the stories that he tells by his own admission are Bel's stories. But because Bertney Langley is also a great storyteller, he has made so many of these stories his own as well. And you can hear many generations speaking, in the story of how the bat got its wings

- Always going south on this side. So the stream goes mean that little lane follow the stream. You know, that's the way it south.

- A long time ago, the bat was a little creature who didn't have any wings, but the creator said, "One day out of the year, you will have a game. The animals will have a game." So it was decided they would choose up into two teams. One were the animals who didn't have wings and one was the birds who had wings. So there was a little creature out there who didn't have any wings. So he wanted to play on the animal side but he went and asked the animals if he could play on their team, but he was too small. So they laughed at him and made fun of him and said, "You cannot play on our team." So he went to the bird side and asked if he would play on their team. But since he didn't have any wings, the bird said, "Well, we don't know how you can play with us, since you don't have any wings. And the rules are you have to have wings to play on our side." As they were talking, one of the birds said, "Well, let's see how we can help him." So as they looked around, they saw a top of a bat, a top of a drum that was left by one of the Indians. So they took the skin off the the drum and made wings for the bird and put wings on him and showed him how to fly. But since he was just a beginner, he didn't know how to fly. So they took him on top of the treetops and dropped him, and he would go like that. He couldn't fly straight. He was going all over the place. So he said, "That's the best I can do." They said, "Well, the game is getting too close. We can't teach you how to fly straight." So they went back and put him in. So as far as the game was played, let's say like in the fourth quarter, the animals were tied with the birds. So at that time, they decided to put the bat in there and the bat went and got the ball. And he was going like, like this all over. And there was no way they could touch him. So he scored the winning touchdown, we could say, for the birds. So when the game was over, the animals said, "Who was that super star that y'all had that that came in? We couldn't touch him. There was no way we could stop him from scoring the winning goal." When they came to find out it was the bat, they didn't know what to do because they had made fun of him and he had gone out of his way to go and play for the birds.

- This is a story about a creature that doesn't fit in, a creature that could very easily be ostracized and thrown out of society. But what Bertney Langley is saying in this story and I think very eloquently, is that all of us, no matter how strange our gifts might seem to be have very special gifts that we can use to help the rest of society.

- But the kids don't speak Indian that much. So we're losing more of the punchlines, you know, when we do it with some of the kids that's losing the language.

- [Carl] Myths and animal tales often feature fantastic creatures that we never see. Talking animals and all kinds of weird beings. Legends also have figures that we don't see. But when legends are told, we are telling stories that people often believe or debate about the truth of. These are stories about what happens just beyond what we can see, just beyond our experience.

- The years went by and the old man go older and hobbled along and he got fond of the thing. He talked to it. But the thing would never change its space or its... So when this man coming back about seven in the evening in the winter time was dark. Some vines were growing in the sand, they still do. And he stumbled. The old guy stumbled and he had his stick in his hand. And when he stumbled, he did this to hold himself up, then he go pierce the skin of this thing. He pointed stick, got it. And the thing was gone in a flash. And he never saw it again. And the old man went walking more and more and everybody thought he had lost his marbles 'cause he spend all his time walking the beaches. And he actually pined away for his companion. He had grown so fond of it that he couldn't.... And he died shortly after.

- [Carl] The "Rougarou" story is told by Loulan Pitre and Glen Pitre are part of a family tradition that also involves Glen's uncle. And these stories were told over a period of years by people who are real specialists in storytelling. And both father and son, as you hear here, are great storytellers who have kept a lot of the strand of tradition alive, but they've kept it alive largely by making it their own.

- And tell stories and pass the time and go to bed and slap the mosquitoes. And it started happening that there was, they'd come out in the morning and the oysters would be separated, they'd be called into singles for them, but also half of them would be eaten. So you had a good thing, a lot of your work would be gone but you'd had a bad thing, that the oysters would be eaten. And of course, it scared them. They didn't know who was doing this. They could tell no other boats had come. There was no other house for miles around, it was open water. And one of the young men who was braver than most, said he was gonna stay on the boat and find out who or what was doing it. Well, he stayed, but he didn't quite make it through the whole night because somewhere in the middle of the night, everybody had been waiting up, kind of see what would happen. But one by one, they fell asleep. In the middle of the night they heard a scream, and then he came running down the dock into the camp and just was frantic and could hardly explain what he had seen. This creature that was huge and hairy and moved very quickly. But that was the end of it. After that, whatever it was, stopped appearing on the boat, stopped breaking them into singles, stop eating half of them. Of course it was the end of it for everybody else but the one brave guy. Who started telling the others that whenever he was alone, this creature would come to him. It'd sit on his shoulders with like, you know, featherweight touch and he'd lie in bed, and if he was in a house alone, he was alone in the bedroom, it'd rest on the bedhead and look down at him. Never hurt him, but frightened him. 'Cause it haunted him. And time went on and people... I mean, nobody really believed his stories and more and more they kind of avoided him because he was obsessed with this thing. And he had been engaged to be married and his fiance, you know, she didn't want anything to do with him. And then he grew older and the young kids used to follow him around and sing songs after him to taunt him because everybody thought he was a little nuts. And he talked to himself, or so they thought, because actually he was talking to the Rougarou, the creature, which never answered, but sure seemed to listen real well. And again, as time went on he grew older, until finally he became an old man and had to walk with a cane. And he'd still go and meet all the oyster boats when they'd come in and walking on those shells with that cane, the end of the cane would get kind of sharp. And one day he fell and that sharpened end of the cane went up and cut the Rougarou. And if you know about the Rougarous you know that one way to get rid of them, probably the only way to get rid of them is to draw blood. And when he cut it and it drew blood, that was the end. And the old man realized he had just lost the only friend he had ever had. After spending years trying to get rid of the thing, he had gotten so used to it and nobody else wanted anything to do with him, that it became his only friend. And now by accident he had killed his friend and he suffered in loneliness for a while and then died himself.

- I put it in my bathrobe and I walk out the other morning and there's Tommy sitting with my bathrobe on going, "Did you have fun?"

- Some of the best stories are never told on stage. They're really shared inside the house in a very intimate family environment. And one of the tough jobs for a folklorist is to get to those stories and to hear the artist that's actually practiced and then try to share it with people who don't have a chance to enter the living room of Enola Matthews or some of the other great storytellers, who really don't leave home to tell a story. Folklorist spent a lot of time trying to get a natural environment. So the storytellers are really anxious to open up.

- Kinda like dad was always telling telling his old lady said, "I'm going to leave you." He said, "One day I'm gonna leave you." Oh, it went and it went and it went. So one day he jumped in the pier, and he started going down the bayou. She said, "Where you going?" He said, "I told you I was gonna leave." He said, "That's it." He said, "I'm going. And that's all." But she said, "What about the house?" He said, "I don't care." He said, "You can give it away. You can say, you can do what you want." He said, "That's it." But she said, "What about the kids?" He said, "You can do the same thing. You can keep 'em, you can give 'em away. You can do what you want." He said, "I'm going, I told you that." After doing all that work, she raised up her dress, she said, "Pierre", she said "What we gonna do with that?" He said, "One day I'm gonna leave you."

- [Carl] Jokes are the most popular form of stories found in the country today. And there are few of us who don't go through a day without hearing at least a joke or two. And it's probably in joke-telling when we most realize how special the role of storytelling is in the world today. If you run into a good jokester in a certain situation, you'll see how that person tailors that joke to fit the particular context.

- I use that, if you are maybe talking too fast, if folks don't understand that you're ahead of the bet, maybe and you say, "Well maybe I'm going too fast." And that reminds me of the two hidden chickens running across the barnyard, the rooster right behind them. And one of these hand chickens turns the other than chicken dog and says, "Wonder which one of us he's after." The other turn back chicken says, "I don't know, but we've both runnin too fast."

- I was hunting that day and you know in those days we had only muskets, muzzle loading muskets, you know.

- [Carl] After jokes, tall tales are probably the most popular common form of storytelling that you find in this country.

- I carried a bag with musket balls. He said, "When I got over there in the forest, I shot one time. When I started to reload my gun, I found out that the musket balls had all fallen out of the bag. I didn't have any musket balls to reload my gun." So he said, "I started home. On my way home, I went by this lake right in the forest." He said, "Right along this lake, on the shore of this lake, there was the biggest alligator you've ever seen." He said, "I wanted that alligator because the skin sold well." He said, "I started thinking how could I kill that alligator and get it?" He said, "I didn't have any more musket balls. But that morning I had picked up some peaches from a peach tree in the forest. I had eaten the peaches, I had the stones in my pocket." So he said, "I took one of the stones, I put a lot of powder in the gun, packed it real well, put the peach stone in there, sneaked up to that alligator and shot it right between the eyes with that peach stone." Well, he said, "The alligator jumped up, rolled over, fell in the water, sank outta sight." Said, "I thought, well, I've lost him." So he said, "I went home. Five years later." He said, "I came back." He said, "There was the prettiest little peach tree growing right along the shore of that lake." And he said, "I rushed up to pick a peach off the tree." And he said, "It swam right to the middle of the pond."

- A great storyteller can make people feel at home no matter where they are. If you have a great storyteller who sized up the environment, or even better, two great storytellers who want to bring out the best in themselves and the best in each other, they'll go back and forth being the jokester or being the straight man. But more than that, they'll bring the entire audience in with them. So then in the end, you have a production that really belongs to everybody.

- You don't have trouble like that.

- No. And I'm gonna tell you why. I got a special bit.

- Should I ask you what that is?

- Yeah, you can ask me. 'Cause I'm gonna tell you anyhow, then. And it got it- Stand back. It was a psychological problem I had.

- A what?

- A psychological problem.

- All right.

- That's one way your brain ain't working good.

- Okay. I got that

- I was on a blink. I was on a blink. I was on a skiff or something. I don't know what it was, but I could not sleep. I was afraid someone was under the bed all the time. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, I couldn't get my natural sleep. Someone's under the bed and I was too scared to see. I went to a psychiatrist. He wanna charge me $75 a visit and he'd take about 50 visits to cure me with that.

- [Man] Sure.

- I said, "I gotta think about it." 'Cause I'll tell you what. Yeah, yeah. Well, I thought so too. I ain't in with that. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't sleep. I ran into him one day at the K Mart there like that.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- He said, "Man, I remember you was in my office." He said, "You had the trouble sleeping." He said, "Did you all think about taking the treatment?" I said, "Hey, I'm cured." He said, "You're cured?" I said, "Yeah, Aber cured me." He said, "Aber, Aber. Dr. Aber?" He said, "Is he a psychiatrist?" I said, "No. Aber. He's a carpenter. He cut the legs off the bed." He said, "Nobody can get there, man." It's a special bed. I can't hide under it though. You got the place that can go. I don't, I got...

- Now, you know what I thought you were talking about? I got Dr. Badon Abert from Gidon. I thought you were talking about him.

- Oh.

- He's one of them psychological doctors, you know. You go lay on the couch, you know.

- Uh-huh.

- For 30 minutes and he sits, you take your $50 and you leave. Well, Bujon been going there for five years. Lay down, giver her money. Never did nothing. Huh. She walk in one day, she said, "Now Badon," she know him since he was a little kid, you know.

- Oh, yeah.

- "That's enough. I ain't paying you no more money. I've been five years giving you $50 every week. That's it. I wanna know what's the matter with me." "Well," he said, "you know, I got..." She said, "Ah, don't start that. I wanna know what's the matter with me." "Well," he said, "okay." He said, "I'm gonna tell you what's the matter with you. You crazy!"

- Yeah. Oh, but she back up like that. She said, "Man, I never been so insulted in all my life." Said, "I ain't going accept that." She said, "I want a second opinion." He said, "All right, then you ugly too."

- Out the back room. I didn't know she could hear me. I got her in the back row. Yeah. And if you want a hot knee you can turn off the air conditioner too.

- I know, I know. I get so far in a doghouse for this kind of stuff. You come to my house. I dunno if I've gotta shake your hand or lick it.

- You get that far back in the dog house that they gotta feed you with a slingshot, man.

- Hiram, I had to shoot the dog today. Well, Bill, that's too bad. Was he mad? Well Hiram, he wasn't any too pleased. I don't know if you want that or not.