Jamaica Anansi stories

Chapter 96: 50. Why Ground-dove Complains. [Note]

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About This Book

A collection of Jamaican folktales gathers short animal and trickster narratives centered on the spider Anansi alongside tales about tigers, monkeys, goats, and birds. Stories account for curious animal traits, stage comic reversals, and probe themes of cunning, justice, and social order through episodic plots and origin motifs. The volume also presents riddles, dance and song materials, and field-recorded music, arranged in thematic sections that compile variants, brief notes, and folkloric context for each tale.

[Contents]

50. Why Ground-dove Complains. [Note]

Simeon Falconer, Santa Cruz Mountains.

Tiger planting corn, and birds and everyt’ing destroying de corn, so him get Dove to help him fe watch who is destroying de corn. So after dey sit up de whole night fo’ to watch de corn, next day Tiger him go sleep. Bredder Dove go back in de day now and destroy de corn. So de nex’ day, Tiger went in de day and dodge in de ground. Bredder Dove have a gang, an’ Tiger were slap him on de ears and he sing out, “Me ears! me ears! me ears!” An’ from dat day to dis de dove singing, “Me ears!”