"The Coon in the Box": A Global Folktale in African-American Tradition (review)

The title of this monograph encapsulates its thesis. Responding to the dispute over the origin of the most widely known "John and the Master" tale, John Minton and David Evans assert both its universality and its uniquely African-American essence. They take issue with methodology that would attribute the tale to one tradition or another solely because of "tentative reference aids" (p. 14) such as those of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Instead, Minton and Evans attempt a historic-geographic approach to the pedigree of "The Coon in the Box." They start by demonstrating that the tale is part of the longer and more widely dispersed "Doctor Know-It-All" type (AT 1641).

This multipart tale can be traced to second-century India, then to sixteenth-century Mediterranean countries. From there Doctor Know-It-All traveled to Europe, America, Africa, and even back to new parts of Asia. Even in America the story can be found in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, as well as English, versions. In addition, the multitude of texts demonstrates that Doctor Know-It-All's North American black tradition is itself quite varied.

Having established its provenance, Minton and Evans are at pains to show how the Coon in the Box has taken on a separate life in African-American culture. Although Doctor Know-It-All is dispersed throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean, the Coon in the Box has taken on a life of its own in North America and reflects the special circumstances of slavery. First of all, the Coon in the Box draws most heavily on Anglo-Irish traditional renderings of Doctor Know-It-All, including the sly nature of "Fox" or sometimes "Robin," who has to admit at last that his interlocutor has finally caught the "fox" or "robin." In its Anglo-Irish form, the tale emphasizes class inequities. In African-American tales of the Coon in the Box, however, class and race merge.

Later, the authors demonstrate the African significance of the box or pot in which the creature is caught. More pertinent to their central point, Minton and Evans agree with the assessment that this and other African-American trickster tales "capture and express the social and moral dilemmas of people living under conditions of political and economic marginality" (p. 81).

Minton and Evans show that the Coon in the Box retains themes and the structure of the old-world tale but that its details accentuate the elements that relate to "the quintessentially self-negating ethos of the plantation South" (p. 83). Doctor Know-It-All suggests at least the possibility of change in the status quo, but "the Coon in the Box instead evokes a milieu absolutely incapacitated by ceaseless and pointless exploitation and victimization" (p. 83). Minton and Evans do not see the tale as just a series of successful black hustles. Instead the tale pictures the slave system itself as self-defeating, because the slave John and the master take turns "in the roles of trickster and dupe, deceiver and deceived, victimizer and victim" (p. 83). Even when John "wins," he loses. His "victories" often involve negative gains: he does not get beaten. Sometimes he gets an old suit of clothes or some days off work. None of these alter the central fact that he is still a slave. Only one or two subtypes of the tale say that John gains his freedom. In fact, the deceived Master often profits as much or more than the slave; and anything that leaves the Master in control—regardless of John's short-term success—leaves John defeated.

This monograph should interest students of American Studies and especially African-American Studies, as well as students of folklore. Although this is not its primary intent, the book provides a further indictment of slavery and the peonage that followed the Civil War in the United States. Among other...