Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-194) and index.

"Learn it to the younguns" : Passing on folk wisdom / Daryl Cumber Dance -- Chapter 1 - Afro-American folklore : Identification and interpretation -- Preliminary remarks -- Religious folklore -- Secular musical lore -- Secular spoken lore -- Superstitions and conjure -- Chapter 2 - Preachers and bad niggers -- The black preacher -- Bad niggers -- John Henry -- Black Moses -- The bad bad nigger -- Chapter 3 - Tricksters -- Influences on the Afro-American trickster tradition -- Chesnutt to Ellison -- The late fifties and beyond -- Chapter 4 - Rituals -- Defining rituals -- Uncertain transmission : James Weldon Johnson -- The people's idiom - The Harlem Renaissance : Hughes -- Enlarging the perspective : Wright, Walker, Ellison, Baldwin, Marshall -- Toward globalism : Forrest -- Conclusion -- Bibliography.

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