6 The 20th century

6.1 De Josselin de Jong's texts

In 1926 J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong published a collection of 103 texts he collected in the first months of 1923, together with a large word list and some English summaries. He had nine informants, of whom the youngest was 60 years old. The texts were dictated to him and reproduced phonetically. We have chosen three texts from this material. The first one is very informative about sugar harvesting, and although the main characters are the spider Anaanschi and Bru Tekoma, it is not a classical Anansi-story. The second is based on the Bremen Town Musicians, a traditional German fable. Finally, there is the tale of the Three Blind Mice, which can also be found in Nelson's material (section 6.2).

The orthography used in this section is the same as that in Ponelis (1988). See the Abbreviations section for details.

LXXV

LXXV

The king had a sugarcane. He said to Tekoma he needed his sugar cut, where he would get a man to light a fire under the kettles to make sugar. Tekoma answered to him, Anansi can light a fire. So he now knows how much he will charge him to light a fire to take off the crop. So he said, he should go to Anansi to tell him, to hear, what he'd say. So when he went to Anansi, Anansi said to him, yes, he would light a fire, but then, when he had finished taking of the crop, that the king had to give him fifty patakon and two tons of sugar because he had a large crop to harvest. So Tekoma came to the king. The king said to Tekoma, yes, he will give him it there, because it was a heavy crop on the land. So Monday morning Tekoma got a lot of people to come and cut sugar. When he went to speak to the people, they said yes they will come the other week. So the week he was there, he cleaned up the chief's house to keep it in order, when they began to grind. Then the Monday morning they began to cut. They cut sugar. They brought it to be ground. Then when they had finished grinding that week they cooked the sugar. When they had harvested it, they threw it in the barrel, they put it inside the curing house for all the molasses to run out of it. The other week they cut again, they did the same thing. Then the next week they stopped a bit to let their ground sugar canes dry. Then they stayed to cover up all the sugar canes that they threw in the barrel to make rum for the next week. When they were ready, then they started to cut again. They cut two weeks continuously. Then they stopped to send the first sugar which they had cut, and put it out, for them to make place to do the other which was behind again. They cut, put it out, for them to make place to do the other what was behind again. When they had all finished breakfast, they began to cut again until they got the crop out of their hands. When they had finished the crop clean then the king called Tekoma and Anansi, the two of them together. He asked Tekoma what he needed

now for the crop. Tekoma said to him, he was to give him now for the crop two barrels of sugar with twelve patakon and a cow. Then when he thought by himself, he could give him something more, if he could overcharge him. The king said yes to him, because whatever he had said to pay him, the work had been more. So the king gave him one hundred patakon for his time with the two barrels of sugar and his cow. Then he said to him, that he could take a part of his money to go buy his food until he needed him again. So he did just like the king said to him. He and Anansi they got their payment, they went home with what they had gotten from the king.

VI

VI

Once upon a time there was a donkey. He had grown old, he could not work. His master was going to kill him. He fled. He said he would go to Bremen. When he reached the road, he found a dog. He said: Why are you panting so? The dog said: My master will go and kill me. The donkey said: come and go with me to Bremen. Then the two of them walked together. They found a cat, and they asked her, what she would do. She said, I am too old. She could not catch rats any more. So the donkey said: Come with us to Bremen, you will make the singer. So the three of them went. They found a cock on the farm fence. They asked him, what he would do. He screamed with all his voice. He said, his master has a breakfast. He wanted to kill him. The donkey said: come with us to Bremen. Then the four of them started. The night caught them on the road. They got under a tree. The cock flew high into the tree. He called out to them: there is a light not far away from us any more. The donkey said: let us go where the light is. When they got there, they looked through a window. They saw thieves eating. The donkey was the largest. They made him look through the window. He said he just saw twenty-four men eating around a table. He said to the dog: jump on my back. The cat climbed on the dog's back. The cock flew onto the cat's head. And they sang a song. The thieves ran away from their house and food. The donkey opened the door. He went inside. He put on a light. And they started to eat all the food. When they finished they put out the light. The donkey went into the yard. The dog lay by the door. The cock flew onto the roof. The cat went to the fireplace. The thieves sent down one of them. He came into the house. He went to the fireplace. He looked into the cat's eye. He said: it is a piece of fire. He lit the candle to it. The cat flew him in the face. He started to run. He found the dog by the door. The dog bit him in the buttock. He found the donkey in the place. The donkey gave him a kick. The cock cried. He turned to the others and said: there is have a wizard at the fireplace. There is a man with a knife by the door. There is a man with a club in the yard. The police cried: bring the thieves here.

LXXXVIII

LXXXVIII

Three blind mice. Look how they run. They run from the farmer's wife. Who cut a tail with a kitchen knife? I never have seen something like this in my life. Just look at what game!

6.2 Nelson's field notes

More than ten years after the visit of De Josselin de Jong to the US Virgin Islands, Frank Nelson did some fieldwork on Negerhollands on St. Thomas. In Reinecke (1975:320, nr. 31) the typoscript of the fieldnotes was mentioned under the name Words and texts in Negerhollands, gathered in St. Thomas, June 1936. It consists of a seven-page word list containing 413 items and one page with short texts. In this section we present these texts.

Following the correspondence between Hans den Besten and Frank Nelson in 1993-1994, more fieldnotes will be published in the near future. It is also from this correspondence that we know Nelson worked with informants from all of the US Virgin Islands.

Translation12

I went to a dance last night. It was a drum dance. It went on well. The people was well drunk. It had police, and take them in the Fort. I don't know what they will do with them. Tomorrow we will know.

Translation13

Three Blind Mice

Translation

Three blind mice. See how they run. They run away with the farmer's wife. They cut off their tail with a carving knife. I never have seen such a thing in my life, like three blind mice.

Translation18

The horse pulls the cart. The woman is going to market. I'm going to buy a pound of sugar. Where are you going? What's your name? A man built a house; it had three rooms, a kitchen and a pantry, a cistern [a+]<o>utside the house. I cannot think of more now.

6.3 The last stage of Negerhollands

In 1977 Graves published The present state of Dutch creole of the Virgin Islands (Ann Arbor, Michigan). For this description of Negerhollands she worked with six informants, probably the last six native speakers of the language. One of these informants was Mrs. Alice Stevens, born in St. John in 1898. She died in 1987. Two other scholars who worked closely together with Mrs. Stevens are Gilbert A. Sprauve

and Robin Sabino. The following two text samples are translations of English texts by Mrs. Stevens under the supervision of Gilbert Sprauve and conversations between Mrs. Stevens and Robin Sabino.

Negerhollands, as used in this section, represents the creole language in its final phase. This does not mean that Mrs. Stevens did not speak the language well. See Sabino (1989) for more information about issues of competence, and the publications of Sprauve and Sabino in our bibiography for more information about recent Negerhollands and texts in this language.

Information about the orthography used by Sprauve and Sabino can be found in each section.

6.3.1 Active translations

The following texts are transcribed from a tape recording made during a visit of the late Mrs. Alice Stevens to the Dutch Creole class at the University of the Virgin Islands on the 18th of June, 1985.19

The following practices are adhered to in the following transcription:

Otherwise, the text is broadly phonemic in nature. The basic methodology employed in eliciting Dutch Creole speech from Mrs. Stevens was to translate orally and then paraphrase in English Creole or English for her some of the stories of de Josselin de Jong and permit enough time for her to render the material in Dutch Creole. Mrs. Stevens was never exposed to written Dutch Creole and was thus translating on the spot and from scratch when she worked with the class at the University.

6.3.2 Short stories

The following stories were told by Mrs. Alice Stevens to Dr. Robin Sabino. English words used by Mrs. Stevens are placed between brackets.

I. Hoso ju ma coconut oli.

Translation

How to make coconut oil.

Let the coconuts dry. You take it out of the shell. You take them, then you throw water on it and you squeeze them out. Then you take the milk from the coconut. You put it on the fire. Cook it until you see that the oil comes up22, you see? Then you take a spoon and skim the oil. Put it in something and you cool it. And you put it in the bottle.

II. Hoso ju dov fles.23

Translation

How to roast meat.

You cut it. You put salt and pepper, black pepper, on it. Then you take your knife. You cut your onion over it and your tomato and then you let it stand a little while. You put your pot on the fire. When the pot gets hot, you throw the oil in it. Then you turn it, you turn it, you turn it, you turn it, and when you are finished turning it, it's finished cooking. After it has completely finished cooking, you put the onion with it {...}. You know? Throw a small amount of water into it, then you close and cover it. You let it stay like that. Then it simmers, and it simmers, and it simmers, you know, and it simmers, and it comes out just how you want it to.

III. Werewolf.

Translation

Werewolf.

My grandmother's husband told me when, [I know I was] small. He grew up during slavery times. One night, he went walking. He saw a dog. The dog wanted to stop him from walking. He put aside his stick, and the dog sat by him. He said to him: ‘Two, two, two, two.’ [That's two]. He said to the dog, ‘Two.’ The dog said, ‘One, one, one, one.’ He said, ‘Two, two, two, two, two, two.’ The dog said, ‘One, one, one, one.’ He took his stick. He beat him. That was a werewolf.

IV. Alice lo a skol.

I went to school

until I was thirteen.

I went to school

When I was five years,

my grandmother sent me to school.

Yes. There was a dress.

Do you know what ‘kapəto’ means?

I had a dress.

I wanted to wear the dress at home.

She wouldn't let me wear it.

I screamed.

I screamed.

I screamed.

I said, ‘I want to go to school.’

She sent me to school.

Did you wear the dress?

Yes!

She put the dress on me.

and I went.

went to school.

Who took you (to school) - who took you (to school)?

one of my cousins.