SOURCE: "Common Folklore Features in African and African American Literature," in Southern Folklore Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2, June, 1975, pp. 111-33.

In the following essay, Hill explores themes common to African and African-American folklore through an examination of elements, including storytelling and folk sayings, in novels and other writings.)

African folklore forms the secular half of those African beliefs which reveals the faith, humor, and adaptability of the Black man's coping with, explaining, and surviving in life. In traditional Africa, religion and folklore merged.¹ It is almost safe to say that the same has been true for Blacks in America. Although there have been attempts to separate religion from folk beliefs, the two are discussed interchangeably. The spirituals and the folk-sermons of the Black ministers are categorized along with the blues, jazz, folk tales, and jokes. Zora Neale Hurston includes voo-doo and magic which combine the two areas of religion...