Mules and Men by Zora Neal Hurston
Mules and Men is a 1935 autoethnographical collection of African-American folklore collected and written by anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.[1] The book explores stories she collected in two trips: one in Eatonville and Polk County, Florida, and one in New Orleans. - Wikipedia
You’ll notice throughout my future writing’s to come, the name Zora Neal Hurston will pop up pretty often. Her writing’s and influence have helped me come full circle, from the encompassing title of “new age spiritualist” to Conjure lady (well, partly anyway). She is most known from her most famous work of art“Their Eye’s Were Watching God”. Known as one of the most prolific bodies of work to come about during the resurgence of African American culture, literature, art, dance and fashion. This time period is also known as the Harlem Renaissance, more on that later.
When I first started my journey of self discovery, I was admittedly lost, but committed. I knew there was something missing, I’d just lost my best friend, my grand mother, and I was looking for something to cure my grief. And while, there isn’t a cure for grief, there are supposedly many ways to cope with it. So I choose to cope by immersing myself into books, diving into my ancestry and doing activities that my grandmother and I had once done together; like watching movies.
Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the epistolary novel “The Color Purple”, (she’d also consult on the movie of the same title) had named Hurston as one of the most important voices no one had known. Honestly, this was the only co-sign I needed to investigate Hurston’s works further.
Hurston was like me. She had been a little Black girl from the deep south, like me, and she had grown up hearing the folktales of her aunties and uncles in her community, like me. So when I decided to read Mules and Men, I was not sure on what to expect, I knew there would be tall tales, and memories I have but don’t remember. I knew I was in for finding the something I was searching for and even more.
I will not spoil this something for you, hell, you have to find your own something. But this book, is a phenomenal start. The feeling I got when I cracked upon this book, was the feeling of familiarity, a feeling of home. Like I’d been transported back into Nette’s house listening to the lies1 being told and sharing ginger bread with my neighbors.
Hurston’s ability to draw you into the world of Mules and Men is outstanding. Impressively, she provides the reader a fly on the wall view of the intimate interactions with the likes of George Thomas and Charlie Jones. In the book, we see her travel to different cities across the south , gathering folklore and taking names, all for the sake of preservation.
If you are someone looking for something, but don’t know where to start? Well first, you’re at MELK haus, so you’ve found home, but also, pick up Mules and Men and be prepared to laugh, cry and find hope.
Folktales