Raw Head, Bloody Bones: African-American Tales of the Supernatural

by Mary E. Lyons

Fifteen Black and African-American tales of the supernatural from various states and several Caribbean countries, with information on Black folklore in the New World

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Ghosts, Fantasy, Folklore

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1991

About the author

Mary E. Lyons, a former teacher and librarian, became a full-time writer in 1993. She is the author of nineteen books for young readers published by Scribner, Atheneum, Henry Holt, Houghton Mifflin and Oxford University Press.

Born and raised in the American South, Mary Lyons lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Paul. Her publications for adults include The Blue Ridge Tunnel: A Remarkable Engineering Feat in Antebellum Virginia (History Press, 2014), The Virginia Blue Ridge Railroad (History Press, 2015), and Slave Labor on Virginia’s Blue Ridge Railroad (History Press, 2020).

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beginning in 1619, slave traders brutally captured hundreds of thousands of Africans, brought them to the New World, and sold them into forced labor. For the next 260 years, slaves were bought and sold in the seaports of South America, throughout the Caribbean Islands, and up and down the North American coast.

Everything was stolen from the slaves - their freedom, their families, their names. But no one could steal their memories. They clung to the familiar stories of their homelands and retold them to their children and their children's children. For the enslaved Africans, storytelling was as natural and necessary as breathing.*

Meet monsters, ghosts, talking skulls, and Gullah goblins!
The stories in this collection provide, as Lyons states in her introduction "both amusement and instruction." Hence, these spooky tales are packed with hidden messages like "Don't be greedy," and "Don't be too proud," and of special importance to slaves - "Your mouth can get you into trouble!"

One story out of South Carolina tells of "The Night Doctors" - young student doctors who long to catch you and kill you - they get their experience that way. Lyons comments that whites may have begun these tales to prevent slaves from meeting at night. After Emancipation, the stories were told to discourage group meetings of free blacks.

Lyons offers interesting commentary at the end of each story - often her insights are more fascinating than the story itself. After one tale she mentions the scarcity of tall tales, and the lack of black "super heroes."

. . . before Emancipation, African-American story characters, like the slaves themselves, had only two weapons that were safe to use: trickery and common sense. The slaves did not tell stories about powerful men because the master might feel threatened even by a verbal display of physical strength.

Despite some rather violent themes, the stories are more fun than horrific; I was reminded of the tales told round a roaring fire at summer camp. These would be terrific to read aloud to a group.

*From the author's introduction

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Young Adult book, aimed I think at middle school students. Like many YA books these days (and in the past as well!), this book can be enjoyed by adults. Mary E. Lyons has selected fifteen stories of the supernatural told by African-Americans. These were stories gathered by Zora Neale Hurston and other folklorists and adapted for young readers. I like how they are told in original dialect.
Some of the stories are from the Sea Islands of South Carolina and were told by Gullah storytellers. The Gullah were able to keep more of their African culture than most other slaves in the United States. Gullah may derive from the language spoken in Angola. One of their stories is about the bloodsucking hag, another about the plat-eye.
From Jamaican slaves, we get a story about the duppy, a spirit of the dead, a belief from West Africa. One story from Florida is about a talking skull and is well-known in Nigeria and other West African countries. There's a story about The Night Doctor, which reflects the fear (and a justified one) that southern medical schools would take sick or disabled slaves for dissection. It was also feared that the night doctor would go after children and the elderly. In the period after slavery, the night doctors were also called Ku Klux doctors.
One of the best stories is about Raw Head, a trickster. But the real trickster in the story is the barefoot woman. My particular favorite of the collection is about Uncle Monday, an African medicine man captured and sold into slavery. He escaped from a Georgia plantation to "Indian country" in Florida. There he was able to turn himself into an alligator and become King of the Gators. Quite a superhero--where's the movie?
One of the best things about this collection is that these are great stories to read aloud to kids and even act out! At the end of the book, there's a useful bibliography and a list of books suggested for young readers.

[K.T. Katzmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Zora Neale Hurston wrote Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, it would come out like this.

I had fun delving into this collection of African-American spook stories. The tales themselves are light and varied, rarely more than five or six pages, and each end with an folklorist's note of the origin, cultural importance, and variations of the story. You'll find a lot of variety, from cannibal mermaids to wizards that shift into alligators.

The Scary Stories comparison feels apt to me because this is a lighter book of myths, never getting very dark or heavy. Still, I smiled and learned about a few new monsters, so I got what I paid for. There's a good bibliography and suggested reading list, too.

I mentioned Hurston because the stories themselves are written in the style of English they were spoken in. If you can't accept prose in nontraditional grammar, you may want to stay clear.

The book is unique; read it. Also, don't make any bets that end in "and you can cut my head off," and don't cheat on your wife if she's a cannibal mermaid.

Now I should use some of this stuff in a Murder With Monsters sequel...

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of African-American tales, collected from a variety of sources. The stories here are fascinating, and my only disappointment is that they are not as good for reading out loud as I had hoped.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to get through the black lingo,
but she does spend time explaining why that is.
Authenticity, I guess.

[drowningmermaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, quick read and I learned a bit about African American folklore.

[Molly Wain · Rating 3 out of 5]

The short stories were interesting and gave me insight to the African culture. I was hoping to have a little more thrill along with the read.

[Montana-IFC · Rating 5 out of 5]

School challenge--retained, 1992

[Audra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I more enjoyed the summaries at the end of the stories that told the history of where the stories came from. The stories themselves were not scary at all and if I had purchased this book it probably would have gone immediately to goodwill. A quick read, but not really an interesting one.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

***1/2

[Maggiemyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book to add to classroom library

[Theresa F.]

The stories in this book were written using old, regional speech patterns such as the Gullah dialect, which were once commonly used by and associated with African Americans, as explained in the book's Introduction. But people in this day and age may view such speech patterns as offensive racial stereotypes.
As for the stories themselves, most convey a creepy vibe that calls to mind scary stories at summer camp or at grade school Halloween parties, which is fitting considering that the book was intended for children. Though the disturbing cover image on my edition of the book of a skeleton in what looks like the flames of Hell may be a bit to horrifying for some kiddos.
In general, horror is not one of my preferred genres. Even as an adult reader, I still tend to steer clear of the children's horror books that I avoided as a youngster because I don't think I'd enjoy them. I only picked up this book because I have a weakness for fairy tale and folk tale collections. Having now read it, I personally felt that the actions of some of the characters were poorly thought out at best and outright stupid at worst. I also found some of the storylines difficult to follow narratively, though I'm not sure how much of that can be attributed to the dialect used or to the condensed nature of the children's book format.
I had hoped to find at least one or two stories in this collection that I enjoyed, as a seeker of lesser known folktales. However, on the whole the tales showcased here left little impression on me plot-wise. Though I wouldn't go so far as to call this book a complete waste of time.
Did I like it? It could have been worse.
Would I reread it? No.
Would I recommend it? Given the problematic nature of the language, probably not.