It's a small Deep South, after all

"I was born in Alabama. I was raised in Georgia. I'm so Southern I'm related to myself." ~Brett Butler

In an effort to educate myself about my Southern roots, I recently read two excellent novels about different time periods in the South: Christy (1967), by Catherine Marshall, and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), by Zora Neale Hurston. Christy is based on the true life story of Marshall's mother, Leonora Whitaker Wood, who, at age 19, left her home in Asheville, Tennessee in 1912 to teach school in the Smoky Mountains. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a work of historical fiction, describing the adventures, dreams, and trials of Janie Crawford, a Southern black girl who grows into womanhood in Florida during the 1930s.

As I quickly discovered, there are many differences between the people, places, and periods of history being described in these two books. The race of the main characters, the difference of twenty years in U.S. history, and the vastly different geography of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains and Florida's Everglades are just three factors separating these books under the heading of "Southern" literature. However, purely by accident, I was very excited to discover a small but specific item of folklore written in both books!

The item is a saying - descriptive, lengthy and exaggerated, typical of most old-fashioned Southern expressions. In Christy the saying occurs at the scene of a wedding, and is spoken by Granny Barclay, an old, respected member of the Cove who speaks with a decided Southern accent: "Hit's so crowded now you couldn't cuss a cat 'thout gettin' fur in yer mouth" (Christy, 391). In Their Eyes Were Watching God the saying is uttered somewhat scornfully by the ambitious black entrepreneur Joe Starks, upon seeing the lack of urban development in Eatonville: "Y'all ain't got enough here to cuss a cat on without gittin' yo' mouf full of hair" (Their Eyes Were Watching God, 43).

In both cases the saying expresses amusement and humorous exaggeration for dramatic effect on the part of the speaker. Though there is some variation between the two wordings of the expression, reflecting the situation, race, and dialects of the speakers, the overall meaning and effect is preserved.

I find it fascinating that such a small aspect of folklore can transcend the boundaries of race, time, and space, not only between the different worlds of Christy and Their Eyes, but between the memories and conceptions which the authors, Marshall and Hurston, have of their ancestors' everyday behavior and speech in the Southern United States.