Mules and Men

A company town is a town in which one company owns most or all of the land, resources, housing, and amenities, thus exerting much control over the activities that transpire there. The company is also the sole or primary employer in the region. Its ability to exercise this control is the source of many criticisms about this type of relationship between employers and employees. Many towns mentioned in the first part of this work are company towns.

This refers to the summoning and negotiation between humans and spirits, as practiced in the hoodoo tradition. Hoodoo practitioners generally believe that powerful spirits—a catch-all term used both to refer to the abstract notion of a human “soul” or “essence,” and to the guiding and powerful spirits who have greater knowledge than humans—can be summoned to guide the practitioner through a ritual. Because humans and spirits do not exist on the same plane of existence, however, the spirits must be conjured or manifested, and there are many different rituals to accomplish this.

Cultural relativism is the theory that cultural practices and norms are all relative and cannot be compared to those of another culture. It dictates that collective cultural beliefs, practices, and expectations are all equally valid, and the norms of one culture should not be used as a basis of assessment. This theory opposes theories of scientific racism and is applicable in many fields. Franz Boas was a major proponent of this theory, applying it in his anthropological work with Hurston.

This is a region of the United States that generally refers to: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, though sometimes neighboring states are also included. There are many colloquial and unofficial uses of this phrase. In the context of this work, the Deep South refers to those regions in the American South that historically relied on slave labor and plantation farming. As such, a large portion of the population in this region was Black at the time Mules and Men was written, and the region is directly linked to slavery and segregation.

Ethnography is a research method that involves the systematic study and assessment of sociocultural behaviors in context. In anthropology specifically, ethnography refers to the study of cultures, which requires the assessment and observation of people in real-world scenarios. Hurston used ethnography to collect her data for Mules and Men, leaving her with the task of negotiating how to portray the relationship between herself as the observer and the people she observed.

Folklore is a term for the intergenerational oral traditions that establish the myths, legends, and/or fables constituting the early knowledge and beliefs of a social group. These traditions are often passed down in the form of a story or song—both appear in this work—and reflect the cultural values and communal norms of a particular group.

Hoodoo is a spiritual belief system practiced traditionally in Black communities in the southern United States and Caribbean. Many of the beliefs and practices associated with hoodoo stem from: African religious and spiritual beliefs, especially those from West Africa; Christianity, as it was imposed on enslaved peoples; and homeopathy that relies on plants native to North America. Hoodoo incorporates elements of spirit conjuring, symbolic use of everyday materials to incur an outcome, cartomancy (divination using a deck of cards), animal sacrifice, and numerology. The term defies one unified definition because it is rooted in secrecy and has long been the subject of sensational, often-racist rumors.

In the context of Black folklore, John or Jack refers to the character trope of an enslaved or formerly enslaved Black man who is smarter, faster, and more resourceful than his foil, Ole Massa. He is usually a heroic figure and is often funny or quick-witted. The simplicity of the name indicates that this archetype is largely intended to represent any Black southern man, and his characteristics illustrate those which are valued in the Black oral tradition. In Mules and Men, this trope appears in many stories and takes many different forms. The diversity in applications of this trope further indicates that John or Jack is representative of a broader conceptualization of Black southern men.

A “lie” is an in-group name for a folktale. This name, though it is not explicitly interpreted in the work, stems from the acknowledgement that folktales are untrue or factually incorrect. The seemingly straightforward application of this term in Mules and Men is complicated by the underlying theme regarding the relationship between honesty and dishonesty.

As a dialectal spelling of “Old Master,” this character trope is John’s approximate foil and his current or former master. Ole Massa is vindictive, ignorant, and usually reliant on someone or something else to attain success. This trope’s characteristics illustrate the shortcomings of those who seek unjustifiable control over others. Many of the folktales in Mules and Men situate John/Jack and Ole Massa not as exact opposites, but rather oppositional forces often seeking the same outcome through different means.

Though often used as a synonym for hoodoo, rootwork can refer more specifically to the homeopathic and botanical rituals in the context of this book. The term is derived from the use of roots and other plants in the herbalist practices associated with hoodoo. Not all practitioners of rootwork are hoodoo doctors.