Episode 126: THE TRICKSTER
The Folklore Podcast
00:00
The Signifying Monkey by Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.
The signifying monkey is not part of West African folklore per se, but is inextricably connected to that folklore because of how he emerges in this country. The Yoruba one from West Africa is Eschua Legba, who goes by a number of names and has many different spellings. Eddie Murphy made something of a movie about Dolomite that came out a couple of years ago called My Name Is Dolomite. And if you get ahold of the original film Dolomite there's just this tremendous scene where they re-open a nightclub which had been closed down and he tells the monkeys tale.
Transcript
Play full episode
