Gal, You Wan' Fe' Come Kill Me? (Tek Akee, Mek Soup) (Woman, Do You Want to Kill Me?) (Take Akee, Make Soup)

DESCRIPTION: Jamaican patois: The singer marries a nice girl, but she can't cook. Send her back to her mother. Instructions on making soup: boil akee, add anotta. It's easy to poison someone. He asks, sometimes laughing, do you want to kill me?
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1907 (Jekyll-JamaicanSongAndStory)
KEYWORDS: marriage cook food mother separation rejection poison Caribbean
FOUND IN: West Indies
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Jekyll-JamaicanSongAndStory 126, ("Manny Clark a you da man!") (1 fragment, 1 tune)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Helen H. Roberts, "A Study of Folk Song Variants Based on Field Work in Jamaica," Vol. XXXVIII, No. 148 (Apr-Jun 1925), #57-62 pp. 184-190 "Akee Song No. 2" (6 texts, 6 tunes)
RECORDINGS:
Margaret Wright and Edna Wright, "Oh, Send She Back" (on WITrinidadVillage01)
NOTES [83 words]: See "Linstead Market" for a discussion of the poisonous potential of akee.
Helen Roberts's local titles are "Janan Chamberlain," "Akee Song," "Tek Akee, Mek Soup," "Akee" (2), and "Gal, You Wan' Fe Come Kill Me?" Roberts points out that "anotta [I assume this is actually the natural colorant known as annatto, which is orange-yellow - RBW] is used to color the soup yellow, but would not be if it were green, is also significant.... The seeds are frequently used in soups by native cooks ...." - BS
Last updated in version 5.3
File: Jek126

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