You Know One Joseph Keeba

DESCRIPTION: The singer says her husband has heavy shoes, a bad foot, and wears a "cap with the ears turn down." He caught and cooked a possum. She cooked chicken backside and added it to his meal. She says, "I live with the man so long, the man no know me way"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (WITrinidadVillage01)
KEYWORDS: shrewishness marriage clothes magic food animal chickens husband wife
FOUND IN: West Indies(Trinidad)
RECORDINGS:
Margaret Wright, "You Know One Joseph Keeba" (on WITrinidadVillage01)
NOTES [212 words]: Liner notes: "Herskovits's original notes state that this song 'ridicules husband as cuckold'; the woman may be putting obeah 'magic' in the man's food." (Donald R. Hill, Maureeen Warner-Lewis, John Cowley, Lise Winer, liner notes on WITrinidadVillage01). Given that the recording may be a fragment and that I don't understand the subtleties of the language, I see the ridicule and even the likelihood that the woman is rigging her husband's food, likely by magic, but I don't see evidence of cuckholding.
Liverpool on women tampering with a man's food: "... many African women were believed to be using concoctions, some of which were tinged with some of the body's juices, to trap, conquer and dominate men.... [O]ur social history shows that it was a west African tradition brought to the Caribbean during the age of enslavement...." (Hollis Liverpool, "Preface," liner notes on "West Indian Rhythm", p. 10, Bear Family Records 10CD BCD 16623 JM, 2006). So, for example, in a Lord Beginner calypso, the doctor explains Beginner's growing confusion and baldness: "your Dorothy know a thing or two / And she give the cocoa to you" (Lord Beginner, "Cocoa Tea Puzzle to Me," and liner notes on "West Indian Rhythm", #227 p. 247, Bear Family Records 10CD BCD 16623 JM, 2006).- BS
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