Mamman Donne Moi un Pitit Mari (Mama Gave Me a Little Husband)

DESCRIPTION: Creole French. "Maman donne moin un pitit mari. Bon Dieu, quel un homme comme li pitit! Mo mette le couche dans mo lite, Bon Dieu, comme li si t'on pitit!" Mama gave me a little husband. My god, he's tiny! ... The cat mistakes him for a mouse."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: husband wife foreignlanguage animal
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-OnTheTrailOfNegroFolkSongs, pp. 21-22, "Maman Donne Moin un Pitit Mari" (1 fragment, 1 tune); p. 123, "Mamman Donne Moi un Pitit Mari" (1 short text with loose English translation)
NOTES [89 words]: Scarborough, in transcribing her first text, notes that Creole French "is no more like correct French than Negro dialect is like ordinary English. The songs are difficult to capture...." I suspect she is trying to say, "I've no idea what this means." If she, who had contact with the informants, did not, I'm not even going to try until we get a better text.
Although Scarborough's second fragment does not make it clear, one suspects that the girl's complaint is not with her husband's height but with, um, certain other dimensions. - RBW
File: ScNF123B

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