Jannie Greene weaves wisdom with words — and has a story to tell

Wisdom and wit are revealed in whispered tones and melodious voices as Jannie Greene shares heritage and heart through the communal art of storytelling.

She is the one up front, with a microphone in hand, an African head wrap on her head and an African dress on her body entertaining elementary and middle school students. For 29 years, she has been a teacher. For more years than she will reveal, she has been a teller of tales.

On this day inside the auditorium at Waccamaw Middle School, she is talking about a rooster with a bad attitude.

Mr. Rooster, you see, was invited to a party at a nearby barn. However, when he arrived with his friends – Miss Hen, Mr. Duck, Miss Turkey, Miss Goose, and Mr. Pig – he discovered there was only cornbread being served.

“Mr. Rooster was in a huff. He said, ‘I could have stayed home and ate cornbread. I am leaving. I will see you all later,’” Greene said. “Later on, when his friends came home from the party, they told him how they found some collard greens underneath the cornbread and they picked some more and found bacon under than, and they picked some more and found cakes, cookies and pies under that. They told him what a good time they had, how they ate and danced. Mr. Rooster, who had left in a huff, told them he was wrong for jumping to conclusions and wrong for not caring about anyone but himself.”

Greene grew up rooted in this artistry. As a child, she sat down and listened to her daddy weave wonders with words at their Plantersville community home in Georgetown County. His utterances, expressions, languages, lyrics, chats, discussions, and dialogues were mighty enough to make sour faces smile and sadness slide away as laughter was slathered on in its place. The stories that were poured into the wells of her soul gave her life lessons she has shared ever since.

When she became a mother of three daughters and three sons, she found herself telling them stories, too.

“I have been doing storytelling all my life, starting with my children,” she said. “I remember in 1989, during Hurricane Hugo, I began telling them stories when the electricity went off. I started telling ghost stories, and my kids would say, ‘Mama, please stop.’’’

She has authored several books, including “Grandpa’s Tales” that features stories about superstitions, ghost stories, and Southern home remedies – following her father’s example.

“My daddy told us all kinds of stories,” Greene said after sharing tales with students about being untrustworthy, avoiding pride, and accommodating others to one’s own detriment. “That was our entertainment. We didn’t have televisions, but we had special talents. We were hardworking like our ancestors who gave us the wonderful gifts of storytelling.”

Henry Dease was a logger and a landscaper who enjoyed sharing stories with his 10 children after coming home from a hard day’s work. After dinner, while her mama, Regenia Dease, was washing dishes, her daddy became the family’s storyteller extraordinaire. It was a ritual steeped in a tradition birthed through centuries that traveled across oceans in shackles and eventually landed on the shores and tongues of the Gullah people.

These descendants of slaves from the west coast of Africa kept their lifestyle and history alive by way of dialect, cuisine, art, faith, medicine, and other methods to survive and thrive in their new, hostile world.

They toiled in cotton, indigo, rice, and other plantation cash crops. When not at work, they spent time keeping in step with their culture through storytelling.

Bands of understanding were gleaned then and gleaned now for tales akin to Aesop’s Fables. Ample helpings of knowledge were intricately woven into the lines of each yarn.

Time moved on, but key customs stayed and storytelling was one of them.

Greene, whose African ancestors were from Nigeria, relished sitting at her father’s feet to hear how people got raveled in their own problems, how they managed unbind themselves from them, or how their selfishness could do them in.

One of the funniest stories she heard, however, came from the mouth of her mother. It was about a bulldog and a Chihuahua.

“There once was Chihuahua that would always sit on his front porch and bark at a bulldog that would always walk by the house with his master. Each time the bulldog passed by, the Chihuahua would run up to the gate and bark, bark, bark. He would say, ‘If you think you bad, come mess with me.’ The Chihuahua would say this because he knew his master always locked the gate. He knew the bulldog couldn’t get to him. So, he would jump against the gate and raise a ruckus. On and on this went with the Chihuahua always bullying the bulldog. Then one day, when the Chihuahua ran off the porch and hit the gate, it flew open and the bulldog got a hold of him and turned him every which way, but loose. He grabbed the Chihuahua and shook him from side to side. Finally, when the bulldog was finished whooping his tale, the Chihuahua made it back up to the porch, wiped his brow, and said, ‘Who in the heck left the gate open.’ That story taught me that when you think you are bad, there is somebody badder than you. It also taught me not to go looking for trouble because it is easy to find and hard to get rid of.”

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Jannie Greene weaves wisdom with words — and has a story to tell."