Caribbean Folklore: The Pumpkin Daughter, An Indo-Caribbean Folktale with Kesha Christie

We’re back with another Caribbean folktale, told by Kesha Christie.

In this episode, Kesha shares an Indo-Caribbean folktale from Trinidad titled 'Kadoo Ki Beti' or 'The Pumpkin Daughter.' The story, which dates back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, revolves around Mama Savitri, an old woman who desperately wishes for a child. Through prayers and a magical pumpkin, her wish is partially granted. This folktale has themes of spirituality, cultural cues, and community. 

Hema and Kesha discuss the importance of preserving these oral traditions and  nuanced differences between Indo-Caribbean and Indian cultures. 

Listen to more Caribbean folklore episodes

Exploring Caribbean Folklore with Kesha Christie
Trickster Tales
Anansi's Antics in Antigua & Barbuda
The Power of Pataki Stories in Cuba
A Lizard's Lesson
Making a Deal with Death
The Lady and Her Three Sons

Episodes referenced

Exploring Caribbean Folklore with Kesha Christie
Caribbean Food History with Dr. Candice Goucher
The Irish-Caribbean Connection with Dr. Ellen Howley

References

Dr. Amina Blackwood-Meeks

Connect with Kesha

To learn more about Kesha and her work, visit http://www.talkintales.ca
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Transcript

Kesha: This is an old, old story. It’s, I think that this story originated late 1800s, early 1900s. But some of the cultural notes that I discovered with the story is the origins we know as Trinidad, it’s a Trinidadian story, but the, the kadoo or the pumpkin has significance. And then it’s the mixture of cultures and spirituality, and the name in the story and the, of course the food. And so all of this adds layers to the Indo-Caribbean aspect of the, of the story.  

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Hema: Hello Kesha, welcome back to The Moreish Podcast.

Kesha: Hi Hema. Glad to be here.

Hema: I am excited, as usual, to have you tell us a folktale and dive into a little bit of the backstory. And Kesha was actually in my neighbourhood doing some storytelling and I got to go out and watch you live and in person, and it was so much fun.

Kesha: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It was great to see you.

Hema: It was the first time we actually met face to face. We've been doing this virtual recording for a very long time now. So what a treasure to see you do your storytelling and engaging live and in person.

Kesha: Wow. Thank you so much.

Hema: So today we're diving into some more Caribbean folklore and folktales, and in previous episodes we've sort of had a list of countries that we wanted to talk about, and this time you have the list and I don't.

Kesha: Yes, so we travelled the Caribbean with our stories, but I wanted to dive a little bit deeper on Indo-Caribbean folklore as well as Chinese-Caribbean, because there's a difference. A lot of similarities, but differences in the way that the stories are told. And so you trusted me to go and dive in on my own and I did.

So I've got a special, one special story for us today and it's originates in Trinidad. So I've, what I did learn was a lot of the Indo-Caribbean stories easily found in Trinidad and Guyana. Not that they're not in the other islands, they're just a little harder to dig up. So, this story is one that I thought I was familiar with, but nah, it is not.

Hema: All right. I’ m curious if this is one that I've heard, given that my family is Trinidadian, but let's dive in.

Kesha: Yes. Let's dive into this. So I've got my little note here on the side just because I wanna make sure that I pronounce this part correctly. So I wanna tell you the origin of the story and try to use its original name.  

So the original name of this story is Kadoo Ki Beti, The Pumpkin Daughter. So this is a story about an old woman who lives in a village and she's just on her own, and she wants a child so desperately she wants a child. 

So let's dive in. Long ago, not yesterday, not today, but the time where the sun still took its time climbing into the sky and the moon would shine bright across the cane field at night. Mama Savitri lived in a small house, just her, she and she garden, they would say. She would tend to that garden day in and day out. She would weed and hum to herself, and every evening she would light her diya and pray. If I could just have a child, one child, even if that child came from a seed, I would love it with everything I have. Every evening she would pray. So one day while she was weeding and pulling out all of the, the, the things and talking to her plants and singing and humming along, her cutlass hit something. When she pulled away the weeds, it was a pumpkin, the most beautiful pumpkin you had ever seen. It was perfectly round and green and orange, bright, shiny skin. She lifted it. It was heavy, but she could manage. She pulled and lifted and brought it inside the house. When she brought it inside the house, she put it in a place you wouldn't expect. She put it on the windowsill. No one puts a pumpkin on the windowsill, but she was so proud of it. It was so beautiful. She rested it there.

But all the work that she had done that day made her tired. So in the sink, she left her one cup and one plate and one fork after she'd eaten her dinner. She laid down on her bed and she fell asleep. No covers, just falling asleep. 

Throughout the night, something strange happened. There was a tick, tick, tick, sound. But she must be dreaming. In the morning when she woke up, she stretched, and when she went to wash the dishes she had left, the whole house was clean. There wasn't a dirty dish to be found. The whole place had been swept. It was beautiful, and on the table was roti and curry. Hey, she looked around and thought, oh, my family, my, my friends, my neighbours must have taken care of me. She sat down and ate the little and went about her day back into her garden, singing and pulling weeds, and just talking about how grateful she was for that pumpkin. 

This time when she lighted at the diya, she said, you know, I am so grateful for this pumpkin, and if this pumpkin is my child, I will take care of it. I will love it with everything I have.

That night, again, she left a cup in the sink and went to sleep. This time,  she had the covers, but you know, on her waist, not all the way up, but it got cold in the night. But again, tick, tick, tick, tick. She thought she was dreaming, stayed asleep, and the very next morning everything was clean. The covers were up to her neck and on the table, roti and curry. Boy, she thought to herself, something's happening here. I'm going to find out what it is.

She went about her day and that night when she went to sleep, she pretended to sleep. She pulled the covers over her head and closed her eyes really low just so she could see through her eyelashes. And she waited, and again, she started to hear tick, tick, tick. And when she looked, that pumpkin split in two like a shell, and out stepped the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, with long, dark, brown black hair, skin so glowing. It reminded her of the pumpkin shell. And she went to work. She cleaned the house, and she made curry and roti. In the early hours of the morning, there on the table, she placed roti and the curry. 

Now, the old woman, she was getting tired, but she wanted to greet the young girl, so she moaned and stretched and poof. When she finally got out of bed and looked around, the girl was gone and the pumpkin was perfect in its place, like it was moved. She thought to herself, huh? Did you see it? She felt her face to make sure it was real, but there was the roti and curry, so she must have seen what she thought she saw. But she really wanted to meet this young girl. So the very next day she again, she covered her head, but this time while the young girl was sweeping, she uncovered herself and said, oh, my daughter, I'm so thankful for you. The young girl smiled and said, Mama, I'll take care of you. And she sat down and the house was cleaned and there again roti and curry.

And then she couldn't help it. She had to tell of her great fortune. So all she went into the village and she started to tell the people about her daughter and about the pumpkin and what had happened. At first, no one believed her, but over time they started to think of something. Maybe it was true. She always looked well-dressed and all put together and look at her jewellery, they thought. And of course, in every village in the world, there was a little bit of jealousy.

So there was a neighbour who wanted to really see for themself if it was true. So in the night that neighbour crawled up to her window and peeked through. When she peeked through, she saw the beautiful pumpkin daughter. She couldn't believe it. And of course, jealousy boiled and bubbled in her chest. It bubbled so much that she opened the door, slipped inside, grabbed those pumpkin shell pieces, took them out into the road and smashed them. And just like that, poof, the pumpkin daughter disappeared, leaving behind pumpkin seeds. 

Oh, oh. Mama Savitri woke up and she was so hurt. She couldn't believe what had happened. She picked up the pumpkin seeds and she looked into the road and saw that the pumpkin pieces were there. Who could have done such a thing? She was heartbroken. She took those seeds out into her garden, dug a hole, and between burying those seeds and her tears that watered them, she talked about how much she loved her daughter and wanted to take care of her, and was grateful for the time that they had. She kissed those seeds, put her hands on the ground, and then she had to leave them. But very quickly, almost like magic, vines started to come out of the ground, they came out of the ground and sailed along like, almost like an ocean wave, out past her garden, stretching all through the countryside. And quickly, very quickly, pumpkins popped up. Little ones.

Now you would think Mama Savitri picked a pumpkin and there was her daughter again, but that didn't happen. Unfortunately, it was just her. She and she garden, as they would say. But those pumpkins, they were the most beautiful pumpkins that they ever saw. But now everyone had a pumpkin to eat, to nourish them, to spend time with them. So even though she no longer had her daughter, she was still proud because those little seeds were still giving and giving. 

Hema: Oh my heart. This is, it's a good story, it's a sad story all rolled into one. 

Kesha:  It is, it is. And this is an old, old story. It's, I think in the notes that I found, said that this story originated late 1800s, early 1900s. So, um, I'll tell you the challenge with the story now. The challenge in finding the story was I could only get a summary. And so I had to build the story. And so it's fun when you get to build the story, but I still had to keep that, I wanted to make it happily ever after, but I couldn't because that's not the nature of the story. So I had to keep it, um, with its origins. 

But some of the cultural notes that I discovered with the story is the origins we know as Trinidad, it's a Trinidadian story, but the, the kadoo or the pumpkin has significance. So the pumpkin represents fertility and new beginnings. And so it had, its, its very important that the story was set in that way.

And then there's the, the diya, which is the lamp that she lit. And that is, you see it more during Diwali, I wanna say. And so it had that, that cultural reverence there. And then it's the mixture of cultures and spirituality, and the name in the story and the, of course the food. And so all of this adds layers to the Indo-Caribbean aspect of the, of the story. And we know that a lot of the Indians who came to the Caribbean as indentured servants, they came with their own stories just as the Africans did in that, in a very different way, but they came with their stories. They came with their, their, their food. And so they live on, in the stories, right, and we see that here.

Hema: Before you started, I said I'm wondering if it's a story that I recognize, and I've never heard this one before, and that's not unusual because there are so many folk tales that there's no way I'm going to know every single one that's been told. And it's not like the scary, or it doesn't have that sort of big lesson that you might get from an Anansi story or something else that gets told over and over and over again. There's more subtleties to this one.

Kesha: There is, there is. It's been, it was very interesting unveiling the, the stories and really kind of choosing which one to tell. I chose this one because. I remembered how to say the names. There are other stories that are more spiritual and I didn't wanna do a disservice to the story by saying it incorrectly. So I will share them at another time, but I'll have more, be able to draw more from the story. And because I like to, I don't like to just find a story, I like to dig a little bit of in the background so I know how I can stretch that story to make it seem, um, appear more authentic because it's very important that when we find or unveil a story that we have a little bit of the background, so I may. I'm gonna say it's a me thing, but it might not be. But I like to find that little bit of background to so that I know how to stretch the story. And like I said, when I found this story, it's literally a two-line summary that I had to stretch into the story, but keeping it authentic with what would be told. So I really kind of took mirroring from another story, which, which I had of longer length, to be able to say, okay, we need to incorporate these things into the story to make it full and complete. And so I just, I like being able to do that deeper dive so that I can stretch the stories more.

Hema: Yeah. You know, it's interesting that all you could find was a summary, right? Which to me then says some of these stories are not documented which is going to be harder and harder, the longer we go on for people to even know about these folk tales, unless we write them down. Who is going to be keeping these oral traditions alive, is something that I worry about.

Kesha: Yes, I have the same worries myself. As I was unveiling the stories first line, these stories are mostly told in the oral tradition, so I was like, okay, I may not find anything. I might just find a title and I have to keep digging and digging and some of the stories, because they came from India first, I had to go back and find the Indian version of the story and then kind of carry it forward to see, okay, well this story would change how or where and it doesn't have the same name, right? Because I told you before, the name and I was like, okay, where does this, where do you find this? And the Indian story refers to, a pumpkin maiden, but it's now the pumpkin girl, the pumpkin daughter or the pumpkin girl. So it's it, these stories mutate and change and that's the beauty of it. 

So I like to dive deep and even if it's that little summary, we're getting the story. Because it's so important to. And then, the more we share these stories is the more someone's gonna say, I remember my grandmother told me that story, but she said x, y, z and now it becomes a part of the story that we retell because we've got that extra piece that might not have been told in that way, or the person's name might change, or they might even give us a name of a village that was a part of Trinidad way back when. 

We learn a lot about our culture, but we also learn a lot about Trinidad as a whole, what, where would, what did Trinidad look like in the 1800s, early 1900s? And you get glimpses of that the more we tell the story. And I think that's what I love about living history. Our stories are a living history, and we need to embrace that and continue to share our stories because every little bit is how we make, how we put our stories together.

Even the Anansi stories that we traditionally know, I've told stories where someone's like, you know, I, I remember the ending a little bit different. And so I'm like, okay, can I use that? And then of course, and then now I have two different ways to tell that story because I was able to take the Jamaican version, the Grenadian version, and mesh them together. So we grow and learn the more that we share our stories, and our living histories are important that we share, and we have to still share them the way that they've always been shared. And that's by us getting together and speaking them aloud, whether we're individuals, a couple or a larger group.

Hema: In our very first episode talking about Caribbean folklore and folktales, you said that stories can change depending on who's telling it, and every storyteller adds their own twist or flare while keeping true to the base of the story. And I find that really interesting, in this process where you've found a summary and you've given it your own twist and flare, and just listening to you say you sort of followed the history to determine how the story would've changed from India to Trinidad and why it would've changed. I think these are really great historical cues of the legacy and the history of our, our ancestors.

Kesha: Absolutely. Absolutely. So what I have to understand is Indian, from India and Indian from the Caribbean, there's a difference. Yes, the foods are similar. Yes, the, the, the spirituality might be different, but the flare is different. I have a Guyanese family that lives like down the road from me. When they have a party, they have a party. And then there is an Indian family just further down. When they have a party, they have a party. But, the Guyanese party is more my jam. You know what I mean?

So you, I, it's, it's it's a physical difference that you can see. The saris, similar, but the colours different. The way that they're put together, the amount of jewelry, the food, the music, that's where there's the beauty and the differences, and we are so diverse as people, as Caribbean people, as India, Indo-Caribbean people. The beauty is in those differences as long as well as the similarities, and it's so important to highlight and celebrate.

Hema: It's a, it's an interesting point that you bring up because obviously I am Indo-Caribbean and it's not something that everybody understands or can relate to, is that cultural difference between an Indian family or an Indo-Caribbean family, and they’re….once you live it and experience it, you will understand it.

But because our names are similar, our religions, the, the names of different foods and dishes, people automatically assume that culturally we're the same. And it's hard to explain that it's not. I've been to temple with friends who, uh, families are from India and even the way they worship in the same religion is different. And one isn't right or wrong, it's just how things changed and morphed and people adapted once they got to the Caribbean. 

Kesha: I agree.

Hema: It shows up in the same way with people of, from African descendants, Chinese whose families are living and rooted in the Caribbean now. The influences are still there, but the way it's executed and rolled out in day-to-day life is different.

Kesha: It absolutely is, and it's so important to highlight. I feel like, for so long you've had to pick a side. It's either you are Indian or you're not. It's either you're Chinese or you're not, and it is so fair to say both and differently. And it's important that we celebrate those. It it's an uncovering of who we are and those layers, again, it's not cut and dry, especially when I go into deeper dives into the stories, I see all of the blending and the meshing and, when we look up our histories, they make it seem like it's gotta be so it's this lane or that lane. But it was never that, it was always a blending. When we came to places, there were indigenous peoples there, so there was blending and meshing all along the way. There's never been, oh yeah, you're just over there stay over there. It's never that.

And what I love is Jamaica's motto ‘out of many one people’, because it's true. And so being able to, to uncover and highlight that, it doesn't take away from who Indo-Caribbean people are. It doesn't, it adds a value, but it's been so long that you couldn't, there was always something different, but you couldn't put your finger quite on it. But as, um, an Afro-Caribbean person, when I see a person from India and a person from Trinidad or a Guyana, they don't mesh. When I say they don't mesh. What I mean is that you can see that there's a very great difference. 

I'll, I'll tell you a short story. I was walking with my daughter on the boardwalk and there was a Guyanese family, mommy, uh, her two sons, and her daughter walking around. And then on the other side there was an Indian family, grandma, husband, wife, I'm guessing. So they're walking on the other side. Now, from afar, they acknowledged each other, you know, the head nod, whatever that is. So from afar, they acknowledged, but when they got really close and they realized that they were not the same, no one said a greeting, nobody said hello, they just kept going. There was a pause, and then the conversation kept going over here, and a different conversation kept going there. Nobody looked back twice.

But then, I mean, I'm a people watcher, so I've been seeing the this, this exchange and when that family from India met up with another family, clearly from India, there was that pause and that greeting and that, you know, laughter and that recognition of sameness. 

But it was just interesting to see from afar they recognize the sameness, but somehow it disappeared by the time they became side by side. And it's like, there's so much beauty in the differences and having that understanding. That's why we're here to share these stories and really add the layers, and I feel like further down in the future, there will be that coming together again where everybody realizes, Hey, same here, same here. Let's do this together kind of thing. That's the hope anyway.

Hema: It, it really is such an interesting dynamic to watch, to experience, to be a part of. I did an episode of the podcast with Dr. Candice Goucher, and she, I'm paraphrasing what she said, but essentially the Caribbean is the only place in the world where there was almost complete destruction of the original culture and a complete reconstruction based on historical events.

And also as we talk about Caribbean culture, I also have to say it's not a monolith because every single country, while we have a shared history, generally in a shared culture based on historical events, every country has its own culture and its own unique peoples and foods, recipes and ways of doing things. As we go through the history and the stories and the folk tales, that these little nuances just keep poking up their little heads and I'm learning more every day. 

Kesha: Absolutely. I'm gonna lean on storyteller, Dr. Amina Blackwood-Meeks. She will take a story and she'll tell you I've Jamaica-fied this story, so I can't really tell you all of the original pieces, but tell me what you think. And she will share a story and you think, oh my gosh, that's the story. That's the story, the way that she shares it. And I just love how she says, I've Jamaica-fied it. And it's so true because every storyteller needs to make the story their own.

It's not the same as casual conversation where we're sharing jokes here and there, you need to make it your own without taking away from the story. So it might be the way you say something, the flare, or, you know, I'd like to do a deeper dive so that I'm stretching in the right places. But everyone has to make it their own in their own way. And what I've learned is that from island to island, the story you're telling in Jamaica, same story you're telling in Grenada, but it changed. The character changed, the scenery changed the lesson, just a little tweak.

And so I've told stories with Sandra Whiting where we've done that, we told a story, I think it was, uh, Anansi & Tiger and she told a Jamaican version of the story and I told another version of the story, and we had the audience decide which story they liked better, and it was interesting to say, oh, I remember that part. I remember that part. And everyone can tell you where they were when, which was really exciting.

But we have our own little flare and, and background that we carry with the story from the different islands. But when we together, when we are together, we amplify everything we, it's, it's that no man left behind mentality.

And I think that's what I love the most about being a Caribbean person. Because there is that no man left behind. You walk into a space and you don't know anyone, but let your accent slip out and it's like everyone comes to, to, to, Hey, we, we are picking you up. We are carrying you, we're taking you here because you know, we're kin. You don't know anybody but a kin. 

And so just seeing that, experiencing it in person, seeing it in, in interactions with people, it's just... it's something that I can say is the boldest and the most extensive in the Caribbean. I mean, other cultures, they do have it, but they're, they're specific. They're specific in, like I said, having that Indian heritage connection. But in the Caribbean, we don't care what you look like. Once you sound like us, we we're, we're in. You know what I mean? 

And so even when I hear folks from Ireland speak, the way that they speak sounds a lot like patois. So when you walk into a room and you hear that, you're like, we're kin. Maybe we're not, but in that moment, we've connected and the connection, the connection's hard to deny. It's not a passing association. It's we're where we're now connected, we're travelling together. No man left back.

Hema: It's funny that you, you say that about Ireland. I was recently in Dublin and I did a, a walking tour led by a man that was born and raised in Dublin and we were having a conversation and he brought up that Jamaican accent, Irish accent, and he had an explanation for why it sounds the same, but from his perspective there is a kinship between Irish people and Jamaican people and, and the accent. So it's interesting to hear you say that and also to have experienced somebody born and raised in Dublin saying the same thing.

Kesha: No man left behind.

Hema:  This story, the pumpkin girl, there are little cues that indicate that it is a story that originated in India, like the diya, uh, and it's just a little clay pot with some oil, like a tiny lantern very often used in religious scenarios. And you'll see it all over the place for Diwali. But also the food, the roti and the curry.

Kesha: Yeah, when I uncovered the story, I had two sentences and so, was mentioned, the curry was mentioned and the diya was mentioned, but it was like, okay, how do we put all, pull all of these together? And I knew, that based on where I found the summary, I knew that the female character was Indo-Caribbean, but I didn't have a name, so I had to give her a name that would likely be. So, now you're like, okay, I gotta add a layer here, but keep it consistent. And then knowing the reverence that the pumpkin has, the story was about the pumpkin. I knew that from the beginning. I didn't know the reverence until I dug a little bit deeper. So it's like, okay, you can't change that to a coconut unless you're gonna retell the story very differently. So I had to keep that.

Hema: Another fantastic story that leads to some interesting conversation that I'm still going to ponder, as the days come, as I listen to the story back, there's going to be new things that I discover in your telling of this story, and I think that's the beauty of these folk tales, is that you can listen to them over and over again, and depending on how you listen to it, where you listen to it, what's going on in your own life, will possibly change the perspective and what you're taking out of it.

Kesha: Absolutely. That's the gift that folktales have given us and our ability to really perceive them. And that's why storytelling is such a powerful tool is because it helps us to navigate this space. And again, the more you listen, you are gonna take something new from it, and you might ask yourself a different question that changes your perspective or maybe even changes the way you navigate through life.

Hema: Thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of The Moreish Podcast. I'm gonna leave a link in the show notes to your podcast and to your website. You have a lot of interesting things going on that I think people would be really interested in learning more about. Come back and join us for another episode. I'm excited to hear more stories from you.

Kesha: Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

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