1. San Naa.


.AADAME Rosana Pierre-Louis, known as San Naa to her
children, lived in a mountain section of Haiti called Carre-
four-Sans-Nom, (Crossroad Without Name), about fifty
miles from the province of J6r6mie in the south of the island.
 Some years ago, when I visited Haiti I went to Jre&mie,
and on more than one occasion I had the pleasure of going
to Carrefour-Sans-Nom, and my greatest joy was to listen
to San Naa tell stories in her gentle, picturesque, Creole
tongue. At once I realized that San Naa was the greatest
interpreter of Bouqui and Malice stories of all time.
 Here I have attempted to write these stories exactly as
San Naa herself told them, that is, in the language of the
Haitian peasant. Now I have the pleasure of bringing them
to the English speaking public for the first time.
 In telling these stories, San Naa followed the traditional
 pattern of story-telling, as do all Haitian peasants even to
 this day.
 To wake all around her that might be asleep she would
 say noisily,
 Cric ?
 Crac! would reply the audience, jumping up wide
 awake.