A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Visitors arrive from another country for a dance, form relationships with local women and are escorted part of the way home afterward. The tale reveals that these apparently ordinary guests are dead people who have left their graves. Most women turn back when requested, but one insists on accompanying her sweetheart despite warnings about distant visitors and the dead. The other men disappear into their graves along the journey. Her partner repeatedly asks her to return and says that he will visit again, but she follows him to his town.
They arrive at night at a place where she sees a single house and white garments belonging to dead inhabitants. Her sweetheart vanishes, and other ghosts approach, curse and hiss at her before disappearing again. She hears them without seeing ordinary bodies. A dog that accompanied the party can perceive them with its special eyes, bark them away and guide her out. The dead therefore move between sociable appearances at the dance and unstable, partly visible forms in their own settlement. The woman's refusal to leave the returning visitors places her inside that settlement, while her animal companion provides the perception and protection needed to escape.
Origins & earliest records
Florence M. Cronise collected tales from children and adult employees of the Rotifunk mission in Sierra Leone. The 1903 preface credits Henry W. Ward with much of the arrangement and narrative setting; its named speakers are not assumed to be independently documented field informants.
Records & interpretation
Complete selected tale directly read, printed pp. 292-297. Preface and introduction separately inspected for collection and editorial mediation.
In the literature
“den die pusson all, dey kin come out den grabe (grave)”
Chapter XI; pp. 292–297; A Ghost Story; Explanation of the apparent visitors · Historical Sierra Leone contact-English rendering
The narrator identifies the distant dancers as the dead emerging from graves.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef
A Ghost Story; pp. 292-297.
- 02
Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef — A Ghost Story
London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co.; New York, E. P. Dutton, 1903, visually verified title page. Selected Project Gutenberg 48828 transcription retains printed page markers and exact tale anchors. Preface pp. v–vi credits Cronise with collection and Ward with arrangement/setting; introduction pp. 1–4 describes Rotifunk mission children and adult employees as sources. Frame speakers are not independently verified individual informants.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef
London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co.; New York, E. P. Dutton, 1903, visually verified title page. Selected Project Gutenberg 48828 transcription retains printed page markers and exact tale anchors. Preface pp. v–vi credits Cronise with collection and Ward with arrangement/setting; introduction pp. 1–4 describes Rotifunk mission children and adult employees as sources. Frame speakers are not independently verified individual informants.
- Apparently distant visitors join dances and form romantic attachments. The narrative later identifies them as dead people emerging from graves and warns women against following unknown partners away.
- A woman ignores her lover’s request to return. At his home he vanishes, leaving her among white-clothed spirits that appear and disappear, hiss and curse her; her dog can see and drive them back.
Chapter XI; pp. 292–297; A Ghost Story; Woman reaches the white-clothed dead town
Complete named tale and relevant footnotes read. Editorial racial generalizations are not adopted. Frame speakers are literary witnesses, not verified informants; spirit/devil vocabulary belongs to this collected rendering and is not equated with Christian Satan or a universal African category.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Collected primary narrative with editorial settingA Ghost StoryResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.