Mules and Men is effectively an anthology of African American folktales compiled by Zora Neale Hurston. Her research was conducted in the South -- namely Florida and Louisiana. She received funding for her to conduct this research in person, so she started visiting places. Although the project is enormous in scope, Hurston managed to accomplish it all by herself. More importantly she invites the reader into her travels alongside the actual stories. She tells the tale of how most of these folktales were told to her, remarking often upon how challenging it was to gain the narrator's confidence.
The real charm of this collection is in Hurston's reverence for the culture. She leaves stories untouched, in their original form, often going to extensive lengths to obtain the most accurate and oldest version of a story that she can find. Her cause is aided by Hurston's investment in the people. Throwing herself into the project, she actually becomes a hoodoo apprentice to several practitioners. She gains real life experience over the course of the book's research in order to reflect those experiences accurately for her reader, as a denizen between and across cultures.
The first half of this book is amassed in Florida. Hurston runs all around collecting folktales. Many of them are slave narratives, some of which repeat with variation. By the second half, Hurston has arrived in Louisiana. Here she becomes engaged by the spiritual aspect of culture and reflects upon how Native American and West African cultures blend in hoodoo.
