Story: How to Make Yams Grow
Book: “Barbados Folklore” in the Journal of American Folklore, vol. 38
Author(s): Elsie Clews Parsons
Storyteller: Donald Millington of Bridgetown
Published: 1925
Internet Archive link.

Notes: Lightly edited for paragraphing and removal of eye-dialect.

The Monkey and the Yams

A man had some yams he couldn’t get them growing, and Monkey says, “Know what to do? Stew them and put a thick piece of fish
through every one.”

The night in question, the monkey came and eat all and get some green yams, and stick them up.

Next morning Monkey said to the man, “You see how good them grow? But remember don’t pull at them.”

The daytime when the sun was hot, all them green yams dry up, and the monkey could not be find.

That’s the end of it.

Barbados monkey photo by Joe Ross at Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeross/4178787279