I. ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
[Contents: Titles and First Lines (Song's in caps have music arrangements)
--------Note: Two of the song's arrangements got accidentally switched-------
I've fixed this error...
De ark kep' a-rollin' on, (Paul and Silas)
I WENT UP ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP (Liza Jane)
Go tell Aunt Patsy (Go Tell Aunt Rhody/Nancy)
When I'm dead and buried (Don't Greive After Me)
JULY ANN JOHNSON (Julianne Johnston [minstrel]; Julianne Johnson [old-time])
Keep a-inchin' along inchin' along (Inch Along)
I want to be ready I want to be ready, (Walk in Jerusalem Just Like John)
If you get there before I do (Most Done Ling'rin' Here) [should be: MOST DONE LING'RIN' HERE]
I bless the Lawd I'm born to die (Keep Me From Sinking Down/ Born To Die)
OLD GREY HORSE CAME TEARIN' (Down in Alabam)
I'm gwine down to Jordan Hallelu (So Glad I Got Religion)
Gwine to lay me on a cooling board one of dese mornings, Hope I'll jine de band (Jine de Band)
AFRICAN COUNTING SONG
All along all along, all along
I went out to worldy wiggy waggy(riddle) (Wiggy Waggy)
MAMAN DONNE MOIN UN PITIT MARI LITTLE HUSBAND)
RUN NIGGER RUN (Patroller Song/Run Jimmy Run) [Switched with- Most Done Ling'rin')
Go fay go fay, INGO-ANGO FAY
CHANT
Old Ark's A-Movin'
Swing Low
I ain't got time to tarry
If I had the gov'ner]
FOLK-SONGS are shy, elusive things. If you wish to capture them, you have to steal up behind them, unbeknownst, and sprinkle salt on their tails. Even so, as often as not they fly off saucily from under your nose. You have to speak them gently, and with magic words, else they will vanish before your ears. You must know how to mask your trembling eagerness in their presence, to pretend, if need be, that you are deaf and indifferent, to act as if vocal music were the last thing in life you ever gave a thought to. Folk-songs have to be wooed and coaxed and wheedled with all manner of blandishments and flatteries.
People who sing or hum to themselves hate to be overheard. It is as embarrassing as to be caught talking to one's self, and as indignantly resented; yet if you aspire to be a folk-song collector, you must cast aside the niceties of conduct, must shamelessly eavesdrop, and ask intrusive questions.
How often have I overheard alluring snatches of song, only to be baffled by denial when I asked for morel Kindly black faces smile indulgently as at the vagaries of an imaginative child, when I persist in pleading for the rest. "Nawm, honey, I wa'n't singing nothing — nothing a-tall!" How often have I been tricked into enthusiasm over the promise of folk-songs, only to hear age-worn phonograph records, — but perhaps so changed and worked upon by usage that they could possibly claim to be folk-songs after all! — or Broadway echoes, or conventional songs by white authors! Yet cajolements might be in vain, even though all the time I knew, by the uncanny instinct of folk-lorists, that there were folk-songs there.
How often, when seeking for dance songs, which Negroes call "reels," have I been told rebukingly that "sech things was sinful," that" wild folks sing reels," but church members must forget them, must do as one fat black girl recently converted said she did: "Ah devotes mah voice to God!" Such passionate rending of all worldly songs from the memory is impressive as an act of piety, but discouraging. Aged colored folk have intimated to me that they have rinsed their minds of all such revelry, have so completely put it aside that they have forgotten even that they have forgotten it. But lovely as hymns and "spirituals" are in their place, if you are a collector, even a pious one, you feel a thrill of despair at hearing a voice, beautiful with the quavery sweetness of old age, trembling with unguessed traditions, sing Hark from the Tomb, when you had been "honing" for Old Virginity Never Tire, or Chicken in de Bread-Tray. You feel that puritanism can go a foot too far. Why has nobody ever discussed the puritanism among Negroes?
And even when you get a song started, when you are listening with your heart in your ear and the greed of the folk-lorist in your eye, you may lose out. If you seem too much interested, the song retreats, draws in like a turtle's head, and no amount of coaxing will make it venture back. And there is something positively fatal about a pencil! Songs seem to be afraid of lead-poisoning. Or perhaps the pencil is secretly attached by a cord (a vocal cord?) to the singer's tongue. It must be so, for otherwise, why has it so often happened that when I, distrustful of my tricky memory to hold a precious song, have sneaked a pencil out to take notes, the tongue has suddenly jerked back and refused to wag again? Yet that is not always the case, for sometimes the knowledge that his song is being written down inspires a bard with more respect for it and he gives it freely.
Sometimes shyness increases, and again it grows less, under guileful persuasion. Some people will confess to acquaintance with folksongs, perhaps the very ones you may at the moment be most ardently pursuing, yet refuse to sing. They "never could sing," or they have quite forgotten how. Their voices have got rusty with disuse, or else never have been tuned for song. They are as Harris Dickson said he was, when I requested songs of him. "Yes, I know Negro songs - but the folks would n't let you print your book if you put in it the ones I know. And any way, I can't sing. Got no talent for music at all. If I put a nickel in a melodeon, the blamed thing stops playing." Or maybe they are like the young girl who was asked by Louis Dodge if she could sing. "No, sir, I could n't carry a tune if I had it in a bucket with a lid on it."
In such cases I often explain the difference between pleasure singing and singing for science. I dare hint delicately that while it is possible that neither the vocalist nor I might derive joy from the singing as singing, yet as a folk-lorist I should experience delight at hearing a folk-song put across in such way that I could capture it. I urge that as a song hunter I should rather hear a Negro in the cornfield or on the levee or in a tobacco factory, than to hear Galli-Curci grand-operize. I hint that humming a tune will do at a pinch, or even whistling. Funny about whistling! Some folks who just will not sing at all, who could not be induced by torture or persuasion to attempt a song, will cheerfully pucker up their lips and whistle an air, while others would be far more embarrassed at trying to whistle than to sing. Some will pick a tune out on the piano, one slow finger at a time, every evidence of pain and strain on their set faces, while still others' hands are more bashful than their tongues or lips. Timidity strikes different organs, it seems.
Yet sometimes shyness blossoms into bravery. Persons who protest that they cannot sing a note, who lift their voices just to prove they cannot (and sometimes the proof is pretty conclusive), who whispering they will "ne'er consent," consent, sometimes surprise themselves by the result. Maybe they have been teased into singing one line to complete an unfinished ballad, but they gather voice and courage as they go on; "they look their minds over," as one colored woman promised me she would do, and they sing what they discover there. Presently it may be that they grow bold to interrupt others and correct their tunes; they insist on singing and quite enjoy the exercise. I find that nothing so livens up a party as to start folk-singing for science. A programme of vocal music rendered for entertainment might be listened to with as much patience as politeness gives a group; but let the sorriest singer in the world start a tune for a useful purpose and immediately every ear is keen. Soon timid guests are wrangling over versions and contending for the chance to sing what they know.
One needs to be pretty much of a detective if he is a successful collector of folk-songs, for he must be alert to guess the existence of songs in any locality or in the mind of any person, and patient to trace them down. He needs to be sound in wind and limb and pen. (I have waited for years to get certain songs I knew about, and have chased some of them half across the South. I have written countless letters and made innumerable visits in the course of my investigation.) One must know how to piece parts of a song together as a scientist joins the bones of discovered fossils. But it is even more delicate work, since you may find one bone in Texas, say, one in Virginia, and one in Mississippi. No right-thinking tyrannosaurus or tetrabeledon would dream of scattering his skeleton over the country like that. And his bones would never keep on growing, even if they did go on cross-country excursions — while folk-songs delight in adding to themselves and collecting parts of other songs that tag after them. I think they do it just to tease collectors. I am sure folk-songs have their own sense of humor.
Yes, the seeker of folk-songs must be up and doing, yet he has a good time. What game is more fascinating than the study of old songs, what adventure more entrancing than to go in search of them? And there is no closed season — though if collectors do not hurry up, the season will be closed forever as far as many precious old songs are concerned. Such an interest adds thrill and suspense to life, sponges up loose time that might otherwise be wasted, brings you in touch with entertaining people of all kinds, and lends an eager responsiveness to the call of the telephone or the postman. How could you be bored when any ring might mean a cordial stranger offering you a song? — or any letter a tune you had long yearned for? If weary fmanciers but knew the fun there is in this, they would quit their desks to go in search of songs, — or at least they would finance the quest for those who crave to get away,—instead of leaving the whole job to impecunious college folk and struggling artists. Why does n't some far-seeing state vote an appropriation for research as to its own songs, before they are permanently lost? Why does n't some millionaire endow a chair for folk-songs in some university? Even a modest footstool might do to start with. Think of having lively or lovely old songs rise up to call you blessed, and to go on giving pleasure to people long after you yourself have — presumably — started singing in other spheres!
Personally, I have had so much fun collecting Negro songs that I should regard any future deprivation or calamity as merely a matter of evening up. It is not fair for one being to have all the fun and en-joyxnent in life.
I have had this active interest as a collector for about ten years, but in reality I suppose I began in my cradle. Both of my grandfathers owned large plantations with many slaves, my Grandfather Scarborough in Louisiana and Grandfather Ellison in East Texas, and so my parents grew up amid a wealth of Negro folk-lore and song, which they passed on to us children. And most of my own life has been spent in the South, where I have had opportunity to know colored people as a race and as individuals. How many memories of my childhood and youth are associated with loved black faces 1 How I enjoyed the songs the Negroes sang, even though I was ignorant of their value! If only as I listened I had but learned them accurately, or had begun long ago consciously to collect them and record them, I should be fortunate now. If I might go back to that time and say,If I had realized that I should need to know music to get folk-songs later in life, my mother would not have had to hound me to the piano to practise, as she did. I wish I had made a study of folksongs then instead of idling over Greek and Latin and other useless things — which never appear in proper darky folk-songs!
But though I have forgotten much, I have remembered much. My past is all mixed up with Negro songs, and I hope to see my future similarly entangled. Now when I hear a lawn mower, the sound of it brings back the songs that Uncle " Mon" used to sing, as he cut our grass; I hear, for example:
Paul and Silas layin' in jail,
De ark kep' a-rollin' on;
Lawd come down an' went deir bail;
De ark kep' a-rollin' on.
The ice-cream freezer's droning whirr sings to me now the airs that Johnny used to chant while he turned the handle on the kitchen steps when company was expected.
I went up on the mountain top
To give my horn a blow;
An' I thought I heard Miss Lizy say,
"Yonder comes my beau."
Chorus: Po' little Lizy, po' little gal,
Po' little Lizy Jane! Po' little Lizy, po' little gal,
She died on the train.
I went into the acre-fiel'
To plant some 'lasses-cane,
To make a jug of molasses,
For to sweeten Lizy Jane.
Chorus
She went up the valley road,
An' I went down the lane,
A-whippin' of my ol' grey mule,
An' it's good bye, Lizy Jane.
Chorus.
Certain songs are always mixed with soapsuds in my mind, for I see Susie, yellow, mountainous of bulk, poking clothes in the big iron washpot in our back yard on Monday mornings, her voice rising higher as the clothes bubbled and leaped. To me there was something witch-like in her voice and her use of the long stick in the boiling pot.
Go tell Aunt Patsy,
Go tell Aunt Pa-atsy,
Go tell Aunt Patsy,
Her old grey goose is dead.
The one she's been saving,
The one she's been sa-aving,
The one she's been saving
To make a feather bed.
Somebody killed it,
Somebody ki-illed it,
Somebody killed it,
Knocked it in the head.
Susie looked like a feather bed herself.
Certain songs are inevitably a part of my memory of Aunt Myra, the faithful black soul who fed and scolded and bossed me in my childhood. She was at once sterner and more indulgent than mother or father, and I both loved and feared her. She had certain songs which she sang when she was angry, and I came to know them as Aunt Myra's temper songs.
When I 'm dead an' buried,
Don't you grieve atter me;
When I'm dead an' buried,
Don't you grieve atter me;
When I 'm dead an' buried,
Don't you grieve atter me,
For I don't want you to grieve atter me.
When we heard that, we knew she was obliquely reminding us of how we should be smitten with sorrow and remorse if she were dead. There was Tish, a young girl who worked for us when I was a child, a happy-hearted creature always laughing or singing. I recall scraps of her song, such as:
July Ann Johnson,
Don't you know,
If you don't dress fine
You can't catch a beau?
I see a procession of black and yellow and cream-colored faces that have passed through our kitchen and house and garden — some very impermanent and some remaining for years, but all singing. Now, when I sit on a porch at night, I am in fancy back at our old home, listening to the mellow, plaintive singing of a Negro congregation at a church a half-mile away — a congregation which "ne'er broke up" at least before I went to sleep, and which gathered every night in a summer-long revival. I can project myself into the past and hear the wailful songs at Negro funerals, the shouting songs at baptizings in the creek or river, old break-downs at parties, lullabies crooned as marnmies rocked black or white babies to sleep, work-songs in cottonfield or on the railroad or street-grading jobs. All sounds of human activity among the Negroes in the South used to be accompanied with song. It is so now to a certain extent, but less than before.
Even now that I am living in the North I spend a part of every year in the South and I eagerly listen for old tunes. I began the work of definitely collecting Negro folk-songs about ten years ago, when I was for one year president of the Texas Folklore Association. I had to arrange for the annual programme, and to deliver the "presidential address." Some of the previous meetings had been sparsely attended and I had promised the organization that their sessions in Baylor University, at Waco, should have satisfactory audiences. I had to make good on that promise, and I did, but it took a lot of tongue- and pen-work. I could not see what would be of popular interest if folk-lore was not — and so I told everybody I saw that the programmes would be of great interest. I advertised the sessions in the news and society columns of our papers, and did all I could think of to attract crowds.
I chose for my subject "Negro Ballets and Reels," and I asked my students in Baylor University to help me collect material. Some insist that I bullied them shamefully, that I insinuated that no one who did not bring me folk-stuff would stand a chance of passing on the finals. One youth complained recently that he combed the Brazos Bottom, and did not dare stop till he had found at least one reel for me.
I myself haunted all sorts of places where Negroes gather for work or play. I visited my kitchen acquaintances, offering to help shell peas or dry dishes, if I might but listen to songs. I loafed on back steps, I hung guilefully over garden fences, I broiled myself beside cook stoves, and ironing boards, I stifled in dust on cleaning days — asking only that I might hear the songs the workers sang. I visited my colored friends and their friends' friends in their homes, begging for ballets.
I started out by describing the scientific nature of my quest, but I soon found that did not work well, and so I explained myself as merely interested in old songs, not realizing that by that time the mischief was done. I remember stopping by to talk with a stout ginger-cake woman whom I saw rocking easefully on her front porch close by Waco Creek one afternoon. I did not know her, but I asked for songs. She desired to know why I wanted them. I explained elaborately that I liked old songs,
"What you gwine to do with 'em?" she persisted.
"Oh, —er, —remember them, and write them down so I can keep them," I parried.
She gave me a glance of scorn for my subterfuge, as she grunted, "You's Miss Dottie Scarber, and that meetin' of yores is on the twenty-fust!"
I had overlooked the fact of my press announcements I
But she consented to give me some songs — on condition that I go into the house, as she did not wish any church members to pass by and hear her singing reels.
Since various colleges and universities of Texas were to be represented on the programme for our meeting, I asked the president of Paul Quinn College, a Negro institution in East Waco, if he would not send his choral club to sing some of the genuine folk-songs for us. On the afternoon of their appearance, the last meeting of the association, the Chapel of Baylor University was filled with people — about twenty-five hundred in all. The colored singers came first on the programme, and were greeted with such a riot of enthusiasm that it seemed as if the remainder of the numbers would be anticlimatic. Again and again the club was called back for encores, and it was with difficulty that I persuaded the audience to hear the rest of us — and only by promising that the singers would come back at intervals during the programme. Yes, folk-lore can have popular appeal. How of tea since then have I closed my eyes in memory and heard those rich, harmonious voices, with a wild, haunting pathos in their tones, singing,
Keep a-inchin' along, inchin' along,
Jesus will come bye-an'-bye.
Keep a-inchin' along like a po' inch worm,
Jesus will come bye-an'-bye!
I hear again the mellow music of
I want to be ready, I want to be ready,
I want to be ready To walk in Jerusalem just like John!
I can see their bodies swaying rhythmically, their faces alight with passionate feeling. Since that time I have been definitely collecting Negro folk-songs. I used a number of them in my books, "From a Southern Porch," and "In the Land of Cotton," and found that readers were more interested in them than in anything I could write.
Sometimes I have chanced upon songs unexpectedly, as in Louisville, Kentucky, several years ago, when I was waiting for a belated train. An old, old colored man, in ragged felt hat and clothes scarcely more than a collection of tattered patches, came along, followed by a flea-infested yellow dog. (I did not see the fleas, but the dog gestured of their presence.) In spite of his garb, the old man had a quaint, antique dignity, which seemed to say that clothes were of small moment; I am sure he had a soul above patches. As he walked along, singing to himself, I followed him to hear and take down his song. His voice was cracked and quavery, and with the peculiar catch that aged Negroes have in their singing, but it was pathetically sweet.
[There's a mistake here- by Scarborough or- more likely- the engraver/editor/publisher. They put the music for "Run, Nigger Run" here- should be later in the chapter, (actually it's a reel or dance tune) I'm including the best known title:]
MOST DONE LING'RIN' HERE
If you get there before I do,
'Most done ling'rin' here;
Look out for me, I am coming too,
'Most done ling'rin' here.
Chorus: I'm goin' away, goin' away,
I'm 'most done ling'rin' here;
I'm goin' away to Galilee,
And I'm 'most done ling'rin' here.
I have hard trials on my way,
'Most done ling'rin' here;
But still King Jesus hears me pray,
'Most done ling'rin' here.
In much the same way I chanced upon an old woman in Atlanta, Georgia, one summer, as I was sauntering down a street by myself. She tottered along, leaning on a cane, her face half hidden in a slat-bonnet, her frail body neat in a gray gingham dress. She was singing in a remote fashion, as if she herself were not aware of the song.
I bless the Lawd, I'm born to die;
Keep me from sinkin' down;
I'm gwine to jedgment bye an' bye;
Keep me from sinkin' down.
She reminded me of old Aunt Peggy, whom I used to see in Waco, who said she was a hundred and fifteen years old and looked every day of it. Aunt Peggy used to walk around to visit her friends, supporting herself by a baby carriage which she pushed in front of her, and which she used as a convenient receptacle to hold gifts from her white friends. I spoke to this old woman and asked her if she knew any more songs.
"Yas'm, honey, I is knowed a passel of 'em, but dey's mos'ly fled away from me now-days. Dis misery in my back make me stedy 'bout hit mo' dan 'bout singing."
I remember a morning in Birmingham, Alabama, when I was strolling leisurely in the colored section of the town to hear what I could hear. I had been interrogating some small boys who had entered cordially into my quest for songs and had sung several for me. And then, having taken a friendly interest in my search, they followed me as I walked along. One of the urchins said, "Man comin' long in dat cart is singin' some sort o' song." I looked and saw a rickety wagon filled with junk, and a tall black man standing up to drive like a charioteer. He was singing lustily:
OLD GRAY HORSE COME TEARIN'
Old grey horse come a-tearin' out o' de wilderness,
Tearin' out o' de wilderness,
Tearin' out o' de wilderness;
Old grey horse come a-tearin' out o' de wilderness,
Down in Alabam!
Memory flashed me back to my childhood, and I heard my mother sing that rollicking old song:
Old grey horse, he come from Jerusalem,
Come from Jerusalem,
Come from Jerusalem;
Old grey horse he come from Jerusalem,
Down in Alabam!
If my wife dies, I'll get me another one,
Get me another one,
Get me another one,
If my wife dies, I'll get me another one,
Down in Alabam!
I followed the cart down the crowded street, the small boys following me, and I felt a home-sick pang to hear the last lines as the cart turned round the corner and out of sight.
Great big fat one, just like t'other one,
Just like t'other one,
Just like t'other one;
Great big fat one, just like t'other one,
Down in Alabam!
I remember many experiences I met in search of Negro folk-songs, each with its own interest for me. There was a baptizing that I went to in Natchez, Mississippi, for example, where I heard many of the genuine old songs. It was an impressive occasion. The immersions took place in a pond near the outskirts of town, on the grounds of what had once been the home of the first Spanish governor of Mississippi. The fine old house had been burned down, but the great marble stairway was still standing, and I stood for a while on the top steps to watch the services — though I presently moved down to be nearer the crowd.
The candidates for baptism met by appointment at a house some distance away; and when the crowd had gathered at the pond, they came in solemn file, robed in white, men and women alike, their robes tied about their knees by cords so that the skirts would not float in the water, and their heads bound in white cloths. They came in procession, two by two, singing a dirge-like song, which the hundreds of Negroes waiting at the edge of the pond caught up and joined in.
The preacher stood in the water, with a half-dozen men by him, three on each side. I wondered what their office was, but I soon learned. They were needed. As a candidate was led into the water, the preacher lifted his voice in passionate exhortation, which swept his audience into fervor of response. Shouts and groans came up, and snatches of weird song.
I'm gwine down to Jordan — Hallelu!
I'm gwine down to Jordan — Hallelu!
Wid de elders in de lead.
I'm so glad I got my religion in time!
You said somep'n, now, brother! Praise de Lawd!
I was told that the preacher charged a dollar a head for baptizing, — money in advance, — but I cannot vouch for that statement. I can only say that I think he earned his fees. As the candidate was led to his place in the water, the preacher lifted his hand and said, "I, Elder Cosgrove, baptize you, Sister [or Brother] in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." One white youngster asked," Why does he put hisself in front of God? "
The candidate as he was plunged beneath the water manifested lively motion, and emotion. He struggled, and thrashed about, till it required the services of the pastor and the six helpers to get him to his feet again. Some of the candidates, amid wild excitement, lost their balance and fell heavily back into the water, to be rescued with difficulty by the helpers, amid the groans and ejaculations of the congregation.
The small white boy asked, "What makes 'em wrastle so? Do they think the baptizin' would n't take if they didn't fight?" With each immersion the excitement grew, the shouting became more wild and unrestrained, the struggles of the candidate more violent. Women ran up and down the banks of the pond, wringing their hands, groaning and crying. I thought of the priests of Baal who leaped and shouted as they called upon their god to hear them and send down fire to light their altar. The crowd surged back and forth, and as one bystander would rush to greet a candidate coming out of the water, shrieking forth joy and thanksgiving, the crowd would join in vehement song. Sometimes half-a-dozen shouters would be in ecstasy at once, each surrounded by a group of admirers trying to control him, or her — usually her. Each group would be a centre of commotion in the general excitement.
The shouter would fall on the ground, writhing about as if in anguish, tearing her hair, beating off those who sought to calm her. Sometimes one, reeling too near in the throes of thanksgiving, would fall into the water and have to be fished out, somewhat subdued but still shrieking, and led off to dry in the sun.
I tried repeatedly to get a picture of the scene, but each time I adjusted the kodak, some shouter would start up beside me and all but push me into the pond. That little black box seemed to have an unfortunate effect on the crowd. One time I thought I would persist, but in the melee I was all but crushed. I was between the pond on one side and a barbed-wire fence on the other, with no chance for escape but a tree which I might have climbed had it not been a bois-d'arc, full of hard thorns. The crowd surged against me, and I had to put up my kodak hastily and become as inconspicuous as possible. I do not think they meant to harm me, but it was merely a matter of emotional excitement. Even my pencil taking down songs upset them. Vendors of ice-cream cones and cigarettes went in and out through the crowd, selling refreshments to those who did not have their whole interest centred in the ordinance. I watched until the last candidate had been immersed and led off dripping across the field, and the last of the watchers had trickled away, singing snatches of song, shouting ejaculations, sometimes to each other and sometimes to the Lord.
There was an afternoon in Natchitoches, Louisiana, when I went to the Baptist church to see the janitor, who had promised to sing for me. A storm darkened and muttered in the distance, coming nearer and nearer, in awesome accompaniment to the gentle voice that echoed through the empty room as Parsons sang song after song. One that especially impressed me was about the cooling board, which means death-bed.
Gwine to lay me on a cooling board one of dese mornings,
Gwine to lay me on a cooling board one of dese mornings,
Gwine to lay me on a cooling board one of dese mornings,
Hope I'll jine de band.
Chorus: Oh, my sister, oh, my sister, oh, my sister,
Won't you come and go?
Gwine to lay me in my coffin one of dese mornings,
Gwine to lay me in my coffin one of dese mornings,
Gwine to lay me in my coffin one of dese mornings,
Hope I'll jine de band.
Chorus
Gwine to wrap me in a white sheet one of dese mornings,
Gwine to wrap me in a white sheet one of dese mornings,
Gwine to wrap me in a white sheet one of dese mornings,
Hope I'll jine de band.
Chorus
Oh, pore mourner, oh, pore mourner, oh, pore mourner,
Won't you come and go wid me?
A cordial invitation, but one that did not tempt me to accept!
It was in Natchitoches Parish that Sebron Mallard, who had been one of my grandfather's slaves, came to see me. He said, "I was ploughing when I got the word that Mister Johnny's daughter was nigh here, and I drapped the plough and made tracks toward you." He could not sing, he told me, but he gave me information of value about some of the songs I was investigating, helping me to establish their antiquity by the fact that he had heard them in his childhood. He told me much about my grandparents — the grandfather and grandmother who had died long before I was born; and he gave me many little intimate details about my dead father's boyhood. He said, " Mister Johnny war de youngest of all de boys, but he knowed how to work harder and laugh more than any of 'em."
He said, "Li'l mistis, is you well? Is you happy?"
"Yes, Uncle Sebron, I'm always well, and I'm very happy/' I told him.
He looked at me with dimming eyes.
"My ole pappy tol' me befo' he died that good luck would be bound to go with ol' Marster's fambly becase they was alius so good to their pore slaves. They brought us up mannerble, and I brought my chillun up thataway, too. And ain't none of us never been arrested nor had no trouble. But some of the young folks these days is n't that way and it makes trouble. Us old folks sees when dey do wrong, and it hurts us, but we can't do nothing, cause we's feeble and we's few.
"White folks and black folks look like they ain't live lovely together like they used to."
I got some interesting material from a Negro in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Some members of a colored church where I attended service having told me that a night watchman at one of the railroad buildings knew a lot of songs, a friend and I went to the place that night and found a good-natured, middle-aged Negro man, who said he was a preacher as well as a watchman. He was just starting off to-post the night mail when we arrived, but said if we could wait till he came back he would sing what he knew. So we sat down in the deserted building and awaited his return. I did not want to leave without songs, for I had lugged my phonograph along to take records and had no wish to waste that time or energy. After considerable time he came back and sang various spirituals for us.
My quest for songs brought me an invitation to visit Melrose, a big plantation in North Louisiana, whose owner, Mrs. Henry, wrote me that the region was rich in folk-song and tradition. Her plantation is in a section where few white people live, the district being almost entirely settled by Negroes and by what are called free mulat-toes. The latter are descendants of Frenchmen who in early days homesteaded in that region and had mulatto children, to whom they left their property. So the region shows an interesting cleavage of color, the Negroes having their settlement, their churches, Methodist and Baptist, and their schools, while the mulattoes have their schools, their Catholic church and convent, and their separate social life. There is almost as little social commingling between the mulattoes and the blacks as between the whites and the mulattoes, I was told.
I talked with a number of the people there, both black and mulatto, and heard fascinating songs and stories of life before the war in Louisiana.
Among those whom I found especially interesting were Uncle Israel and Aunt Jane, he being ninety-one years old by his estimate of what he remembered, and she being ninety-four. He remembered seeing the stars fall, — that is the date by which most old colored people estimate their age, — and had witnessed a famous duel when he was a child, the duel between Gaigner and Boissier,
"I saw dem fight. One stood at de rising of de sun, one at de setting of de sun. I was a little boy, was carrying feed. Genl Boissier was plated — I mean he had silver plate all over hisself so de bullet would n't hu't him."
Uncle Israel walked with a limp and supported himself by his cane. He said, "It ain't ol' age dat makes me limp. I got a tap on my hip when I war a young man bef o' I war married. I war a house servant, but when Marse Tolyte would get mad at de house servants, he would send dem to de field to work. I was hoein' cotton, an' he called me an* said,' Clean up dis row.' I thought I had it clean, but I ain't. Mister 'Polyte kicked me on de hip. I done limped ever since. I war eighteen then."
"Were the slave-owners very cruel to their slaves?" I asked him.
"Some of 'em was," he answered. " Ol' Marse------would grease 'em with tallow and whup 'em till de blood run down. Den he would spread tallow over 'em and hol' a candle to it and burn 'em. De white folks took him up in law about it.
"Mister Alec had an overseer he called Mr. Cobb. His head 'most reached up to dat j'ist dere. He whipped Niggers wid a saw. Mr. Alec turned him off. Some of de free mulattoes was mo' cruel to deir slaves dan white folks."
Uncle Israel sang various songs for me.
AFRICAN COUNTING SONG
Nin- ni non- no si- du- bi Sa- bi du - te si- mun - gi.
Ninni nonno simungi,
Ninni nonno simungi,
Ninni nonno sidubi sabadute simungi.
Ninni nonno simungi,
Ninni nonno simungi,
Ninni nonno sidubi sabadute simungi.
"Dat Js ol' African. I learned it fum my mother. She come telling us all these little tales. That was a count. The old outlandish man counted. When you said dat twice, dat's ten. My mother learned it fum an African fum her country."
Uncle Israel gave another song, which he said was African, but it is largely a mixture, of course, if there is any African in it.
All along, all along, all along,
Linked in blue.
I bet any man a pint of brandy
All of me marks will be thirty-two.
Uncle Israel says, "Dat means a man countin' in his language in African." He gave a riddle, which Professor Kittredge says is old, but adopted from the whites.
I went out to worldy wiggy waggy,
I saw Tom Tiggy-taggy,
I called Brown Wiggy-waggy
To drive Tom Tiggy-taggy
Out of worldy wiggy waggy.
He said, "Dat was a dog and a hog. De hog was in de field and de dog was sont to drive him out."
Uncle Israel was a delightful person to talk with, for he was so pleased at finding some one interested in what he knew and remembered, that he would talk endlessly, piling up reminiscences of bygone days, singing scraps of song.
I went to see Aunt Jane in their cabin, for she was "feelin' po'ly, thank God," Uncle Israel said, and could not come to the big house to see me. I found her lying huddled in bed, a large, dignified woman. Her cabin was one to delight an antiquarian's heart, for it was just as it had been during slavery days. Meals were cooked over the open fireplace, in antique pots with little legs, and in long spiders, and so forth. The house itself was built of mud fastened together with moss black from age. In an adjoining room half-a-dozen children were entertaining themselves and looking after a baby while its mother was busy with her washing. The baby was rocking in a bran, a peculiar contrivance made of a large circular piece of wood, over which was stretched a sheep skin. This was hung from the ceiling so that it swayed and rocked gently, a comfortable nest for any baby. Aunt Jane and Uncle Israel sang into my phonograph, and I can see now their shaking gray heads close together in front of the mysterious horn, and smile again at their childish delight at hearing the horn give their own songs back to them.
Uncle Israel and Aunt Jane gossiped of the mulattoes and of the various grades of color, of the "griffs," of the "freakides," who were "mo' white dan colored," of the "quateroons" — "not so deep colored." I learned of a quarrel Uncle Israel had had with one of the mulatto house servants about this question of color. She had disrespectfully called him a Nigger, and he had retorted:
"What if I is a Nigger? I b'longs to a race of people. But you ain't. I didn't never read in de Bible about whar it speaks of mulattoes as a race of people. You is mules, dat's whut you is."
The young mulatto had slung a skillet at him, and the argument ended. He said to me, "De mulattoes ain't live as long as white folks or colored either. Dey ain't a healthy folks. I'll tell dat to deir face."
Aunt Jane talked of old days as she lay back against her pillow, and I sat in an ancient split-bottom chair beside her bed, while Uncle Israel pottered about, poking the fire and fumbling among old papers to see what he could find to show me.
She said, "Dey tuck me fum my mammy when I was a baby. My oP marster he died an' a ol' lady bought me. She so ugly I don't remember her name. She did n't buy my mammy. My mammy had to teck it, 'case she could n't he'p herself. She never sent me no papers, nor I her, and I don't know nothing 'bout her sence dat time. When I was a young girl I was sold at de block in New Orleans. Dey stood me up on de block in de slave-pen. De doctor 'zaminie me fust an' look at my teeth. I war sold for fifteen hunned dollars."
She gazed wistfully out of the door and said, "I study a lot 'bout my mammy. I wunner will I ever see her agin." Poor old Aunt Jane! — since I saw her, she has died. Let us hope that she has found her mammy.
One of the mulatto men told me about how the Negroes would beat drums and cotton sticks, and chant,
Sing no more Creole — free nation.
Sing no more Creole — free nation.
I was told of the Creole dances and dance-songs. I had a delightful time getting Creole songs in New Orleans, the songs in the Creole patois sung by the French-speaking Negroes. I had the privilege of meeting some charming Creole ladies, friends of one of the friends I was visiting in New Orleans, who sang into my phonograph lively songs they had learned from the French Negroes. That dialect is no more like correct French than Negro dialect is like ordinary English. The songs are difficult to capture, and very few of them have been printed. Here is a sample:
MAMAN DONNE MOIN UN PITIT MARI
Maman Donne Moin un Pitit Mari
Marxian donne moin un pitit mari.
Bon Dieu, quel un homme comme li pitit!
Mo mette le couche dans mo lite,
Bon Dieu, comme li si t'on pitit!
Chatte rentre et prend li pour un sourit
Bon Dieu, quel-ti un homme que li pitit!
A friend of mine on the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, Tennessee, took me to see the venerable Dr. Boyd, head of the Baptist Publication Society for the colored people. Dr. Boyd, who was eighty years old, remembers much of interest concerning the old songs and the life in the South before the war. He said that he did not know the secular songs, the reels and dance-songs, because in his youth where he lived it was thought unpardonable to pick a banjo, and the person who did so was put out of the church. His mother left the church "because of an organ." He said that for a long time the religious songs of the Negroes almost died out, but a few people loved them and kept on singing them, till college people got to admitting that there was more music in them than in other songs. Then Fisk University took up the jubilee singing, and gradually the spiritual came back into its own place among the colored people. He said, "You can break loose with an old spiritual in a meeting and move the church."
Years ago Dr. Boyd arranged for the collecting and publishing of many of the old spirituals in a book which his publishing house brought out. Singers who could sing but did not write music went travelling through the South to learn the songs and fix them in their memory; and when they came back, a musician took down the tunes and wrote them out.
Dr. Boyd told me incidents of the history of various songs. For example, he said of the familiar old spiritual, Steal Away, that It was sung in slavery times when the Negroes on a few plantations were forbidden to hold religious services. That was because the masters were afraid of gatherings which might lead to insurrections like some that had occurred. So the Negroes would gather in a cabin and hold their service by stealth. They would resort to a peculiar practice to prevent their singing from being heard at the big house. They would turn an iron washpot upside down on the dirt floor and put a stick under it, and would sing in such way that they thought the sound would be muffled under the pot. Dr. Boyd says that he had often gone to such services with his mother in his childhood and seen this done. He said that, in fact, he believed the white people knew of the gatherings and allowed them, though the Negroes were fearful of being found out.
In this quest of mine for songs I have received friendly aid from many people, who have given songs and information of value. For instance, I appealed to the late Dr. John A. Wyeth, of New York, who was a Southerner and knew the South of antebellum days. He answered that he would get his old banjo out of storage and play and sing for me songs that he had learned in his childhood from old Uncle Billy on his father's plantation. I spent a rapt evening listening to his songs and reminiscences. He said of Run, Nigger, Run, a famous slavery-time song, which I had heard my mother sing, that it is one of the oldest of the plantation songs. White people were always afraid of an insurrection among the Negroes, and so they had the rule that no Negro should be off his own plantation, especially at night, without a pass. They had patrols stationed along the roads to catch truant Negroes, and the slaves called them "patter-rollers." The darkies sang many amusing songs about the patrols and their experiences in eluding them.
Dr. Wyeth told of Uncle Billy, who played and sang these songs and who taught them to his little master. When the boy became more proficient than the old men, Uncle Billy put away his banjo and never played again. Uncle Billy's throat was cut by a "scalawag" not long after the war was over — a scalawag being a Southerner who turned Republican. This was a Republican Negro.
Dr. Wyeth gave a reminiscent account of Uncle Billy's playing. The old darky would sing and play for a while, then stop and talk, after which rambling recitative he would resume his singing.
"Golly, white folks, I went down to see Sal last night," he would grunt. (Sal was his sweetheart on another plantation.) "Nigger heels are the toughest part of the foot. I wuz ten years old befo' my mammy knowed which end my toes come out of. Dat heel stratched an' stratched till I got clear away."
RUN, NIGGER, RUN
run fru de pas-ter; White man run, but nig - ger run fast - er.
Run, nigger run; de patter-roller catch you;
Run, nigger, run, it's almost day.
Run, nigger, run, de patter-roller catch you;
Run, nigger, run, and try to get away.
Dis nigger run, he run his best,
Stuck his head in a hornet's nest,
Jumped de fence and run fru de paster;
White man run, but nigger run faster.
Various versions of the nigger and his necessitous race are given by different persons; as the following from Mrs. Charles Carroll, of Louisiana, who learned it from her grandmother, who had learned it from the slaves on her plantation:
Run, nigger, run,
The patter-roller'll catch you;
Run, nigger, run,
It's almost day.
Dat nigger run,
Dat nigger flew,
Dat nigger lost His Sunday shoe.
Run, nigger, run,
The patter-roller'll catch you;
Run, nigger, run,
And try to get away.
My sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, remembers the escaping darky as having lost his "wedding shoe" instead of merely his Sunday one, which, of course, made the calamity still greater. W. R. Boyd, Jr., insists that
Dat nigger run,
Dat nigger flew,
Dat nigger tore His shirt in two.
I learned an African chant from an old Negro woman in Waco, Texas, who had heard it in her childhood. Her grandmother had got it from an old man who had been brought from Africa as a slave. The woman who sang it for me could explain nothing of what the words meant or how they should be spelled. It seems to be a combination of African and English. The air recalls the beating of tom-toms in African jungles.
INGO-ANGO FAY
Go fay, go fay!
Ingo-ango fay!
Circle this house in a hoo-sal lay,
In a-ingo-ango fay.
Go fay, go fay!
Ingo-ango fay!
Will jew my 'ligion away.
Mumbi, kiki, joki lo,
In a-ingo-ango fay!
A wordless chant was given me by Miss Emilie Walter of Charleston, South Carolina. Miss Walter says, "There is one song in which no words are used, only the sound 'un' sung through the nose, with the mouth open. This is a very sacred song, kept for the most exalted moment of getting religion. It is never sung in the presence of adult white persons, but a small white child had a keen musical ear and tenacious memory. The low voices begin it. It is taken up by the higher voices, then the top-notch sopranos come in and make a complete fugue. They sing this until the sinner is converted and the piercing shrieks of the converted finish the fugue."
Fust time — beginning on D. Second time — beginning on F-sharp. Third time — beginning on A.
[Third voice written an octave lower as range is too high. Might be sung thus — with second voice a sixth lower instead of a third higher.]
Elizabeth Sullivan sent a couple of songs and an account of an unconventional singer. "The Reverend Paul Sykes, bishop, pastor and janitor of the First Straight Gate Church of Kingsfisher, Oklahoma, who sang these songs, is a most interesting old man. He founded his church, and in order to get funds with which to build it and keep it going, he meets every train that goes through Kingsfisher (except on Sundays), and sings and dances on the station platform for the 'loaves and fishes/ the fishes being pennies and loaves anything larger. With this collection he pays his own salary and cares for the church, which he built from the same source of funds. He never dances except on the station platform, and for this church collection. After his dance is over, he carried himself with the dignity befitting the bishop, pastor and janitor of the Straight Gate Church. It is estimated that he has danced more than thirty thousand times and taken in more than fifteen thousand dollars.
"On Sundays he preaches in his church in the morning, and in the afternoon to street crowds, which are often made up mostly of white people. He is seventy-seven years old, and alone in the world since the death of his wife. He founded his church twenty-seven years ago."
The Ol' A'k's A-Movin'
The ol' a'k's a-movin',
A-movin' along, chillun,
The ol' a'k's movin',
A-movin' right along.
Hebben's so high
An' I 'm so low,
Don't know whuther I'll git thar or no.
The ol' a'k's a-movin',
A-movin' along, chillun,
The or a'k's a-movin',
A-movin' right along.
In 1923, just after the publication of my novel, "In the Land of Cotton,[5]' which contains a number of Negro folk-songs, I went back to Texas on a visit and spent a part of my time in research after others. In Fort Worth, the choir leader of the Mount Gilead Baptist Church, and her husband, the director of the colored Y. M. C. A., called on me at Mayor CockrelPs home, to express appreciation of my interest in the folk-music of their race, and offered to put on a special service of spirituals in place of the sermon at their evening service. They asked me if I would speak on the religious aspects of folk-song, and announcement was made that white people were invited. Half the house was reserved for white visitors, and so great is the love for the beautiful old songs that every seat was taken. The musical service was a moving and impressive one, many of the fine old spirituals being sung by the well-trained choir. I spoke briefly of the dignity and value of Negro folk-song, and urged that efforts be made to preserve the old songs. I said in closing that there was only one request I had to make in connection with my funeral, which I hoped was some time in the future. I should not be at all satisfied unless some of my colored friends were there and sang, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. As I sat down, the choir and congregation softly took up the strains:
Swing low, sweet chario-ot,
Comin' for to carry me home!
I felt for the moment as if I were attending my own obsequies, and wondered if the instant response were a hint that an early demise was desirable. When the song was over, an elderly man, a teacher in a Negro high school in another town, rose and said: "This is one of the happiest days of my life. It does my heart good to hear a white lady from a great university urge us to treasure our racial folk-songs because scholars prize them. We must all work together to collect them and save them for future generations."
While I was in Waco, my old home, Professor A. J. Armstrong of Baylor University, took me to a concert given by a Negro college there. The choral club rendered, for the pleasure of the general audience, such selections as the Sextette from Lucia, and for my special delectation some of the old folk-songs. And Judge West and Miss Decca West gave a garden party for me on the lawn at Minglewood, the chief feature of which was the singing of a number of folk-songs by the choral club of Paul Quinn College, who had sung at the Texas Folk-lore Association some years before.
Mrs. Tom Bartlett, of Marlin, who with the assistance of Mrs. Buie had given me a number of songs for my collection, invited me down to a "festibul" she was giving in my honor. For the benefit of uninitiate Northerners, I perhaps should explain that that is a term used in my childhood to designate the more pretentious social affairs given by colored folk. This was on the Bartlett lawn at sunset; and after speeches of welcome from Dr. Torbett and Tom Connally, Congressman from the district, the choir of the colored Baptist church gathered by the piano in the parlor and sang with beautiful harmony a number of the old songs that I loved best.
During one of the pauses, Aunt Bedie, an aged Negress who had been in the Bartlett family service for generations, came forward to the cement walk in front of us who were gathered on the lawn, and said, "Now I'm gwine to sing you my song." With that she began an extraordinary chant which she said she had made up, "words and chune, too," the refrain of which was I am Mary Maggalene, Mary, the mother of Jesus.
No instrument could reproduce and no notation record the trills and quavers of that song. Presently she paused, and said, "Now I'm gwine to twist myself round a little." With that, she hitched up one shoulder, then the other, and began a shimmy to the rhythm of her chant, very fantastic, very passionate.
In a few minutes more she announced, "Now I'm gwine to turn myself loose a little." Thereupon she began to whirl like a dancing dervish, her chant growing louder and wilder, her motions more unrestrained, until Mrs. Bartlett led her away. I have never seen anything like it.
I enjoyed the singing of the choir so much that the next morning, which was Sunday, I attended services at the Baptist church in order to hear them again. They sang a number of the sweet old spirituals, their voices blending in that unstudied harmony that comes so naturally to the Negro choruses. After the song service was over, the preacher asked if I would "say a few words" and a young man teacher in the Negro school introduced me as a lady from New York who was touring the South in the interests of the colored race. He expressed the hope that I might stay in the South long enough to get to know the colored folk, and maybe to understand them and love them a little. I answered that I was a Southerner born and bred, and that I had been loving the southern Negroes ever since I could remember anything.
At the close of my brief talk, the elderly preacher thanked me quaintly. He said: "Lady, we feel so kind toward you. I feel about you like a colored man I once heard of. He and his pardner were working on top of a high, tall building, when he got too close to the edge and he fell off. His pardner called out to him, 'Stop, Jim, you'se falling/ But he sang out, 'I can't stop. I'se done fell' "His pardner leaned over the edge an' call to him an' say, 'You, Jim! You 'se gwine to fall on a white lady!' An' Jim stopped and come right on back up. That's the way we feel toward you."
I consider that the most chivalrous compliment that anyone ever paid me. At this point the preacher was interrupted by Aunt Bedie, who tripped hobblingly up the front aisle and stood before the pulpit. "Now I'm gwine to sing you my song," she announced, addressing me. And then she started the same song and dance she had given at the "festibul."
The preacher looked at me in distress, but I indicated that I was not greatly shocked, and he seemed helpless to stop her. I learned afterward that Aunt Bedie had been expelled from the choir because she created so much disturbance. She had taken advantage of my folk-loristic interest to come forward once more; and she was truly an arresting sight, with her tiny hat perched on top of her head, and her diminutive frame contorted in a dance that would have thrilled Broadway.
I am told that Aunt Bedie has a passion for corsets and begs these cast-off garments of everyone she knows, so that her house is filled with them.
I even sought for folk-songs in the Governor's mansion, where I was a guest for several days. Governor Pat Neff told me of a song sung for him on the occasion of one of his official visits to a state-prison farm. A Negro man came up to him after supper, and said, "Will you listen while I sing you a song?" He rendered a ditty whose refrain ran as follows:
If I had the gov'ner
Where the gov'ner has me, Before daylight
I 'd set the gov'ner free.
I begs you, gov'ner,
Upon my soul: If you won't gimme a pardon,
Won't you gimme a parole?
I have received material from many sources. Teachers, preachers, plantation owners, musicians, writers — many people, white and black — have given aid in this search. I have received songs written in the trembling hand of age, and in the cramped scrawl of childhood. Hands more skilled at guiding the plough than the pen have written down old songs for me, and college professors have given me friendly help.
I have visited many institutions and heard many groups of Negroes sing — schools, colleges, churches, factories, and so forth. The girls' glee club of Straight College, New Orleans, gave a special concert for me during my stay in that town, and I greatly enjoyed their rendition of folk-songs. I attended chapel services at Fisk University, in Nashville, and heard the whole student body sing under the leadership of Matthew Work, who has done so much to collect and preserve Negro spirituals. I have heard the fine glee clubs of Hampton and Tuskegee, the Sabbath Glee Club of Richmond, and others. I remember the thrill with which I heard the singing of a group of college singers who gave some of the old spirituals before the Southern Baptist Convention at Chattanooga, Tennessee, one spring.
I recall with especial pleasure the concert given by the Sharon Band, composed of one hundred seventy-five voices, from the colored employees of the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company in Richmond, Virginia, a year ago, when the Negroes sang their old songs to a large audience of white and colored people. Roll, Jordan, Roll, and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, were among the numbers they gave with best effect, I have taken advantage of every opportunity to hear folk-songs, sung either by the Negroes themselves or by white people who learned them from the Negroes. I have besought the aid of every person who I thought might know of songs, and have eagerly captured words or music where I could find them. I have had the assistance of many people—for such a quest would be useless if one relied on one's own resources. I have begged for songs from friends, acquaintances, and strangers, and have received cooperation for which I am most grateful. In later papers I shall tell of the various people who have helped me and the songs they have contributed, for the work which I am doing is to make a folk-book in truth.
My friend, Ola Lee Gulledge, has rendered invaluable aid in taking down songs at first hand, and in working them out from phonograph records which I took. We have collected several hundred songs, with variants to many of them, and have had a happy task of sorting them and putting them into shape for publication.