II. 3. BAHAMAN NEGRO SONGS
[The first expedition to collect Bahama songs for the Journal of American Folk-lore was made by Charles Edwards in 1888 which resulted in his book, Bahama Songs and Stories, published by the Journal of American Folk-lore in 1895. Some of the same songs were being sung by African-Americans in the US. See my book section for Bahama Songs and Stories.]
CONTENT II. 3. Bahaman Negro Songs
The Wind Blow East
Biddy, Biddy
Never Get a Lickin' Till I Go Down to Bimini
Married Man Gonna Keep Your Secret
A Wasp Bite Nobi on Her Conch-Eye
Don't You Hurry Worry with Me
Round the Bay of Mexico
When de Whale Get Strike
Dig My Grave
II. 3. BAHAMAN NEGRO SONGS
The Bahama Islands are of coral and limestone, part of a system of coral reefs off the east coast of Florida. Covered with a sparse growth of evergreen, aromatic bush, they float low and dark green on the brim of the most brilliant and iridescent blue sea in the world. The soil makes a thin covering over the limestone and coral, and the life of the Negro inhabitant is a bitter struggle, even in that heavenly climate, for food and clothing. The men are sponge fishers and farmers at the same time. They cut back the brush with machetes to find some little pothole in the coral in which to plant a banana sprout, some yams or corn. They harvest their stunted orange trees and fish while the children hunt for the red and purple crabs along the sandy paths. After the evening meal in the nights of the full moon the young people gather on the beach and build a little fire of coconut leaves. Over this they heat the goatskin head of their drum, made at home out of a wooden sugar pail. When the drummer brings it to the right pitch, the long-legged, barefoot girl, who is the leading singer, begins,
"Wind blow east, wind blow west,
Wind blow the Settin' Star right down in town"
The girls join with her and the couplet is repeated. They clap their hands with the music and begin to swing their hips. The boys join in the refrain,
"The wind blow the China right down in town"
Over and over they sing as the drum begins to touch the senses with its delicate and subtle rhythms, preparing the young people for the dance. Then out into the center of the singing circle leaps a young boy, his hat on the back of his head, his arms stiff out from his body. Fingers spread wide, legs bowed, his whole body is crouched like a black eagle about to fly. He whirls and stamps his feet, and with the triple rhythm of the drum his body freezes for instants in taut angular postures. Then he whirls and stops with both feet planted flat, his belly out before one of the girls in the circle. She takes his place in the center of the ring then, and dances. The high shrill singing, the clapping, never stop, as the voice of the drum summons the
dancers in and out of the ring. Behind the group of lithe, moving shadows that sing, the flames of the little pile of coconut leaves flicker and die, and the sea near by whispers unconcernedly in the moonlight, because it has been to many jumping dances and will see many more.
THE WIND BLOW EAST
No. 485. Group of men and women, with drum accompaniment. Nassau, Bahamas, 1935.
A West Indian hurricane howls through the islands leaving three Bahaman sloops, the Sunshine, the China, and the Setting Star right down in town.
1. Oh, the wind blow east,
The wind blow west,
The wind blow the Sunshine
Right down in town.
Chorus: Oh, the wind blow the China
Right down in town,
Oh, the wind blow the China
Right down in town.
2 Oh, the wind blow east,
The wind blow west,
The wind blow the Settin' Star
Right down in town.
Alternate Chorus: Oh, the wind blow the Sunshine
Right down in town,
Oh, the wind blow the Sunshine
Right down in town.
BIDDY, BIDDY
No. 485. See previous record. See Ne, p. 150.
In mosquito season children and grown-ups squat around smudge fires in the open, roast crabs, and "talk oP story." This is the time of UW Booky," "B? Rabby," and "Little Jack," "a little piece of dirt out of the alley" who always marries Princess Greenleaf in the end. Often the hero wins his desire by singing a song or playing his little "tune-tune," and almost all the stories have as a part of their fairy texture some little fragmentary, but compelling tune. Some of these tunes have English, some African backgrounds. "Biddy, Biddy " an English derivative, is sometimes sung as a jumping dance song.
2 You drink coffee and I drink tea,
Hey, Mamma, hoo-ay,
Never get-a London back again,
John saw the island.
NEVER GET A LICKIN' TILL I GO DOWN TO BIMINI
No. 434. "Played and sung" by a street band with mandolin, guitar, and tenor banjo, Nassau, Bahamas, 1935.
When the tourist boats and the tourist planes dock in Nassau, they are met by one or several of the town's street bands. These bands (banjo, one or two guitars, mandolin, and rattle) sing and play Bahaman versions of American jazz tunes of ancient vintage and fresh-improvised, hot arrangements of Bahaman folk-dance tunes. At night they go over the hill and improvise even hotter arrangements for the "round dances"—fox trots, one-steps, etc.—which have recently been increasing in popularity in the islands. The following tunes, examples of this "sophisticated" genre, are signposts of future development in Bahaman folk music.
Oh, when I go down to Bimini,
Never get a lickin' till I go down to Bimini.
Bimini gal is a rock in the harbor,
Never get a lickin' till I go down to Bimini.
MARRIED MAN GONNA KEEP YOUR SECRET
No. 420. Elizabeth Austin and a group of women with clapping accompaniment, New Bite, Cat Island, Bahamas, 1935.
Most Bahaman dance songs are faintly, if not markedly, scandalous. Like Haitian Mardi Gras songs, they serve, without naming names, to retail gossip about or to poke fun at an enemy or some person who has acted shamefully or ridiculously. The satire, however, is softened by the kittenish giggles of the young girls who do the singing.
[The notation below is a transcription of the three clearest and most continuous parts heard on the record. The first and second parts are at times reinforced in the upper octave. The third part, crooned softly, differs with each singing of stanza and chorus. The clapping doubles speed toward the end of the recording. ]
1. Married man gonna keep your secret, Hi-li-li-lee-o.
Married man gonna keep your secret, Hi-li-li-lee-o.
Chorus: Hi-li-li-lee-o, Hi-li-li-lee-o, Hi-li-li-lee-o, Hi-li-li-lee-o.
2 Single boy gonna talk about you, Hi-li-li-lee-o.
Single boy gonna talk about you, Hi-li-li-lee-o.
Chorus: Hi-li-li-lee-o, etc.
A WASP BITE NOBI ON HER CONCH-EYE
No. 434. See "Bimini Gals."
A wasp bite Nobi on her conch-eye,
A wasp bite Nobi on her conch-eye,
Oh, run here, Mamma, come hold the light,
See these Germans go'n' fight tonight,
Wasp bite Nobi on her conch-eye.
DON'T YOU HURRY WORRY WITH ME
No. 434.. See previous song.
1. Don't you hurry worry with me,
Don't you hurry worry with me,
Don't you hurry worry with me,
I'm gonna pack up your eyes with sand.
2. If you tell me that again, (3)
Pm gonna pack up your eyes with sand.
3 Mr. Munson he get bloke, (3)
I'm gonna pack up your eyes with sand.
4 Don't you hurry worry with me, (3)
I'm gonna pack up your eyes with sand.
ROUND THE BAY OF MEXICO
No. 516. Henry Lundy, Nassau, Bahamas, 1935. See Co, pp. 84, 91, Boa, p. 129, Co, p. 261, also "Santy Anno," this volume, p. 206.
Bahaman Negro men are reputed to be the finest small-boat sailors in the world. Certainly, when one sees a twenty-five-foot boat, with one tattered and rotten sail, bringing oranges, bananas, corn, sugar cane, sponges, twenty goats, a cow, and six or eight human beings into Nassau harbor, after a journey across several hundred miles of open sea, one tends to believe this. The men spend half their lives on the sea, navigating their reef-filled courses at night with catlike calm and sureness, and their demeanor aboard their little craft is full of the grave beauty and the quiet dignity of the blue sea itself.
In August, when the hurricane season approaches, they pull their sloops up on the beach out of reach of the storms. The whole village descends to the beach, lays hold of the rope, and, as the "launching song" is raised, heaves together. These songs are fragmentary variants of well known sea shanty tunes, and sung as they are, in harmony, substantiate Joanna Col-cord's statement that "first among the shanty singers" were the American Negroes.
Chorus: Then round the Bay of Mexico,
Yea, Susianna,
Oh, Mexico's the place I belong in.
Round the Bay of Mexico.
1. Oh, why those yaller gals love me so.
Yea, Susianna,
Is 'cause I don't talk everything that I know,
Round the Bay of Mexico.
2 Then when I was a young man in my prime,
Yea, Susianna,
Oh, I knock those young gals, two at a time,
Round the Bay of Mexico.
3 Those Nassau gals ain't got no comb,
Yea, Susianna,
They comb their hair with a whipper backbone,
Round the Bay of Mexico.
DIG MY GRAVE
No. 502. Group of Andros Island men, Nassau, Bahamas, 1935. See Mem. HI, p. 37-
The present popularity of close-harmony anthem singing among Baha-man Negro men is due, probably, to its fairly recent introduction from the United States, which the Bahaman thinks of as a land of milk and honey and millionaires. In the evenings on the sponging grounds south of Andros, on Sundays on the water front, these groups gather, each about a leader who improvises ballads about the last hurricane, about Noah or Job, while the group fills in sad harmony—early English with a dash of barber-shop— behind him. "Dig My Grave," thus improvised by a group of men from Andros Island, is, we feel, one of the finest of Negro spirituals.
[The notation below is a transcription of the principal (continuous) voice parts heard on the record. Sections IIIA and IIIB are sung over and over, varying widely at each singing.]
1 Go and dig my grave both long and narrow,
Make my coffin neat and strong,
Dig my grave both Jong and narrow.
Make my coffin neat and strong.
2 Two two to my head, two two to my feet,
Two two to carry me to heaven when I die.
3 Now my soul's gotta shine like a star,
Oh, well, my soul's gotta shine like a star,
My Lord-a, my soul's gotta shine like a star,
Lord, I'm bound to heaven when I die.
4 My little soul's go'n' ta shine like a star,
Twinkle like a twinkle-in' little star,
My soul's bound to heaven,
Pm bound to heaven when I die.