Negro Folk Rymes- Wise and Otherwise- Thomas. W. Talley 1922

Negro Folk Rymes- Wise and Otherwise-
by Thomas W. Talley- 1922

[There is a 1991 expanded edition by Charles Wolfe (recommended- see a review of Wolfe's edition at the very bottom of thos page-below). This is the 1922 edition which has the same songs and texts. I've divided the book up. Part 1 is divided up into eleven rhyme section pages as indicated by Talley; Part 2 is one long page.

PART I-  NEGRO FOLK RHYMES

I. Dance Rhyme Section p. 1-13
Jonah's Band Party
Love Is just A Thing Of Fancy
Stillwater Creek
'Possum Up A Gum Stump
Joe and Melinda Jane
Walk Talk Chicken
Tails
Captain Dime
Crossing The River
T-U-Turkey
Chicken in the Bread Tray
Molly Cottontail or Graveyard Rabbit
Juba
On Top of the Pot
Stand Back Black Man
Negroes Never Die
Jawbone
Indian Flea
As I Went To Shiloh
Jump Jim Crow

II. Dance Rhyme Song Section p. 14-72
Jaybird
Off from Richmond
He Is my Horse
Judge Buzzard
Sheep and the Goat
Jackson, Put That Kettle On
Dinah's Dinner Horn
My Mule
Bullfrog Put on the Soldier's Clothes
Sail Away Ladies
The Banjo Picking
Old Molly Hare
An Opposum Hunt (tune)
An Opposum Hunt
Devilish Pigs
Promises of Freedom
When My Wife Dies
Baa, Baa Black Sheep (Tune)
Baa, Baa Black Sheep
He Will Get Mister Coon
Bring On Your Hot Corn
The Little Rooster
Sugar in Coffee
The Turtle's Song
Raccon and Possum Fight
Cotton Eyed Joe
Rabbit Soup
Old Gray Mink
Run, Nigger, Run
Shake The Persimmons Down
The Cow Needs A Tail in Fly Time
Jaybird Died With The Whooping Chough
Wanted! Cornbread and Coon
Little Red Hen
Ration Day
My Fiddle
Die in the Pig-Pen Fighting
Master is Six Feet One Way
Fox and Geese
Gooseberry Wine
I'd Rather Be A Negro Than A Poor White Man
The Hunting Camp
The Ark
Gray and Black Horses
Rattler
Brother Ben and Sister Sal
Simon Slick's Mule
Nobody Looking
Hoecake
I Went Down the Road
The Old Cackled Hen
I Love Somebody
We Are "All the Go"
Aunt Dinal Drunk
The Old Woman in the Hills
A Sick Wife
My Wonderful Travel
I Wouldn't Marry A Black Girl
Havest Song
The Year of Jubilee
Sheep Shell Corn
Plaster
Uncle Ned
The Master's "Stolen" Coat
I Wouldn't Marry A Yellow or a White Negro Girl
Don't Ask Me Questions
The Old Section Boss
The Negro and the Policeman
Ham Beats All Meat
Suze Ann
Walk Tom Wilson
Chiken Pie
I Am Not Going to Hobo Any More
Forty-Four

III. Play Rhyme Section  p. 73-92
Blindfold Play Chant
Fox and Geese Play
Hawk and Chickens Play
Caught by the Witch Play
Goose-Gander Play Rhyme
Hawk and Buzzard
Likes and Dislikes
Susie Girl
Susan Jane
Peep Squirrel
Did You Feed My Cow?
A Budget
The Old Black Gnats
Sugar Loaf Tea
Green Oak Tree Rocky'O
Kissing Song
Kneel on This Carpet
Salt Rising Bread
Precious Things
He Loves Sugar and Tea
Here Comes A Young Man Courting
Anchor Line
Sallie
Song to the Runaway Slave
Down in the Lonesome Garden
Little Sister, Won't You Marry me?
Raise A Rucus To-Night
Sweet Pinks and Roses


IV. Pastime Rhyme Section p. 93-126
V. Love Rhyme Section p.127-134
VI. Courtship Rhyme Section p. 135-142
VII. Marriage & Married Life Rhyme Section p. 143-148 
VIII. Nursery Rhyme Section p. 149-203
IX. Blessings p. 204-206
X. Wise Sayings p. 207-215
XI. Foreign Rhyme Section p. 216-227

Part II- A STUDY IN NEGRO FOLK RHYMES p.228-326

This page has Front Page; Introduction; Index. ]

FRONT PAGE


                       NEGRO FOLK RHYMES

                    
                     THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
              NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS
                    ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO

                    MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
                   LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
                           MELBOURNE

                THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
                            TORONTO

 


                       NEGRO FOLK RHYMES
                      _Wise and Otherwise_

                          WITH A STUDY

                               BY
                        THOMAS W. TALLEY,
                       OF FISK UNIVERSITY

                           New York
                      THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                              1922

                      _All rights reserved_


              PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


                        Copyright, 1922,
                    By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
                             * * *
            Set up and printed. Published January, 1922.


                            Press of
                  J. J. Little & Ives Company
                        New York, U.S.A.

 

INTRODUCTION


Of the making of books by individual authors there is no end; but a cultivated literary taste among the exceptional few has rendered almost impossible the production of genuine folk-songs. The spectacle, therefore, of a homogeneous throng of partly civilized people dancing to the music of crude instruments and evolving out of dance-rhythm a lyrical or narrative utterance in poetic form is sufficiently rare in the nineteenth century to challenge immediate attention. In "Negro Folk Rhymes" is to be found no inconsiderable part of the musical and poetic life-records of a people; the compiler presents an arresting volume which, in addition to being a pioneer and practically unique in its field, is as nearly exhaustive as a sympathetic understanding of the Negro mind, careful research, and labor of love can make it. Professor Talley of Fisk University has spared himself no pains in collecting and piecing together every attainable scrap and fragment of secular rhyme which might help in adequately interpreting the inner life of his own people.

Being the expression of a race in, or just emerging from bondage, these songs may at first seem to some readers trivial and almost wholly devoid of literary merit. In phraseology they may appear crude, lacking in that elegance and finish ordinarily associated with poetic excellence; in imagery they are at times exceedingly winter-starved, mediocre, common, drab, scarcely ever rising above the unhappy environment of the singers.
The outlook upon life and nature is, for the most part, one of imaginative simplicity and child-like naivete; superstitions crowd in upon a worldly wisdom that is elementary, practical, and obvious; and a warped and crooked human nature, developed and fostered by circumstances, shows frequently through the lines. What else might be expected?

At the time when these rhymes were in process of being created the conditions under which the American Negro lived and labored were not calculated to inspire him with a desire for the highest artistic expression. Restricted, cramped, bound in unwilling servitude, he looked about him in his miserable little world to see whatever of the beautiful or happy he might find; that which he discovered is pathetically slight, but, such as it is, it served to keep alive his stunted artist-soul under the most adverse circumstances. He saw the sweet pinks under a blue sky, or observed the fading violets and the roses that fall, as he passed to a tryst under the oak trees of a forest, and wrought these things into his songs of love and tenderness. Friendless and otherwise without companionship he lived in imagination with the beasts and birds of the great out-of-doors; he knew personally Mr. Coon, Brother Rabbit, Mr. 'Possum and their associates of the wild; Judge Buzzard and Sister Turkey appealed to his fancy as offering material for what he supposed to be poetic treatment. Wherever he might find anything in his lowly position which seemed to him truly useful or beautiful, he seized upon it and wove about it the sweetest song he could sing. The result is not so much poetry of a high order as a valuable illustration of the persistence of artist-impulses even in slavery.

In some of these folk-songs, however, may be found certain qualities which give them dignity and worth. They are, when properly presented, rhythmical to the point of perfection. I myself have heard many of them
chanted with and without the accompaniment of clapping hands, stamping feet, and swaying bodies. Unfortunately a large part of their liquid melody and flexibility of movement is lost through confinement in cold
print; but when they are heard from a distance on quiet summer nights or clear Southern mornings, even the most fastidious ear is satisfied with the rhythmic pulse of them. That pathos of the Negro character which can never be quite adequately caught in words or transcribed in music is then augmented and intensified by the peculiar quality of the Negro voice, rich in overtones, quavering, weird, cadenced, throbbing with the sufferings of a race. Or perhaps that well-developed sense of humor which has, for more than a century, made ancestral sorrows bearable finds fuller expression in the lilting turn of a note than in the flashes of wit which abundantly enliven the pages of this volume. There is one lyric in particular which, in evident sincerity of feeling, simple and unaffected grace, and regularity of form, appeals to me as having intrinsic literary value:

    She hug' me, an' she kiss' me,
    She wrung my han' an' cried.
    She said I wus de sweetes' thing
    Dat ever lived or died.

    She hug' me an' she kiss' me.
    Oh Heaben! De touch o' her han'!
    She said I wus de puttiest thing
    In de shape o' mortal man.

    I told her dat I love' her,
    Dat my love wus bed-cord strong;
    Den I axed her w'en she'd have me,
    An' she jes' say, "Go 'long!"

There is also a dramatic quality about many of these rhymes which must not be overlooked. It has long been my observation that the Negro is possessed by nature of considerable, though not as yet highly developed,
histrionic ability; he takes delight in acting out in pantomime whatever he may be relating in song or story. It is not surprising, then, to find that the play-rhymes, originating from the "call" and "response," are really little dramas when presented in their proper settings. "Caught By The Witch" would not be ineffective if, on a dark night, it were acted in the vicinity of a graveyard! And one ballad--if I may be permitted to dignify it by that name--called "Promises of Freedom" is characterized by an unadorned narrative style and a dramatic ending which are associated with the best English folk-ballads. The singer tells simply and, one feels, with a grim impersonality of how his mistress promised to set him free; it seemed as if she would never die--but "she's somehow gone"! His master likewise made promises,

    Yes, my ole Mosser promise' me;
    But "his papers" didn't leave me free.
    A dose of pizen he'pped 'im along.
    May de Devil preach 'is funner'l song.

The manner of this conclusion is strikingly like that of the Scottish ballad, "Edward,"

    The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
              Mither, Mither,
    The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
    Sic counseils ye gave to me O.

In both a story of cruelty is suggested in a single artistic line and ended with startling, dramatic abruptness.

In fact, these two songs probably had their ultimate origin in not widely dissimilar types of illiterate, unsophisticated human society. Professor Talley's "Study in Negro Folk Rhymes," appended to this volume
of songs, is illuminating. One may not be disposed to accept without considerable modification his theories entire; still his account from personal, first-hand knowledge of the beginnings and possible evolution of certain rhymes in this collection is apparently authentic. Here we have again, in the nineteenth century, the record of a singing, dancing people creating by a process approximating communal authorship a mass
of verse embodying tribal memories, ancestral superstitions, and racial wisdom handed down from generation to generation through oral tradition. These are genuine folk-songs--lyrics, ballads, rhymes--in which are
crystallized the thought and feeling, the universally shared lore of a folk. Recent theorizers on poetic origins who would insist upon individual as opposed to community authorship of certain types of song-narrative might do well to consider Professor Talley's characteristic study. And students of comparative literature who love to
recreate the life of a tribe or nation from its song and story will discover in this collection a mine of interesting material.

Fisk University, the center of Negro culture in America, is to be congratulated upon having initiated the gathering and preservation of these relics, a valuable heritage from the past. Just how important for literature this heritage may prove to be will not appear until this institution--and others with like purposes--has fully developed by cultivation, training, and careful fostering the artistic impulses so abundantly a part of the Negro character. A race which has produced, under the most disheartening conditions, a mass of folk-poetry such as "Negro Folk Rhymes" may be expected to create with unlimited opportunities for self-development, a literature and a distinctive music of superior quality.

                                                  WALTER CLYDE CURRY

  Vanderbilt University,
  September 30, 1921.

GENERAL INDEX (p. 327)


PART I

                                                       PAGE

  A. B. C.,       154

  Alabama Way, The,      164

  Anchor Line,      87

  Animal Attire,         158

  Animal Fair,       159

  Animal Persecutors,          205

  Antebellum Courtship Inquiry,       135

  Antebellum Marriage Proposal,        137

  Are You Careful,         203

  Ark, The,      44

  As I Went to Shiloh,        13

  Aspiration,      159

  Aunt Dinah Drunk,      53

  Aunt Jemima,     107

  Awful Harbingers,       149

  Baa! Baa! Black Sheep,      27

  Baby Wants Cherries,         181

  Bad Features,         100

  Banjo Picking, The,         21

  Bat! Bat!        202

  Bedbug,          96

  Bitter Lovers' Quarrel, A,    127

  Black-eyed Peas For Luck,       200

  Blessings,          204

  Blindfold Play Chant,          73

  Bob-White's Song,              155

  Bought Me a Wife,            145

  Brag and Boast,         213

  Bridle up a Rat,          157

  Bring on your Hot Corn,        29

  Brother Ben and Sister Sal,          46

  Buck and Berry,        172

  Buck-eyed Rabbit! Whoopee!,       175

  Budget, A,          79

  Bull Frog Put on the Soldier Clothes,          20

  Butterfly,                 182

  Captain Coon,             176

  Captain Dime,             5

  Care in Bread-making,      112

  Caught by the Witch Play,        74

  Chicken in the Bread Tray,        7

  Chicken Pie,          69

  Children's Seating Rhyme,            179

  Christmas Turkey,            98

  Chuck Will's Widow Song,       156

  Clandestine Letter, A,          136

  Coffee Grows on White Folks' Trees,      107

  College Ox, The,           112

  Cooking Dinner,              156

  Cotton-eyed Joe,            32

  Courting Boy, The,           141

  Courtship,                138

  Cow Needs a Tail in Fly-time, The,       35

  Crooked Nose Jane,                                  99

  Crossing a Foot-Log,             109

  Crossing the River,               6


  Day's Happiness, A,            125

  Deedle, Dumpling,                171

  Destinies of Good and Bad Children,       200

  Destitute Former Slave Owners,           97

  Devilish Pigs,          24

  Did You Feed My Cow?            78

  Die in the Pig-Pen Fighting,         39

  Dinah's Dinner Horn,     18

  Do I Love You?                                     129

  Does Money Talk?,                                  113

  Don't Ask Me Questions,                             63

  Don't Sing before Breakfast,                       186

  Don't Tell All You Know,                           214

  Doodle-Bug,                                        174

  Down in the Lonesome Garden,                        89

  Drinking Razor Soup,                               211


  Elephant, The,                                     116

  End of Ten Little Negroes, The,                    163


  Fattening Frogs for Snakes,                         97

  Fed From the Tree of Knowledge,                    212

  Few Negroes by States, A,                          117

  Fine Plaster, A,                                   124

  Fishing Simon,                                     177

  Flap-jacks,                                        196

  Forty-four,                                         71

  Four Runaway Negroes; Whence They Came,            205

  Fox and Geese,                                      40

  Fox and Geese Play,                                 73

  Fox and Rabbit Drinking Propositions,              111

  Frightened Away from a Chicken-Roost,               95

  Frog in a Mill (Guinea or Ebo Rhyme),              167

  Frog Went a-Courting,                              190

  From Slavery,                                      162

  Full Pocketbook, A,                                 99


  Getting Ten Negro Boys Together,                   184

  Go to Bed,                                         175

  Going To Be Good Slaves,                           101

  Good-by, Ring,                                     171

  Good-by, Wife!,                                    148

  Gooseberry Wine,                                    41

  Goosie-Gander Play Rhyme,                           75

  Grasshopper Sense,                                 169

  Grasshopper Sitting on a Sweet Potato Vine,        173

  Gray and Black Horses,                              45

  Great Owl's Song, The,                             151

  Green Oak Tree! Rocky-o!,                           81

  Guinea Gall,                                       176


  Half Way Doings,                                   120

  Ham Beats all Meat,                                 67

  Harvest Song,                                       57

  Hated Blackbird and Crow, The,                     183

  Hawk and Buzzard,                                   75

  Hawk and Chickens,                                 185

  Hawk and Chickens Play,                             74

  He Is My Horse,                                     16

  He Loves Sugar and Tea,                             84

  He Paid Me Seven (Parody),                         122

  He Will Get Mr. Coon,                               28

  Hear-say,                                          114

  Here Comes a Young Man Courting,                    85

  Here I Stand,                                      153

  Hoecake,                                            49

  How to Get to Glory Land,                           96

  How to Keep or Kill The Devil,                     104

  How to Make it Rain,                               101

  How to Plant and Cultivate Seeds,                  208

  How to Please a Preacher,                          117

  Hunting Camp, The,                                  43

  I am not Going to Hobo Any More,                    70

  I Love Somebody,                                    51

  I Walked the Roads,                                139

  I Went down the Road,                               50

  I Wish I Was an Apple,                             133

  I Would not Marry a Black Girl,                     56

  I Would not Marry A Yellow Or A White Negro Girl,   63

  I'd rather Be a Negro than a Poor White Man,        42

  I'll Eat When I'm Hungry,                          114

  I'll Get You, Rabbit!,                             116

  I'll Wear Me a Cotton Dress,                       118

  I'm a "Round-Town" Gentleman,                      108

  If You Frown,                                      137

  In '76,                                            178

  In a Mulberry Tree,                                158

  In a Rush,                                         183

  Independent,                                       209

  Indian Flea,                                        12

  Invited to Take the Escort's Arm,                  135

  It Is Hard to Love,                                132

  Jack and Dinah Want Freedom,                       215

  Jackson, Put that Kettle On!,                       17

  Jawbone,                                            12

  Jaybird,                                            14

  Jaybird Died with the Whooping Cough,               36

  Joe and Malinda Jane,                                4

  John Henry,                                        105

  Johnny Bigfoot,                                     93

  Jonah's Band Party,                                  1

  Juba,                                                9

  Judge Buzzard,                                      16

  Jump Jim Crow,                                      13


  Kept Busy,                                         109

  Kissing Song,                                       82

  Kneel on This Carpet,                               82


  Last of Jack, The,                                 149

  Learn to Count,                                    207

  "Let's Marry" Courtship,                           138

  Likes and Dislikes,                                 76

  Little Boy Who Couldn't Count Seven,               160

  Little Dogs,                                       150

  Little Negro Fly, The,                             199

  Little Pickaninny, A,                              186

  Little Red Hen,                                     37

  Little Rooster, The,                                29

  Little Sister, Won't You Marry Me?                  90

  Little Sleeping Negroes,                           187

  Looking for a Fight,                               118

  Love Is Just a Thing of Fancy,                       2

  Lovers' Good-night,                                129

  Mamma's Darling,                                   188

  Man of Words, A,                                   208

  Master is Six Feet One Way,                         40

  Master Killed a Big Bull,                          126

  Master's "Stolen" Coat, The,                        62

  Me and my Lover,                                   132

  Miss Blodger,                                      199

  Miss Slippy Sloppy,                                100

  Miss Terrapin and Miss Toad,                       162

  Molly Cottontail,                                    8

  Mother Says I am Six Years Old,                    164

  Mourning Slave Fiancees,                           129

  Mud-Log Pond,                                      185

  Mule's Kick, The,                                   98

  Mule's Nature, The,                                108

  My Baby,                                           180

  My Dog, Cuff,                                      150

  My Fiddle,                                          39

  My First and my Second Wife,                       147

  My Folks and your Folks,                           187

  My Little Pig,                                     157

  My Mule,                                            19

  My Speckled Hen,                                   170

  My Wonderful Travel,                                55

  Mysterious Face Washing,                           174


  Nashville Ladies, The,                             106

  Negro and the Policeman, The,                       66

  Negro Baker Man,                                   154

  Negro Soldier's Civil War Chant,                   115

  Negroes Never Die,                                  11

  Nesting,                                           180

  Newly Weds, The,                                   144

  No Room to Poke Fun,                                99

  Nobody Looking,                                     48


  Off from Richmond,                                  15

  Old Aunt Kate,                                     179

  Old Black Gnats, The,                               80

  Old Gray Mink,                                      33

  Old Hen Cackled, The,                               50

  Old Man Know-all,                                  211

  Old Molly Hare,                                     22

  Old Section Boss, The,                              64

  Old Woman in the Hills, The,                        54

  On Top of the Pot,                                  10

  Opossum Hunt, An,                                   23

  Origin of the Snake, The,                          165

  Our Old Mule,                                      112

  Outrunning the Devil,                              103


  Page's Geese,                                      102

  Parody--He Paid Me Seven,                          122

  Parody on "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep",            115

  Parody on "Reign, Master Jesus! Reign!",           122

  Paying Debts with Kicks,                           184

  Peep Squirrel,                                      78

  Periwinkle,                                        201

  Pig Tail,                                          153

  Plaster,                                            60

  'Possum up the Gum Stump,                            3

  Precious Things,                                    84

  Presenting a Hat to Phoebe,                        140

  Pretty Little Girl,                                172

  Pretty Little Pink,                                127

  Pretty Pair of Chickens, A,                        181

  Pretty Polly Ann,                                  142

  Promises of Freedom,                                25


  Rabbit Hash,                                       203

  Rabbit Soup,                                        33

  Raccoon and Opossum Fight,                          31

  Race-starter's Rhyme, A,                           180

  Raise a "Rucus" To-night,                           90

  Randsome Tantsome,                                 202

  Rascal, The,                                       106

  Ration Day,                                         38

  Rattler,                                            46

  Raw Head and Bloody Bones,                         174

  Redhead Woodpecker,                                178

  Rejected by Eliza Jane,                            134

  Request to Sell, A,                                123

  Roses Red,                                         128

  Run, Nigger, Run!,                                  34


  Sail Away, Ladies!,                                 20

  Sallie,                                             87

  Salt-rising Bread,                                  83

  Sam Is a Clever Fellow,                            151

  Satan,                                              93

  Self-control,                                      213

  Sex Laugh,                                         102

  Shake the Persimmons Down,                          34

  She Hugged Me and Kissed Me,                       131

  Sheep and Goat,                                     17

  Sheep Shell Corn,                                   59

  Shoo! Shoo!,                                       196

  Short Letter, A,                                   113

  Sick Wife, A,                                       55

  Simon Slick's Mule,                                 47

  Slave Marriage Ceremony Supplement,                143

  Snail's Reply, The,                                170

  Song to the Runaway Slave,                          88

  Sparking or Courting,                              136

  Speak Softly,                                      214

  Stand Back, Black Man,                              10

  Stealing a Ride,                                   188

  Stick-a-ma-stew,                                   155

  Still Water Creek,                                   2

  Still Water Runs Deep,                             214

  Strange Brood, A,                                  166

  Strange Family, A,                                 171

  Strange Old Woman, A,                              178

  Strong Hands,                                      167

  Sugar in Coffee,                                    30

  Sugar Loaf Tea,                                     81

  Susan Jane,                                         77

  Susie Girl,                                         76

  Suze Ann,                                           68

  Sweet Pinks and Roses,                              92


  Tails,                                               5

  Taking a Walk,                                     183

  Teaching Table Manners,                            197

  Temperance Rhyme,                                  209

  That Hypocrite,                                    210

  "They Steal" Gossip,                               110

  This Sun is Hot,                                   108

  Thrifty Slave, The,                                 94

  To Win a Yellow Girl,                              102

  Tongue, The,                                       212

  Too Much Watermelon,                               182

  Town Bird and the Country Bird, The,               166

  Training the Boy,                                  201

  Tree Frogs (Guinea or Ebo Rhyme),                  168

  Turkey Funeral, A,                                 111

  T-U-Turkey,                                          6

  Turtle's Song, The,                                 30

  Two Sick Negro Boys,                               173

  Two Times One,                                     121


  Uncle Jerry Fants,                                 109

  Uncle Ned,                                          61


  Vinie,                                             130


  Walk, Talk, Chicken with your Head Pecked,           4

  Walk, Tom Wilson,                                   68

  Wanted: Cornbread and Coon,                         37

  War is On, The,                                    207

  Washing Mamma's Dishes,                            189

  Watermelon Preferred,                              110

  We Are "All the Go",                                52

  We'll Stick to the Hoe,                            123

  What Will We Do for Bacon?,                        185

  When I Go to Marry,                                144

  When I Was a Little Boy,                           168

  When I Was a Roustabout,                           145

  When My Wife Dies,                                  26

  Why Look at Me,                                    113

  Why the Woodpecker's Head Is Red,                  203

  Wild Hog Hunt,                                     165

  Wild Negro Bill,                                    94

  Willie Wee,                                        189

  Wind Bag, A,                                       101

  Wooing,                                            140


  Year of Jubilee,                                    58

  You Had Better Mind Master,                        126

  You Have Made Me Weep,                             128

  You Love your Girl,                                 95

  Young Master and Old Master,                       169


FOREIGN SECTION INDEX

  _African Rhymes_

    Byanswahn-Byanswahn,                             219
    Near Waldo Teedo o mah nah mejai,                216
    Sai Boddeoh Sumpun Komo,                         218
    The Frogs,                                       220
    The Owl,                                         217
    The Turkey Buzzard,                              220
    Tuba Blay,                                       217

  _A Philippine Island Rhyme_,                       227

  _Trinidad Rhymes_

    A Tom Cat,                                       226
    Un Belle Marie Coolie,                           225

  _Jamaica Rhyme_

    Buscher Garden,                                  222

  _Venezuelan Rhymes_

    A "Would Be" Immigrant,                          224
    Game Contestants' Song,                          223


PART II

A Study in Negro Folk Rhymes, 228

 


COMPARATIVE STUDY INDEX


_Love Songs_

  Bitter Lovers' Quarrel; One Side,   127

  Courting Boy, The,       141

  It Is Hard to Love,     132

  I Wish I Was an Apple,     133

  Lovers' Good-night,     129

  Me and my Lover,     132

  Mourning Slave Fiancees,   129

  Pretty Polly Ann,   142

  Rejected by Eliza Jane,   134

  Roses Red,   128

  She Hugged Me and She Kissed Me,  131

  Vinie,   130

  Wooing,     140

  You Have Made Me Weep,     128
  You Love your Girl,   95


_Dance Songs_

  Ark, The,    44

  Aunt Dinah Drunk,      53

  Baa! Baa! Black Sheep,     27

  Banjo Picking,      21

  Brother Ben and Sister Sal,     46

  Bull Frog Put on the Soldier Clothes,   20

  Chicken Pie,     69

  Cotton-eyed Joe,      32

  Cow Needs a Tail in Fly-time, The,   35

  Devilish Pigs,   24

  Die in the Pig-Pen Fighting,   39

  Dinah's Dinner Horn,        18

  Don't Ask Me Questions,          63

  Forty-four,          71

  Fox and Geese,          40

  Gooseberry Wine,        41

  Gray and Black Horses,        45

  Ham Beats All Meat,        67

  He Is my Horse,          16

  Hoecake,           49

  I am not Going to Hobo Any More,       70

  I Love Somebody,       51

  I Went down the Road,       50

  I Would not Marry a Black Girl,         56

  I Would not Marry a Yellow or a White Negro Girl,   63

  I'd rather Be a Negro than a Poor White Man,        42

  Jack and Dinah Want Freedom,          215

  Jaybird,          14

  Jaybird Died with the Whooping Cough,       36

  Little Red Hen,        37

  Little Rooster, The,        29

  Master is Six Feet One Way,       40

  Master's "Stolen Coat," The,        62

  My Fiddle,            39

  My Mule,           19

  My Wonderful Travel,         55

  Negro and the Policeman, The,         66

  Nobody Looking,         48

  Off from Richmond,                                  15
  Old Gray Mink,                                      33
  Old Hen Cackled, The,                               50
  Old Molly Hare,                                     22
  Old Section Boss, The,                              64
  Old Woman in the Hills, The,                        54
  Opossum Hunt, An,                                   23

  Plaster,                                            60
  'Possum up the Gum Stump,                            3
  Promises of Freedom,                                25

  Rabbit Soup,                                        33
  Raccoon and Opossum Fight,                          31
  Ration Day,                                         38
  Rattler,                                            46
  Run, Nigger, Run!                                   34

  Sail Away, Ladies!                                  20
  Shake the Persimmons Down,                          34
  Sheep and Goat,                                     17
  Sheep Shell Corn,                                   59
  Sick Wife, A,                                       55
  Simon Slick's Mule,                                 47
  Sugar in Coffee,                                    30
  Suze Ann,                                           68

  Uncle Ned,                                          61

  Walk, Tom Wilson,                                   68
  Wanted: Cornbread and Coon,                         37
  We Are "All the Go",                                52
  When My Wife Dies,                                  26

  Year of Jubilee,                                    58

_Animal and Nature Lore_

  Animal Attire,                                     158
  Animal Fair,                                       159
  Animal Persecutors,                                205
  Awful Harbingers,                                  149

  Bob-White's Song,                                  155
  Bridle Up a Rat,                                   157
  Buck and Berry,                                    172
  Buck-eyed Rabbit! Whoopee!                         175

  Chuck Will's Widow Song,                           156

  Frog in a Mill,                                    167
  Frog Went a-Courting,                              190
  Full Pocketbook, A,                                 99

  Great Owl's Song,                                  151

  Jaybird,                                            14
  Judge Buzzard,                                      16

  Last of Jack, The,                                 149
  Little Dogs,                                       150

  Man of Words, A,                                   208
  Miss Terrapin and Miss Toad,                       162
  Molly Cottontail,                                    8
  My Dog, Cuff,                                      150
  My Speckled Hen,                                   170

  Old Molly Hare,                                     22
  Origin of the Snake, The,                          165

  Snail's Reply, The,                                170
  Strange Brood, A,                                  166

  Tails,                                               5
  Town Bird and the Country Bird, The,               166
  Turtle's Song, The,                                 30

  Why the Woodpecker's Head is Red,                  203


_Nursery Rhymes_

  A. B. C.,                                          154
  Alabama Way, The,                                  164
  Animal Fair,                                       159
  Are You Careful?,                                  203
  Aspiration,                                        159
  Awful Harbingers,                                  149

  Baby Wants Cherries,                               181
  Bat! Bat!,                                         202
  Black-eyed Peas for Luck,                          200
  Blessings,                                         204
  Bob-White's Song,                                  155
  Buck-eyed Rabbit! Whoopee!,                        175
  Butterfly,                                         182

  Captain Coon,                                      176
  Children's Seating Rhyme,                          179
  Chuck Will's Widow Song,                           156
  Cooking Dinner,                                    156
  Crossing the River,                                  6

  Deedle, Dumpling,                                  171
  Destinies of Good and Bad Children,                200
  Did You Feed My Cow?,                               78
  Don't Sing before Breakfast,                       186
  Doodle-Bug,                                        174

  End of Ten Little Negroes, The,                    163

  Fishing Simon,                                     177
  Flap-jacks,                                        196
  Four Runaway Negroes; Whence They Came,            205
  Frog Went a-Courting,                              190
  From Slavery,                                      162

  Getting Ten Negro Boys Together,                   184
  Go to Bed,                                         175
  Good-by, Ring,                                     171
  Grasshopper Sitting on a Sweet Potato Vine,        173
  Grasshopper-Sense,                                 169
  Great Owl's Song, The,                             151
  Guinea Gall,                                       176

  Hated Blackbird and Crow, The,                     183
  Hawk and Chickens,                                 185
  Here I Stand,                                      153

  In '76,                                            178
  In a Mulberry Tree,                                158
  In a Rush,                                         183

  Judge Buzzard,                                      16

  Little Boy Who Couldn't Count Seven,               160
  Little Dogs,                                       150
  Little Negro Fly, The,                             199
  Little Pickaninny, A,                              186
  Little Sleeping Negroes,                           187

  Mamma's Darling,                                   188
  Miss Blodger,                                      199
  Miss Terrapin and Miss Toad,                       162
  Mother Says I am Six Years Old,                    164
  Mud-Log Pond,                                      185
  My Baby,                                           180
  My Dog, Cuff,                                      150
  My Folks and your Folks,                           187
  My Little Pig,                                     157
  My Speckled Hen,                                   170
  Mysterious Face Washing,                           174

  Negro Baker Man,                                   154
  Nesting,                                           180

  Old Aunt Kate,                                     179
  Origin of the Snake, The,                          165

  Paying Debts with Kicks,                           184
  Periwinkle,                                        201
  Pig Tail,                                          153
  'Possum up the Gum Stump,                            3
  Pretty Little Girl,                                172
  Pretty Pair of Chickens, A,                        181

  Rabbit Hash,                                       203
  Rabbit Soup,                                        33
  Race-Starter's Rhyme, A,                           180
  Randsome Tantsome,                                 202
  Raw Head and Bloody Bones,                         174
  Redhead Woodpecker,                                178

  Sam is a Clever Fellow,                            151
  Shoo! Shoo!,                                       196
  Stealing a Ride,                                   188
  Stick-a-ma-stew,                                   155
  Strange Family, A,                                 171
  Strange Old Woman, A,                              178
  Strong Hands,                                      167

  Tails,                                               5
  Taking a Walk,                                     183
  Teaching Table Manners,                            197
  Too Much Watermelon,                               182
  Training the Boy,                                  201
  Tree Frogs,                                        168
  Turtle's Song, The,                                 30
  Two Sick Negro Boys,                               173

  Washing Mamma's Dishes,                            189
  What Will We Do for Bacon?,                        185
  Wild Hog Hunt,                                     165
  Willie Wee,                                        189

  You Had Better Mind Master,                        126
  Young Master and Old Master,                       169

_Charms and Superstitions_

  Bat! Bat!,                                         202
  Black-eyed Peas for Luck,                          200

  Don't Sing before Breakfast,                       186

  How to Make it Rain,                               101

  Jaybird,                                            14

  Molly Cottontail, or Graveyard Rabbit,               8
  My Speckled Hen,                                   170

  Periwinkle,                                        201

  Speak Softly,                                      214


_Hunting Songs_

  Fox and Geese,                                      40

  He will Get Mr. Coon,                               28
  Hunting Camp, The,                                  43

  Miss Slippy Sloppy,                                100

  Opossum Hunt, An,                                   23

  Rattler,                                            46


_Drinking Songs_

  Aunt Dinah Drunk,                                   53

  Bring on your Hot Corn,                             29

  Little Red Hen,                                     37


_Wise and Gnomic Sayings_

  Brag and Boast,                                    213

  Don't Tell All You Know,                           214
  Drinking Razor Soup,                               211

  Fed from the Tree of Knowledge,                    212

  How to Plant and Cultivate Seeds,                  208

  Independent,                                       209

  Learn to Count,                                    207

  Man of Words, A,                                   208

  Old Man Know-all,                                  211

  Self-control,                                      213
  Speak Softly,                                      214
  Still Water Runs Deep,                             214

  Temperance Rhyme,                                  209
  That Hypocrite,                                    210
  Tongue, The,                                       212

  War is On, The,                                    207


_Harvest Songs_

  Harvest Song,                                       57


_Biblical and Religious Themes_

  Ark, The,                                           44

  How to Keep or Kill the Devil,                     104

  Jawbone,                                            12
  Jonah's Band,                                        1

  Satan,                                              93

_Play Songs_

  Anchor Line,        87

  Budget, A,        79

  Did You Feed my Cow?,      78

  Down in the Lonesome Garden,      89

  Green Oak Tree! Rocky-o!,                           81

  Hawk and Buzzard,                                   75
  He Loves Sugar and Tea,                             84
  Here Comes a Young Man Courting,                    85

  Kissing Song,                                       82
  Kneel on This Carpet,                               82

  Likes and Dislikes,                                 76
  Little Sister, Won't You Marry Me?,                 90

  Old Black Gnats, The,                               80

  Peep Squirrel,                                      78
  Precious Things,                                    84

  Raise a "Rucus" To-night,                           90

  Sallie,                                             87
  Salt-rising Bread,                                  83
  Song to the Runaway Slave,                          88
  Sugar Loaf Tea,                                     81
  Susan Jane,                                         77
  Susie Girl,                                         76
  Sweet Pinks and Roses,                              92

_Miscellaneous_

  Antebellum Courtship Inquiry,                      135
  Antebellum Marriage Proposal,                      137
  As I Went to Shiloh,                                13
  Aunt Jemima,                                       107

  Bad Features,                                      100
  Bedbug,                                             96
  Blindfold Play Chant,                               73
  Bought Me a Wife,                                  145

  Captain Dime,                                        5
  Care in Bread-making,                              112
  Caught by the Witch Play,                           74
  Christmas Turkey,                                   98
  Clandestine Letter, A,                             136
  Coffee Grows on White Folks' Trees,                107
  College Ox, The,                                   112
  Courtship,                                         138
  Crooked Nose Jane,                                  99
  Crossing a Foot-Log,                               109

  Day's Happiness, A,                                125
  Destitute Former Slave Owners,                      97
  Do I Love You?,                                    129
  Does Money Talk?,                                  113

  Elephant, The,                                     116

  Fattening Frogs for Snakes,                         97
  Few Negroes by States, A,                          117
  Fine Plaster, A,                                   124
  Fox and Geese Play,                                 73
  Fox and Rabbit Drinking Proposition,               111
  Frightened Away from a Chicken-Roost,               95

  Going to be Good Slaves,                           101
  Good-by, Wife!,                                    148
  Goosie-Gander Play Rhyme,                           75

  Half Way Doings,                                   120
  Hawk and Chickens Play,                             74
  He Paid Me Seven (Parody),                         122
  Hear-say,                                          114
  How to Get to Glory Land,                           96
  How to Please a Preacher,                          117

  I Walked the Road,                                 139
  I'll Eat when I'm Hungry,                          114
  I'll Get You, Rabbit!,                             116
  I'll Wear Me a Cotton Dress,                       118
  I'm a "Round-Town" Gentleman,                      108
  If You Frown,                                      137
  Indian Flea,                                        12
  Invited to Take the Escort's Arm,                  135

  Joe and Malinda Jane,                                4
  John Henry,                                        105
  Johnny Bigfoot,                                     93
  Juba,                                                9
  Jump Jim Crow,                                      13

  Kept Busy,                                         109

  Let's Marry Courtship,                             138
  Looking for a Fight,                               118
  Love is Just a Thing of Fancy,                       2

  Mule's Kick, The,                                   98
  Mule's Nature, The,                                108

  Negro Soldier's Civil War Chant,                   115
  Negroes Never Die,                                  11
  Newly Weds, The,                                   144
  No Room to Poke Fun,                                99

  On Top of the Pot,                                  10
  Our Old Mule,                                      112
  Outrunning the Devil,                              103

  Page's Geese,                                      102
  Parody--He Paid Me Seven,                          122
  Parody on "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep",            115
  Parody on "Reign, Master Jesus! Reign!",           122
  Presenting a Hat to Phoebe,                        140
  Pretty Little Pink,                                127

  Rascal, The,                                       106
  Request to Sell, A,                                123

  Sex Laugh,                                         102
  Short Letter, A,                                   113
  Slave Marriage Ceremony Supplement,                143
  Sparking or Courting,                              136
  Stand Back, Black Man,                              10
  Still Water Creek,                                   2

  "They Steal" Gossip,                               110
  This Sun is Hot,                                   108
  Thrifty Slave, The,                                 94
  To Win a Yellow Girl,                              102
  Turkey Funeral,                                    111
  T-U-Turkey,                                          6
  Two Times One,                                     121

  Uncle Jerry Fants,                                 109

  Walk, Talk, Chicken With your Head Pecked,           4
  We'll Stick to the Hoe,                            123
  When I Go to Marry,                                144
  When I Was a Roustabout,                           145
  Why Look at Me?,                                   113
  Wild Negro Bill,                                    94
  Wind Bag, A,                                       101 
----------------------------------
Review: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 127-130
by Paul F. Wells

Thomas W. Talley's Negro Folk Rhymes: A New, Expanded Edition, with Music. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by CHARLES WOLFE. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. xxxvii, 318 pp., music, bibliography, indexes. $34.95.

First published in 1922, Negro Folk Rhymes was the first substantial collection of secular black folk music. Compiled by Thomas W. Talley, a chemistry professor at Fisk University, the book is relatively little known to
present-day scholars. Because there is currently considerable interest in forms of black folk music other than blues, especially those forms which premusic predate blues, a simple reprint of the original edition of Talley's book would have been quite welcome. The fact that this edition contains considerable material not found in the original makes it doubly important. While searching in the Fisk archives for information about Talley and his work, Charles Wolfe happened upon a real treasure. Among the uncatalogued papers of Talley were texts of some fifty songs and, of even greater interest to ethnomusicologists, a manuscript of 106 melodies, "about fifty of which correspond to texts appearing in the printed volume" (p. ix).

In his introduction, Wolfe discusses the first appearance of Negro Folk Rhymes, gives a brief but excellent biography of Talley, discusses Talley's importance to American folk music scholarship, and cites the role of the material in Negro Folk Rhymes by demonstrating a link between white and black musical traditions in the rural South. It is this last point that may well prove to be the means through which Talley's work finally gains the recognition that has thus far eluded it. Much of the academic and popular interest in American folk music has proceeded along lines delimited both by race and by genre. People have been interested in either white traditions often string bands or some other aspect of "hillbilly"m usic-or black, which usually has meant blues. As knowledge of music within these areas of focus has increased, scholars have come to realize that we are dealing not only with tracks that run parallel, but that they also intersect time and again.

Viewed in this light, Talley's book was perhaps ahead of its time. Talley worked in the same area of Middle Tennessee that also was home to many white musicians who performed on the early Grand Ole Opry and/or who made early commercial recordings. As Wolfe puts it, Talley's collection "suggests that there might have been a common repertoire shared by both rural whites and blacks in nineteenth-century rural Tennessee" (p. xxv). And further: ". . . in an age before 'blues' and 'hillbilly' music segregated it, the rural music of the upland South might have had much more in common than in difference. Talley's may well be one of our best, and earliest, glimpses of this phenomenon" (p. xxvi). Specifically, Wolfe notes that more than eighty-five items included in Negro Folk Rhymes also turn up "in the repertoires (i.e., in early commercial recordings or artists' songbooks) of early country artists of the period 1925-1935" (p. xxv). The repertoire of Uncle Dave Macon (from Rutherford County, adjacent to Talley's Bedford County) was, according to Wolfe, especially rich in songs that Talley collected.

Wolfe contributes headnotes to many of the songs in the collection. The fact that more items still appear without notes than with is a comment not on Wolfe's work, but rather on the uniqueness of Talley's collection; few other scholars, black or white, chose to tread the same ground as Talley. Nevertheless, numerous additions can be made to the headnotes, mostly in the area of melodic concordances, and most of which further underscore the  link between white and black traditions.

The melody to #32, "Old Molly Hare," is Nathaniel Gow's "Fairy Dance," first published in Scotland in 1809. Variants of the two musical strains printed with #37, "Baa! Baa! Black Sheep" are among the strains played by Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson, a black banjo-fiddle duo from Middle Tennessee, as "Po' Black Sheep," recorded by John Work III for the Library of Congress in 1942 and issued in 1989 on Altamont: Black Stringband Music from the Library of Congress (Rounder 0238). The low strain of both version is, in turn, a cognate of the low strain of the widely-known fiddle tune "Sally Goodin." The melody to #47, "Run, Nigger, Run"-a fiddle tune widely known in white tradition-is clearly related to (derived from?) the common blackface minstrel piece, "Jim Along Josey." "JaybirdD ied with the Whooping Cough,"i tem #50, is "The Girl I Left
Behind Me." "Jenny Lind Polka," traceable in sheet music form to 1846 (prior to the "Swedish Nightingale's" first visit to these shores in 1850), and sometimes played by white fiddlers as "Heel and Toe Polka," turns up as the melody to Talley's item #59, "I Would Rather Be a Negro Than A Poor White Man." The last verse to #64, "Brother Ben and Sister Sal," comes from the minstrel piece, "The Old Gray Goose," which in turn lends its melody to #74, "A Sick Wife." Additional Scottish melodies turn up in #70, "I Love Somebody" ("My Love She's But a Lassie Yet," a remarkably ubiquitous tune in the U.S.), #400, "Hop Light Ladies" ("Mrs. MacLeod of Raasay's Reel"), and #409, "Young Ladies Go A-Courting" (a variant of "Wha'll Be King But Charlie"). The low strain of "Arkansas Traveler" shows up as the melody for #79, "Sheep Shell Corn." Both lyrics and music of "Temperance Rhyme," #324, are of the vast "Rye Whiskey"/"My Horses Ain't Hungry" family. Finally, the fiddle tune "Forked Deer" provides the melody for #335, "Jack and Dinah Want Freedom."

Some points in the introduction need to be corrected. In discussing Talley's awareness of the difficulty of using standard Western notation to transcribe black folk music, Wolfe states that Talley "was decades ahead of [his] time. Only now are musicologists and historians widely accepting this view" (p. xv). In fact, this difficulty was realized by the first people who attempted to notate spirituals. Lucy McKim Garrison, in the preface to Slave Songs of the United States commented: "It is difficult to express the entire character of these Negro ballads by mere musical notes and signs" (1867:vi). Henry Krehbiel devoted a chapter to the problem and included quotes from Garrison and other early writers who grappled with it (1914:70-82).

While discussing the first publication of Negro Folk Rhymes in the context of other American folk song collections, Wolfe notes that at the time Talley's book appeared in 1922, Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians was "ten years away from publication" (p. xxi). The first, one-volume, edition of Sharp's work actually appeared in 1917. 130 Ethnomusicology, Winter 1993 In compiling and publishing Negro FolkRhymesThomas W. Talley made a major contribution to our knowledge of black folk music in the early twentieth century. In producing this new edition, Charles Wolfe has not only made Talley's work accessible to the current generation of scholars, but he has in the process made his own substantial contribution to scholarship.

Paul F. Wells
The Center for Popular Music Middle Tennessee State University

References
Allen, William Francis, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison
1867 Slave Songs of the United States. New York: A. Simpson & Co.
Krehbiel, Henry Edward
1914 Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music. New York: G.
Schirmer, Inc.