Religious Folk-Beliefs of Whites and Negroes
by Newbell N. Puckett
The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 1931), pp. 9-35
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELIEFS OF WHITES AND NEGROES [1]
Religious folk-beliefs differ from ordinary religious beliefs in belonging solely to popular religion-to folk-religion. For the most part these beliefs are disorganized and scattered and not formally a part of the recognized cult. They are found mainly with the uncultured and backward classes of society, white or colored; and it is to such retarded classes rather than to either racial group as a whole that reference is made throughout this paper. When either racial group is mentioned as having such or such a belief it is not inferred that the whole group follows that belief nor that it is the monopoly of that particular folk and not to be found with other folk as well.
In the case of the Negro most of this backward element lives in rural districts.[2] Such country dwellers have been slow to keep abreast of the times in things religious as in things secular. The term "heathen" originally meant "heathman" or rural dweller, and the word "pagan" has much the same derivation.[3] In many respects the so-called Negro church problem is simply one aspect of the larger rural church problem. Varlous elements of the problem may be referred to environmental rather than to racial antecedents and are to be found with isolated rural white folk as well.
Over-churching frequently presents a serious situation in all rural communities. Different denominations pile up churches in a thinly populated locality until there are eventually more churches than there are people to support them adequately. The result is small memberships, poor church equipment and programs, and untrained, non-resident, parttime ministers. Such pastors are usually much underpaid and often have to carry on other occupations along with their preaching.[4] With the Negro[5] and the rural mountain whites [6] of today as in pioneer times[7] the lack of opportunity for ordinary social gatherings makes the church very much of a social center. Thus many characteristics of the Negro church are found also in the rural white churches, though the situation with the Negro is intensified by the greater numbers of tenant farmers[8] who move incessantly from farm
to farm. Such a class with all races makes notoriously poor church-building material.[9] However, not all of these backward
Negro folk are in the country. The Negro store-front churches' in the Northern cities are in some cases simply an extension of a rural type of religion to a city environment. [11]
Such unlettered folk, and especially the Negroes, who have had fewer educational advantages on the whole than
have the rural whites, are of a very conservative nature and
often cling to outworn usages and customs many of which
were formerly practised by the populace at large, but later
discarded and forgotten by the more advanced elements.
Where the Negro is found with such hang-overs from olden
times there is a tendency on the part of some more educated
white people of the South to dismiss such crudities as remnants
of "African barbarism." A study of Negro super-
' For a general discussion of these problems see Taylor, C. C., Rural Sociology
(N.Y., 1927), 221 and passim, and Galpin, C. J., Empty Churches (N.Y.,
1928).
'Puckett, N. N., Folk-Beliefs of the Southern Negro (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
1926), 529-530.
' MacClintock, S. S., "The Kentucky Mountains and Their Feuds." Aimerican
Journal of Sociology, VII (1901), 18-19, and Kephart, H., Our Southern
Highlanders (N.Y., 1903), 269.
6 Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery (N.Y., 1918), 316.
'Reuter, E. B., The American Race Problem (N.Y., 1927), 232ff. Nearing,
S., Black America (N.Y., 1929), 29 and 31. Dowd, J., The Negro in
American Life (N.Y., 1926), 86.
8 Hawthorn, H. B., The Sociology of Rural Life (N.Y., 1926), 240-241.
Brunner, E., Church Life in the Rural South (N.Y., 1923), 48.
' Reid, 0. A., " Let Us Prey." Opportunity, IV (1926), 274-278.
Douglass, H. P., The Saint Louis Church Survey (N.Y., 1924), 236.
RE,IGIOUS FOLK-BELIEFS 11
stitions, however, shows that by far the greater part of these
items are of European origin and that many of them are still
to be found among white people in isolated sections." Other
collections'2 indicate the influence of the early religious
songs of the white man in the making of Negro spirituals.
With this conservatism of ancient supeTstition and song one
would indeed be surprised if the Negro did not retain along
with them many fragments of earlier white religious customs.
Such religious folk-beliefs and customs arrange themselves
naturally into the creed, what the folk believe in a
religious way, and the cult, or what the folk practise in a religious
way.
The broad pattern of Protestant religious creed is the
same for both races today. Lynd and Lynd, in their survey
of a medium-sized Middle Western city,'3 found the most
characteristic belief of the city whites to be: "God made
Heaven and earth and sent Jesus Christ, his Son, to save the
world from sin. If you believe in Christ you will be saved. "
To this is added a belief in a life after death in heaven or in
hell, a belief in the sacredness of the Bible and in the allsufficiency
of Christianity for all mankind. This will serve
equally well for a general statement of fundamental religious
belief for both races in the South today. In so far as
specific denominations are concerned, the Baptists and
Methodists predominate in the South.
In spite of this basic similarity of treed there is a tendency
on the part of backward folk, who have not reduced
the creed to writing, to depart in sundry ways from the orthodox
patern. Negro folk, in common with folk of other
races,"' have put Biblical teachings and narratives in song
form and have relied upon this rhythm to aid the memory.'5
At times this partial substitution of song for actual Scrip-
" Puckett, op. cit.
"' White, N. I., American Negro Folk-Songs (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), 3-7.
" Lynd, B. S. and Lynd, H. M., Middletown (N.Y., 1929), 315.
14 Sumner, W. G. and Keller, A. G., The Science of Society (New Haven,
1927), III, 2101ff.
1f Puckett, op. cit., 71-77. White, op. cit., 33-35 and passim
12 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
ture leads to theological deductions made from the song
instead of from the Bible. A Mississippi Negro minister
considers it entirely proper to quote sacred song in his sermons:
"Hit's jes' ez 'spired ez de Bible is."'8" Such a practise
leads invariably to theological innovations and complexities,
and to this is added with the Negro a veritable hodgepodge
of personal revelations and visions, many of which
depart from or add grotesquely to the established creed.
The theme of many songs'7 and visions'8 is frequently
centered about the crossing of the River Jordan, and quite
a few rural Negroes throughout the South expect literally to
cross a real River Jordan after death. It is the view of some
that "you flies across" ;19 others maintain that "you wades
across'' ;20 while still others hold that ''Jesus rows you
'cross in de ole Ship uv Zion."'2' One informant from the
Arkansas Delta has seen the river in her front yard too often
during flood time to be inexact with reference to things fluvial.
"De ole Ship uv Zion, hit a flat ship wid no smokestack.
I see 'd hit chock full uv shiny anguls an' de talles'
anguls wuz Eve an' Adam. Hit floats on de Ribbuh uv Jurden,
an' Christ is de ferryman w'ut carries you 'cross."22
Another informant in the Tombigbee swamp section, where
the footlog is often the customary bridge for the smaller
creeks and branches, says that there are two footlogs across
the River Jordan, one leading to the left and the other to the
right. If the departed soul takes the one to the left he will
go to hell, but the one to the right leads to heaven.23 The Sea
Island Negroes formerly connected the direction left with
"6Alonzo Evans, Columbus, Miss.
' As "I'm Boun' Ter Cross Jord 'n in Dat Mornin' ". See Odum, H. W.
and Johnson, G. B., The Negro and His Songs (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1925), 90.
Phoebe Williams and Sally Davenport, Eudora, Ark.
Henry Walker, Johns Island, S.C.
20Mrs. B. Jones, Houston, Tex.
"IB. Smith, Jacksonville, Fla. For the "Old Ship of Zion" in song see
White, op. cit., 93-96.
2 Sally Davenport, Eudora, Ark.
In Laura Witherspoon, Waverly, Miss.
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELIFS 13
disaster: "If you go on de leff, you go to 'struction, and if
you go on de right, go to God, for sure. I "' With both whites
and Negroes the left is frequently associated with ill omen25
(the sheep are pictured as being on the right hand of Christ
and the goats on the left in the Day of Judgment).26 The
belief in a river or bridge to be crossed after death is also
common. The Choctaw Indians, for instance, held that after
death one had to cross a deep ravine and river over a slippery
foot log.27 The Mohammedans, of which there were
some among the Negro slaves,28 believe not only in an inconceivably
narrow bridge across the midst of hell, but also
hold that the right hand way leads to paradise and the left
to hell.29 Not infrequently with other folk the otherworld is
located across water, perhaps associated with the widespread
belief that ghosts are not able to cross running
water.30 The river Styx of the Greeks is a typical example.
Some Negroes have a vague idea of the dead sleeping on the
banks of a river amid the tall pines3' or dwelling in the
"green fields of Eden."32 In England in 1659 at least one
old man had the notion that after death " if he had done well
he should be put into a pleasant green meadow.33
There is an amazing wealth of imagery in Negro song,
and some of it is always accepted literally. Train themes
are common and the "Little Black Train"34 or "The Gospel
"Allen, W. F., Slave Songs of the U.S. (N.Y., 1871), 4 (note).
Puckett, op. cit., 447ff.
St. Matthew, 25: 33.
27Major W. A. Love, Columbus, Miss., and Cox, Marian R., An Introduction
to Folklore (Lon., 1897), 190.
I Lyell, C., A Second Visit to the United States of North America (N.Y.,
1849), I, 266ff. Jones, C. C., The Religious Instruction of Negroes in the U.S.
(Savannah, 1842), 125.
'Aubrey, J., Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (Lon., 1881), 221.
"Cox, op. cit., 184ff.
a E. C. L. Adams, Columbia, S.C.
B. Smith, Jacksonville, Fla.
Gomme, G. L., Folk-Lore, III (1892), 7 and 9.
Sarah, Cobb, Columbus, Miss. Scarborough, Dorothy, On The Trail of
Negro Folk-Songs (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), Ch. IX. "Railroad Songs" (religious
and secular), 238-263.
14 JOURNAL OF NEGRO EISTORY
Train" of song is taken by some to mean a real hell-bound
or heaven-bound excursion after death. One ex-sinner from
Georgia who was granted a pre-mortem vision of the hellbound
train describes it as "a big train wid no enjin' nor
brakes. Hit jes' flies downhill to de gittin'-off place (hell)
an' dar stan' de debbil wid a pitchfawk in his han'."36 Another
Arkansas informant, also speaking from personal revelation,
says that there is a sort of railroad station on the
other side of Jordan where two trains stand waiting. One, a
dirty little train, with grimy red and black cars, "sump'n'
lak a freight train," is scheduled for hell, while the other,
spotless white in color, with good coaches and operating
without smoke or steam, is the Gospel Train running on the
main-line to heaven. "You sho' see's some sho' 'nuff trains
when you dies. I "I Even though there seems often a tendency
with children and uneducated adults to accept figurative description
literally, and even though the whites of the South
sing of the River Jordan, the Old Ship of Zion, and of trains
of various kinds,38 at the present time, in so far as could be
discovered, they exhibit little of the intensely realistic interpretation
found with the Negro. Perhaps in earlier days
the white man's literal belief in such imagery was greater.
With Negro folk-religion, as was the case with medieval
Europeans, the devil39 has a nimbus all his own. In the
Black Belt he usually struts about as a dark man with horns
and feet like a goat, and with a long pointed tail. Other addenda
are claws on his fingers, wings like a bat, a pitchfork
Odum and Johnson, op. cit., 111-115.
G. E. Daub, Atlanta, Ga.
"Sallie Davenport, Eudora, Ark.
"White, op. cit., 45, 47, and 441. Fulks, C., "The Sacred Poesy of the
South." AImerican Mercury, XII (1927), 75ff.
" For a detailed discussion of the Negro devil see Puckett, op. cit., 548-556.
For European and other comparisons see Grimm, J., Teutonic Mythology (Tr. by
J. S. Stallybrass, Lon., 1883), II, Ch. XXXIII; Ashton, J., The Devil in Britain
and America (Lon., 1896); Carus, P., The History of the Devil and the Idea
of Evil (Lon., 1900). For devil concepts in Negro song see Odumnan d Johnson,
op. cit., 39-42.
REL1GIouS FOLK-BELLFS 15
in his hands,40 hair like lamb 's wool and feet like fine brass,4'
ears like catalpa leaves and teeth like a gate post,42 fire coming
from his nostrils,43 and big red eyes.44 The Old Nick
may, in general, take any form,45 though usually when he
assumes an animal shape it is that of an owl, serpent, or a
black cat. Some of the older Tennessee Negroes say he cannot
change himself into a lamb or a dove46 because these two
are sacred. The dove and the eagle are supposed to go to
heaven,47 the mule also, because Christ rode one when He
went into Jerusalem, and cows and sheep, because they kneel
in prayer on Christmas Eve night.48 Other Negroes think
of each animal having his own special heaven (dog-heaven,
cat-heaven, and so on), but deny the hog a place in the Celestial
City because "dere ain' no mud-holes in hebb'n nuh
nuttin' fuh 'im tuh wallow in. "49 Animals may even have
a cult of their own. The buzzard, for instance, may occasionally
be seen praying and the mule sometimes standing
still with his head dismally drooped "studyin' over his
sins. "50
These general features of the devil which were mentioned
are, of course, those of the European devil, which may
perhaps in turn hark back to more ancient pagan deities.
With the rural Negro, as with Europeans of earlier times
and American colonists of Cotton Mather's day, a human
being may enter into a bond or bargain with Satan, giving
his soul to the arch fiend in exchange for skill in conjuration,
'0Alonzo Evans, Columbus, Miss.
4C. H. Johnson, Lawrenceville, Va.
'Mrs. S. L. Black, Tibee, Miss.
4" R. Smith, Jacksonville, Fla.
"Annie L. Bailey, Columbus, Miss.
4 See Jones, C. C., Negro Myths From the Georgia Coast (N.Y., 1888), 82.
"Mrs. V. F. Boyle, Memphis, Tenn.
"Bergen, F. D., "I Animal and Plant Lore." Memoirs of the Amer. Folk-
Lore Society, III (1899), 84.
48 Luke Johnson, Demopolis, Ala.
" John B. Sale, Columbus, Miss.
6'Howard Snyder, Canton, Miss.
16 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
in playing the fiddle, or in general devilment. The whites of
the South seem to have discarded this Faust notion, but in
Scotland the fairies are supposed to teach men to play the
pipes51 and the Ozark whites still say that the devil helps a
person call dances.52 Liar and conjurer, though he be, the
Negro devil is often humanized, at least to the extent of
being married. One Mississippi informant says old Satan
married a woman by the name of Gog and that they have
one child called May Gog.53 In the south of Italy an old
belief has it that the devil was formerly married, but that
he was afterwards divorced, and that his grandmother now
takes care of his cooking and general housekeeping.54 Connubial
bliss seems not to have been a strong point with the
devil of the American whites except for the common superstition
that when it rains when the sun is shining the devil
is whipping his wife around a stump.55
Thinking is largely conditioned and limited by one's
personal experiences and observations, which means that a
folk interprets the unknown hereafter in terms of their
knowledge of the here-and-now. Often with Negro folk the
unfamiliar spiritual will be humanized and given a warm
personal meaning by warping it into the familiar patterns
of everyday life.5" Both God and Christ are sometimes revealed
in visions as being married. Christ has three children.
The "Holy Ghos', 'E married too, an' 'E hab' 'bout
six er fo' chilluns. Gawd hab' 'bout six chilluns."57 Christ
is not above plowing in the field with a golden plow or eating
turnip-greens for dinner, while "Mrs. Gawd" has been dis-
61 Campbell, J. F., Popular Tales of the West Highlands (Lon. 1890), II,
331.
Vance Randolph, Pineville, Mo.
6 Henry Thomas, Macon, Miss.
'Folk-Lore Journal, VII (1889), 317.
Puckett, op. cit., 518-519.
6 An extreme instance, bordering on the verge of caricature, is Marc Connelly
's play, The Green Pastures. See Bradstreet, H. A., "A Negro Miracle
Play," O,,pportunity, VIII (1930), 150-151.
"I Henry Walker, Johns Island, S.C.
REImGIOUS FOLK-BELIEFS 17
covered domestically patching-up "Mistah Gawd 's" pants."
Harps of the stringed variety are seldom seen in the rural
South, and as a result some Negroes59 and Ozark whites60
think of the harps in heaven as being blown (in familiar
French-harp or harmonica fashion) instead of being fingered.
Other beliefs are more distinctly in the realm of what
educated folk would call rank superstition. Some of these
are found in Europe as well as in America. Thus the sun
is supposed to shout0' or to dance62 on Easter morning;
animals kneel down and pray at midnight on Christmas
Eve;`3 and ghosts" are driven off by the query: "What in
the name of the Lord do you want?" " Still other beliefs
have been thus far tabulated only among the colored folk.
Some Georgia Negroes say that a cat walking into a Baptist
church is a sure sign of a baptizing.66 Other coastal Negroes
baptize when the tide is going out so that it may carry off
the washed-away sins ;67 and, in Tennessee, failure to contribute
to the preacher is said to result in a long dry spell.68
The Negro church is often criticized for a creed which
taboos acts of minor importance while sometimes overlooking
more serious immoralities. In different sections of the
South I have found Negro churches forbidding such things
as dancing, ball-playing, checker-playing, rollerskating, jazz
music, the singing of "reels" (secular songs), playing the
fiddle, going to moving pictures, dressing for display, and
so on.69 The Negroes seem to have had their first lessons
'Puckett, op. cit., 542-543.
Roark Bradford, New Orleans, La.
? Vance Randolph, Pinesville, Mo.
F1 F. L. Johnson, Atlanta, Ga.
Lang, A., " The Folk-Lore of France." Folk-Lore Record, I (1878), 101.
^3H attie Harris, Columbus, Miss. Hunt, R., Popular Romances of the West
of England (Lon., 1871), 389.
" Grace Holmes, Atlanta, Ga.
'Leather, E. M., The Folk-Lore of Herefordshire (Lon., 1912), 33.
ee Mrs. M. Brown, Cleveland, Ohio.
67 F. S. Bauder, Savannah, Ga.
6 Students of K-noxville College, Knoxville, Tenn.
e See also Morals and Manners Among Negro Americans. Atlanta Ulniversity
Pub., No. 18 (1914), 90ff.
18 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
in this species of narrowness from the pioneer whites, and
such restrictions are still to be found with certain white
Fundamentalists not only in rural districts, but even in
villages and cities. The white Methodist Episcopals about
1800 dressed their children very plainly, and did not allow
them to go to balls or plays.70 Fredrika Bremer, a Swedish
traveler in America in 1850, speaks of the Methodist missionaries
being angry with the Negroes for their love of
dancing and music.71 Southern white Highlanders still denounce
dances and play-parties as sinful diversions,72 and
the old time Pennsylvania preachers " 'ud get after a fiddler
like he was poison. "178 The following song, used by the
Ozark Pentacostals, shows clearly some present-day attitudes
on such matters :
"Some folks jump up and down all night at the DANCE
And then they go to Church to show their brand new HAT;
They smear their faces with great big dobs of PAINT
And then they have the brass to say they're SAVED."
It is true that some Negroes, along with backward folk in
general, make little connection between religion and morality,
75 and that those closer to conditions of slavery sometimes
objected to a literal application of the Ten Commandments,
76 or denied that the Bible opposed drinking ("What
enter into de mouth no defile de man")77 or adultery ("Ain'
de Bible say, 'Go out an' plentify de eart'"' 11),78 but Cartwright79
and Trollope80 mention adultery among early white
IO Cartwright, P., Autobiography of Peter Cartwright (N.Y., 1857), 75.
' Bremer, F., America of the Fifties (N.Y., 1924), 105.
Kephart, op. cit., 266.
Gordon, J. and Gordon, C., On Wandering Wheets (N.Y., 1928), 157.
Clay Fulks, McRae, Ark.
75 Puckett, op. cit., 524-527. Sumner and Keller, op. cit., II, 1463. Davenport,
F. M., Prirnitive Traits in Religious Revivals (N.Y., 1905), 58.
7 Tucker, J. L., The Belations of the Church to the Colored Race (Jackson,
Miss., 1882), 17-18.
" Ingrahane, J. H., The South-West (N.Y., 1835), II, 264-265.
John B. Sale, Columbus, Miss.
" Cartwright, op. cit., 147.
'I Trollope, Mrs. F. M., Domestic Manners of the Americans (Lon., 1832),
222.
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELEFS 19
ministers, and in general the religion of some of the present
day mountain whites has little influence on everyday behavior
or moral law. "Salvation is by faith alone, and not
by works. Sins of the flesh are rarely punished, being
regarded as amiable frailties of mankind."'I
In the matter of creed the Negro is notoriously inclined
towards the Old Testament type of theology,82 and the same
is true of the mountain whites.83 Sectarianism seems hardly
as intense with the Negroes as with rural whites, since the
social element enters more strongly into Negro religious
contacts, causing them at times to desert temporarily their
own church to attend a "big meeting" at a rival denomination.
84 Earlier whites, in contrast, were sectarian to the
core. Cartwright speaks of the Baptist preachers in Tennessee
about 1813, making " so much ado about baptism by
immersion, that the uninformed would suppose that heaven
was an island, and that there was no way to get there but
by diving or swimming."185 True enough the Negro may
sing:
"Heaven's so high, heaven's so high,
None can't enter but the Sanctified,"8"
but the mountain whites about 1850 criticized the Hardshell
Baptist doctrine of strict predestination with equally blunt
certitude :87
"But my friends all, on you I call
To mind this doctrine (predestination) well;
It has its birth, not on this earth
But in the pit of hell."
81 Kephart, op. cit, 272.
8a Snyder, H. A., "A Plantation Revival Service," Yale Review, X (1920),
172.
83 MacClintock, op. cit., 19.
'l Odum, H. W., Social and Mental Traits of the Negro (N.Y., 1910), 60
(note).
85 Cartwright, op. cit., 133-134. See also Milburn, W. H., The Pioneers,
Preachers and People of the Miss. Valley (N.Y., 1860), 355.
" Perkins, A. E., "Negro Spirituals from the Far South," TJnl. A-mer.
Folk-Lore, XXXV (1922), 227. For various sects see Reid, op. cit., 274-278.
8TCampbell, J. C., The Southern Highlander and His Homeland (N.Y.,
1921), 173.
20 JOURNA OF NEGRO HISTORY
Even recently in some mountainous sections it has been considered
more important to hate the other denomination than
it is to hate sin.88
Passing now from the creed to the Negro cult, or folk
religious practises, perhaps the first trait to strike the attention
is the ebullient emotionalism of the hop, skip, jump,
and shout variety. Convulsions, trance, and similar hypnotic
phenomena are still rampant in many backward Negro
churches and much more common during the revival season
than at other periods.89 Such paroxysms on the part of the
Negro are particularly likely to be ascribed by the more
educated white folk to an African source.
Although it is true enough that emotionalism is to be
found in Africa9Oa nd in the religious life of other primitive
folk,91 it is worth observing that it was also one of the outstanding
traits of the early white camp-meetings from about
1800 on, and it seems highly probable that such demonstrations
had considerable effect on later Negro religious life.
The slaves attended these meetings in large numbers,92a nd
terms still in common use with the Negro today, such as
"mourner", " seeker",93 " exhorter" and so on, were commonly
used by the whites of that period. The time of meeting
was the interval in the late summer between the laying
by and the gathering of the main crops94 (exactly the period
most in use today for rural white and colored revival meetings),
and the general pattern of service,95 even to the
mourner's bench at the front of the auditorium, was re-
8' MacClintock, op. cit., 19.
89 For a detailed description of this Negro emotionalism see Puckett, op. Cit.,
530ff.
? Ibid., 538-539.
91 The American Indian, for instance. See Davenport, op. cit., Ch. IV.
02Reed, R. C., "A Sketch of the Religious History of the Negroes in the
South," Amer. Society of Church History, IV (1914), 185; Cartwright, op. cit.,
129; Jones, op. cit., 39; Trollope, op. cit., 140.
13 Cartwright, op. cit., 113.
"Major W. A. Love, Columbus, Miss.
95 For an excellent condensed description see Phillips, op. cit., 316-317.
RELiGIOUS FOLK-BELIEFS 21
markably like that followed by modern rural Negroes and
mountain whites.
These early white camp-meetings or protracted-meetings
were fast and furious affairs.96 Crawford estimates that
about one in every six persons fell helpless to the earth
during the Cane Ridge meeting of 1801.91 Lambert, writing
in 1806, says, "the Methodists have reduced jumping,
clapping, and shouting, to a system," and, again, at one
meeting, "they cried, bellowed and roared, like persons in
the utmost agony, begging for their lives, exclaiming a lake
of fire and brimstone was flaming before them; that a great
devil was thrusting them in; and that God must come
down."98 Cartwright declares, "I have seen more than five
hundred persons (whites) jerking at one time in my large
congregations." Even fashionable ladies were so affected.
" The first jerk or so, you would see their fine bonnets, caps,
and combs fly; and so sudden would be the jerking of the
head that their long loose hair would crack almost as loud as
a wagoner's whip."99 Much the same type of emotionalism
was found with the early churches of the West,100 among
the Latter Day Saints under the preaching of Sidney Rigdon
at Kirkland, Ohio, in 1831;101 and among the folk of
northern New York under Charles G. Finney at about the
same date.'02
Since religious emotionalism is found in Africa as well
as among the pioneer whites, it is perhaps difficult to decide
precisely whether the whites copied the essential elements
from the Negroes or whether the Negroes followed the
whites. Perhaps each made certain contributions of their
" Puckett, op. cit., 539.
97 Davenport, op. cit., 77.
'* Lambert, J., Travels Through Lower Canada and the United States of
North America in the years 1806, 1807, and 1808. (Lon., 1810), II, 46-47.
9 Cartwright, op. cit., 48-49.
100 Milburn, op. cit., 360.
101 Davenport, op. cit., 188-189.
"12Ibid., 194. For other cases of emotionalism among American whites see
Seldes, G., The Staminering Century (N.Y., 1927).
22 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HiSTORY
own, but, in general, it is the backward folk who tend most
strongly to imitate the more advanced, and not the contrary.
Furthermore, emotionalism has frequently been present
among whites who have had relatively little contact with the
Negro. Thus under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards in
New England around 1740 there was the usual routine of
shouting, fainting, convulsions and similar phenomena.'03
Exactly the same situation was found in England under
John Wesley at about the same date"04a nd in the Ulster Revival
of 1859.105 Again, religious emotionalism among the
Negroes seems not to reach such a high pitch of excitement
in those cases where tlhey have had contacts with whites
having a more sedate type of service. The West Indian
Negroes, for instance, who have been exposed to the orderly
ritual of the established church, show on the whole the
punctilious emotional restraint characteristic of their English
background.108 In view of these facts it seems more
likely that the main pattern for the expression of religious
emotionality in America was taken over by the Negroes from
the whites. In fact, Lambert, writing of a Methodist service
in Charleston in 1806, says of the Negroes in the congregation,
"In imitation of their more enlightened white brethren,
they often fall down in divine eestacies, crying, shouting,
bawling, and beating their breasts, until they are ready to
faint."'107 Such "ungovernable shouting, ecstasy, bodily
contortions, trance, catalepsy, and other results of hypnotic
suggestion" are still to be found among the mountain
whites,108 and at one of the recent Holy Roller meetings
among the Alabama whites the aisles were "filled with
groaning, rolling sinneTs, all in an agonized effort to come
through to salvation. So great were their exertions that
I' Davenport, op. cit., 108-109.
""Ibid., 150 and 154.
"06 Ibid., Ch. VII, 87-93 .
"' Rev. D. 0. Walker, Cleveland, Ohio. Dowd, op. cit., 28. Beckwith,
Martha W., Black Boadways (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1929),,162-163.
107Lamberto, p. cit., II, 415. (Italics my own).
11 Kephart, op. cit., 270.
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELIFS 23
they had to be prevented from injuring each other by their
unconscious and despairing kicks."1 '09
The seeing of visions has played an important role in
the religious behavior of the Negro from slavery times"'
to the present."' Such "assurances of salvation" observed
while "coming through" vary greatly in content. Some
('seekers" are hung over hell by their hair"12o r by a spider
web ;113 others are chased by the devil"14 or by hellhounds
;115 while still others see dead people,"16 doves,
haloes,"7 or stars walking about on legs in the daytime."8
Some of these visions seem year after year to follow more
or less regular patterns. On the Sea Islands of South Carolina
the neophyte most commonly goes to hell, is given a
bundle representing his soul, and goes on up (via wings
or ladder) to heaven."' In Gretna, Louisiana many a
"seeker" will testify to being called by a strange voice to
go on a long journey. On this journey he meets many obstacles,
but more usually a wilderness of weeds and a running
stream. The weeds disappear and he crosses the
stream dry-shod. On the other side a stranger (usually
an old man) gives him a bundle of dirty, bloody clothes to
wash. The whole stream turns red with the washing but
the clothes are finally clean and the -stranger reveals himself
as the Christ.'2' In many Negro churches such visions are
made more or less of a prerequisite to entering the fold.
"Mrs. Eleanor Risley, Ink, Ark. For other cases of emotionlism with
modern whites consult Ferguson, C. W., The Confusion of Tongues (N.Y., 1928).
1Jones, op. cit., 125-126.
Parsons, Elsie C., " Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina."
Memoirs Amer. Folk-Lore Soc., XVI (1923), 204ff.
Preston King, Bunkie, La.
1 Fannie M. Miller, Fort Valley, Ga.
Hattie Harris, Columbus, Miss.
Charity Sherrod, Columbus, Miss.
Madge Johnson, Piney Woods, Miss.
11? Grace Holmes, Atlanta, Ga.
118 Ben Rice, Columbus, Miss.
11Informants on St. Helena Island, S.C.
'12 R. Emmet Kennedy, Gretna, La. For other Negro visions see Puckett,
op. cit., 540-543.
24 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
Visions seem not to have blossomed forth quite so luxuriantly
with the earlier whites but some cases are to be
observed. James Davenport, preaching in New London,
Connecticut in 1743, "professed to have received it from
the Lord in a dream that his adherents should put away from
themselves everything in which they delighted-wigs,
cloaks and breeches, hoods, gowns, rings, jewels, and necklaces."
In England about 1740 John Wesley mentions visions
among his converts, and, under the preaching of Berridge
and Hicks, "one girl who had 'come through' after
shrieking and insensibility and violent distortion of face,
related that in the swoon she thought herself on an island
and saw Satan in a hideous form just ready to devour her,
hell all around her open to receive her and herself just about
to drop in. But just as she was dropping, the Lord appeared
between her and the gulf and would not let her
fall."121 Cartwright says that some of the early American
Methodist Episcopals "professed to fall into trances and see
visions; they would fall at meetings and sometimes at home,
and lay apparently powerless and motionless for days, sometimes
for a week at a time, without food or drink; and when
they came to they professed to have seen heaven and hell,
to have seen God, angels, the devil and the damned.
They professed to have had converse with the spirits of
the dead in heaven and hell."'122 Such dreams or visions
are still to be found with older whites in the mountain regions
of the South. "One preacher who opposed the Sabbath
school as an innovation subversive of sound doctrine,
told in a dramatic way of his vision of a roaring lion seeking
to enter the 'church-house' door, but put to flight by a beautiful
spirit robed in white." The roaring lion symbolized
the Sunday School; the beautiful figure, the spirit of the
old-time religion.128 Visions were of course common enough
with earlier European Saints and modern Holy Rollers find
21 Davenport, op. ait., 121, 152, and 172.
1' Cartwright, op. cit., 51-52.
' Campbell, op. cit., 180-181.
REiGious FOLK-BELIFS 25
visits to heaven or to hell not at all unusual occurrences.'24
An earlier study of Negro superstitions'25 seems to indicate
that those folk-beliefs which had many followers and
which were fairly uniform over large sections of the country
were usually of European origin. An example is the common
belief that it is unlucky to allow a young child to look
into a mirror. On the other hand, those beliefs restricted to
a relatively small element of the population and varying
a good deal in actual content from one locality to another
seem to have more of an African affinity. Voodooism or conjuration
is an example of this second class. In the realm
of religious folk-beliefs the phenomena of emotionalism
seems to fall into the first class, but the case is different
with religious dancing.
Although such dances as the Rocking Daniel, the Roper
Dance, the Flower Dance and others are occasionally reported
in Southern Negro churches,'26th e practise is not exceedingly
common and it seems to vary considerably in detail
from one place to another. The Sea Island "shout,"
restricted mainly to the coastal regions of South Carolina
and Georgia, appears to be rather formally organized.
Sometimes the dancers, men and women, shuffle jerkily about
in single file, or with elbows linked, in ring formation; again,
still maintaining the ring formation, each dancer executes
individual steps of his own; or again there will be simply
a couple dancing violently in something of a Charleston step
in competition, each trying to " out-dance I the other. Spirituals
such as, "I'm a-gonnuh walk an' tawk wid Jedus," are
mixed in promiscuously with such secular phrases as, "Toebone,
Mama, toe-bone, gal," repeated endlessly over and
over. Though the "shout" is held in the church or praisehouse,
and is considered a part of religious worship, there
is a strong secular turn throughout."27
1' Aikman, D., "'The Holy Rollers." Amer. MercurryX, V (1928), 186ff.
12Puckett, op. cit.
lzIbid., 543-545. Davenport, op. cit., 54-55.
1w Personal observations at St. Helena Island, S.C. See also Tucker, op. cit.,
70-71.
26 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
Descriptions of African religious dances are seldom detailed
enough to permit hard and fast conclusions about
African origins for the "shout," but it seems quite likely
that a careful first-hand study of native African sources
would reveal at least some parallels.'28 There was a sect
of religious "Jumpers" in Wales about 1740' and some
miscellaneous jumping or dancing in the early camp-meetings
with the whites,'30 but apparently all of a random,
disorganized, individual type. The Shakers had more of a
formal pattern for their dancing, but not one resembling to
any extent the Sea Island variety.'31 Bremer, writing of a
camp-meeting at Macon, Georgia, in 1850 attended by whites
and Negroes, mentions some of the Negro women "doing a
'holy dance' for one of the newly converted," in spite of the
fact that it had been forbidden by the white preachers,'32
seeming to imply that even at that time it was found with
one race and not with the other. Some of the modern white
Holy Rollers still have dancing in the church,'33b ut, again,
it is more a matter of individuals jumping about under emotional
excitement than of organized dancing.
The case of clapping the hands and patting the feet in
time to the music is also something of a puzzle. Here is a
trait very wide-spread and uniform among the Negroes.
Some Mississippi Negroes say, "Ef you doan' stamp in de
'ligion hit woan' git no furtheir dan de ceilin'. " '134 It has
been suggested that this patting of hands and feet may be
a substitute for the rattling, distinct notes of the drum, the
most common African musical instrument.'35 At any rate
this auditory rhythm of hands and feet seems not to have
been stressed in accounts dealing with the early whites. In-
Allen, op. cit., xii-vx.
12Davenport, op. cit., 142.
I Cartwright, op. cit., 48; Lambert, op. cit., II, 46-47; Seldes, op. cit., 61.
12I See Vigne, G. T., Six Months in America (Lon., 1832), II, 259ff.
122 Bremer, op. cit., 119.
I"Aikman, op. cit., 180 and 184.
" Anna C. Wilson, Rosedale, Miss.
15 Talley, T. W., Negro Folk Rhymes (N.Y. 1922), 234-239.
REJIGIOUS FOLK-BEFS 27
formants from the Ozarks'16 and from the mountains of
Tennessee and Alabama'37 mention it as being absent from
the Pentacostal services among the whites in those localities,
though these services are birds of a feather with Negro
folk religious services in many other respects. Another informant138h
as noticed some whites belonging to the Holiness
sect in the South slapping on their knees in time to the
hymns being sung, but reports that these whites frequently
attended Negro meetings. Such a seeming scarcity of cases
among white folk may argue an African origin for footpatting
as well as for dancing, although the case with the
former is not quite so clear. Perhaps another rara avis in
the brood of Negro folk religious customs should be mentioned
here-the practice of each church member taking his
offering individually to the front, rather than putting it into
a general collection-plate passed through the audience. The
custom is widespread and uniform with the Negroes, but
thus far I have run across no record of it among the whites.
Unless it be a remnant of individual sacrifice, it may be
perhaps an independent Negro development in America.
In other fields the religious folk customs of the two races
run more nearly cheek by jowl. Most primitive religions
are essentially practical in character and something of this
work-a-day efficiency lingers on in folk-religion. In Africa,
religion is utilized for such human ends as curing disease,
making rain, protecting property, causing insanity or blindness
to some enemy, collecting debts, and so on.'39 The folkreligion
of the American Negro also wears overalls. The
devil is sometimes supposed to cause disease and God to
offer the best cure.'40 Divine supervision is sought in human
gatherings from barbecues to weddings and even dances or
card games will occasionally be opened by a prayer."4'
1mVance Randolph, Pineville, Mo.
' Mrs. Eleanor Risley, Ink, Ark.
' Ben L. Burman, New York, N.Y.
'I For these and other cases see Puckett, op. cit., 259-261.
'? Ross Bryan, Whitakers, N.C.
' lRoark Bradford, New Orleans, La.
28 JOURNALO F NEGROH ISTORY
Suitors pray for success in courtship;"42 prostitutes for a
multitude of patrons;143 and various classes foretell the
future through the random opening of the Bible.14' Even
conjure doctors find use for the sacred. One in Cleveland,
Ohio, prescribed the following for an ill patient: " Get three
candles and put each one in a separate saucer. Burn them
twice daily for nine days and while they are burning utter
the following charm:
"Go, you devil.
In God we trust.
Whatsoever the misery is is blest."'145
Some pray earnestly for success in stealing, and with double
earnestness for protection against getting caught.146
There are, of course, innumerable parallels among the
whites of Europe and America. In England, for instance,
prayers or semi-prayers, have been used to cure such disorders
as toothache,147 nose-bleed, sprains or bruises, burns,
or hiccough.'48 Prayers were also made for assistance in
such minor affairs as finding lost cattle, or in the baking of
bread; and the Gospel was read in the cornfields to help the
crops.'49 In other parts of Europe the Paternostre Blanche,
which "is apparently a sort of magic-working parody of an
older Latin prayer," has been used to avoid fear of dogs,
wolves, storm, running water and fire and to frighten off evil
spirits.'50 Certain white Holy Rollers today profess to have
healed disorders ranging from dyspepsia to hydrophobia
12 Robert Bryant, New Orleans, La.
143R . Emmet Kennedy, Gretna, La.
'"Dr. H. Rodger Williams, Mobile, Ala.
1' Mrs. M. Brown, Cleveland, Ohio. For other cases see Puckett, op. cit.,
557-571.
1" Mrs. B. Jones, Houston, Texas.
147 Gomme, G. L., The Handbook of Folklore (Lon., 1890), 51-52.
148 Black, W. G., Folk-Medicine (Lon., 1883), 76-90. See also Aubrey, op.
cit., passim.
49 Ibid., 29 and 58-59.
ICarrington, E., A Note on the "White Paternoster," Folk-Lore Becord,
II (1879), 127ff.
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELIEFS 29
by religious means.'5' A white woman in the Alabama mountains,
an Apostolic, claims to have been instantaneously
healed of pellagra by prayer.'52 In Maryland a certain verse
of Scripture (Ezekiel 16:6) is read with proper additions
to cure pain.'53 In the Northern cities high school basket-ball
teams sometimes pray for success in important games,'54
while one old Southern mountaineer felt sure the Lord was
with him in his feud helping him to exterminate his
enemies'55 Faith-healing is still common enough,'56 all of
which demonstrates that the Negro is by no means alone
in giving perhaps an ultra-practical turn to his religious
faith.
Likewise the character and the technique of the ministry
is somewhat the same with folk of both races. Many rural
pastors, white or colored, are sadly in lack of education.157
Frequently with the Negro a divine call'58 or vision is regarded
as a more important qualification for preaching than
is adequate theological training.'59 An ignorant minister
will sometimes openly boast of "not having rubbed his head
against the college walls," whereupon the congregation will
respond, "Amen."'"6 Lack of education is here regarded
as an advantage, being genuine proof that the message
comes directly from the Lord Himself. One old Mississippi
Negro declared that the first requisite for a minister was
a good mule, going on to explain that almost anyone could
get a call to preach, but not everyone possessed a mule
with which to ride his circuit.'6' Some of the white clergy in
151 Aikman, op. cit., 189-190.
152M rs. Eleanor Risley, Ink, Ark.
113 Whitney, A. W. and Bullock, C. C. "Folk-Lore from Maryland,"
Memoirs Amer. Folk-Lore Society, XVIII (1925), 91.
16 Lynd and Lynd, op. cit., 248, 377 and 402.
156 Kephart, op. cit., 273. See also Campbell, op. cit., 179-180.
See Ferguson, op. cit., Ch. IX-X and passim.
17Brunner, op. cit., 63. Cartwright, op. cit., 79.
158 For examples of these "calls" see Puckett, op. cit., 532.
'69Daniel, W. A., Education of Negro Ministers (N.Y., 1925), 77.
10 Woodson, C. G., History of the Negro Church (Washington, 1921), 143.
181 Howard Snyder, Canton, Miss.
30 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
the Southern Highlands are hostile to "book larnin'" on
the grounds that "there ain't no Holy Ghost in it,' 162 while
one such minister held the opinion after three months at a
theological school, " The seminary is a good place ter go and
git rested up, but 'tain't while fer me ter go thar no more's
long as I've got good wind."'63
In regard to the matter of sermon presentation, the rural
Negro minister today really more or less sings or chants
his sermon, especially the more intense sections, throwing in
a liberal sprinkling of "ahs", "ers", thank Gods", "oh my
Lawds"', and so on, all designed to increase the emotional
effect.'64 This style of religious loquacity appears to have
been taken directly from the early white evangelists. Cartwright
says the Baptist preachers in Tennessee in 1813
''generally sung their sermons" and speaks of their "long
roll' or sing-song mode of preaching.165 The same was true
of early whites in Georgia,'66 in Virginia, 117 and with the
Hard Shell Baptists, the Friends, and the early Methodists.'
68 It is still common enough with the white Southern
mountaineers,'69 where "at times the sermon is largely a
disconnected succession of unrelated texts delivered in an
almost unintelligible sing-song which rises at intervals to a
shout, and is interspersed with occasional direct remarks
uttered in a natural tone. . . . This type of preaching .. .
is in point of fact purely conventional, and probably almost
as much a matter of tradition as the old songs and ballads.
162 Kephart, op. cit., 271.
163 MacClintock, op. cit., 21.
1 For examples of Negro sermons see Puckett, op. cit., 533-536; Macrae, D.,
The Amnericans at Home (Edinburg, 1870), II, 109-110; Odum, op. cit., 76-77;
and White, op. cit., 126-128. Although not exact in reproduction, Johnson's,
J. W., God's Trombones (N.Y., 1927) is of interest in showing the general type
and tone.
e Cartwright, op. cit., 133-134.
Olmsted, F. L., A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (N.Y., 1856),
456.
McDonald, J. J., Life in Old Virginia (Norfolk, 1907), 217.
1668Davenport, op. cit., 55.
K1Kephart, op. cit., 267. MacClintock, op. cit., 21.
RELGIOUS FOLK-BELEFS 31
Its inherent power to stir the emotions is seen in its effects
upon the audience, some of whom are usually thrown into a
state of great religiouse xcitement1.1 170
To win the attention of folk unskilled in literary pursuits
the ear must be appealed to not only by tonal devices of
rhythm, clamor, and sudden shifts in sound intensity, and
with "ahs " to break off and vocally italicize specific phrases,
but the sermon itself must be well spiced with vivid imagery
and illustrations from the familiar. With both races the
more abstract, less convincing, general appeal is frequently
forsaken for a concrete personal appeal by name to particular
sinners in the congregation.17' The Negro minister is
well known for his brilliant imagery and his apt illustrations.
One Texas minister said of Job's comforters that
they "jes' sot dar an' bat der eyes lak a 'possum in a
hail sto 'im", while the famous "Sinkiller Griffin" from the
same state referred to owls as "de stepchilluns ob ol' Bellzybug."
72 Christ is described riding a donkey with Nicodemus
"followin' behind on his foots tame as a dog."'73 When
Christ rose from the dead, " 'E rose like a gent 'man an'
systematick !"'17 The soul, "hit is w'ut makes us go. W'ut
steam is to de engine, w'ut fiah is to de stove, dat de soul
is tuh man", and the complexities of "sanctification" iron
themselves out into the simple statement, "sanctification
jes' means sot aside fuh de Lawd."''75 Cases of the same
sort could be cited by the hundreds.'76
The early white ministers also had a ready knack of
homely illustration,'77 and in preaching to the slaves they
were especially enjoined to deal much in parables; historical
170 Campbell, op. cit., 182-183.
171 Ibid. and Puckett, op. cit., 536.
172Dr. French E. Oliver, Los Angeles, Cal.
173E. C. L. Adams, Columbia, S.C.
174R. Emmet Kennedy, Gretna, La.
17' Howard Snyder, Canton, Miss.
176The eases in Johnson's, God 's Trombones (op. cit.) are typical, as is
also the song imagery in Odum and Johnson, op. cit., 38-58.
117 Cartwright, op. cit., passim.
32 JOURNALO F NEGROH ISTORY
events; biographies; and in expository preaching. "'178
Parables have, for that matter, always been a favorite method
of religious or moral instruction, particularly in the East,
and towards the end of the twelfth century the exampla or
apologues began to be used widely in Europe, embracing
not only the legends of the saints'79 but also popular beasttales
or fables which were given a moral interpretation and
used for clearing theological mists.'80 One old mountaineer
minister in America was exhorting his brethren to repentance
in a way which well illustrates both the use of homespun
illustration and the interjectional style of preaching. "Oh,
brethren," said he, "repent ye, and repent ye of your sins,
er; fur if ye don't, er, the Lord, er, he will grab yer by the
seat of yer pants, er, and hold yer over hell fire till ye holler
like a coon."'8'" Modern evengelists white and colored, still
use anecdotes to a large extent, published collections of
which are available for ministerial use.
The folk must be appealed to through the eye as well as
through the ear, and drama has been largely used for this
purpose from the pageantry of primitive folk'82 to the pantomime
of more modern ministers. In the old fashioned
"Train Sermon" of the Negroes the journey was literally
acted out in the preaching,'83 and in the "Heavenly March"
the audience was taken to Zion, stopping on the way to admire
the morning star, the evening star, the sun, moon, and
milky way. Finally the pearly gates were reached; the audience
was taken sight-seeing through the realms of heaven,
meeting and extending personal greetings to departed members
of their own church, until finally the march was ended
178 Jones, op. cit., 259.
179Vitry, J., " The Exempla. " Pub. Folk-Lore Society, XXVI (Lon.,
1890), Introduction, xvii and passim.
10Jacobs, J., Folk-Lore, I (1890), 270-271.
181 MacClintock, op. cit., 21.
182 Miller, N., The Ch,ild in Primitive Society (N.Y., 1928), 209ff. Todd,
A. J., The Primitive Family as an Educational Agency (N.Y., 1913), passim.
Sumner and Keller, op. cit., III, 2103-2111.
188 Johnson, op. cit., 1-2.
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELIFS 33
before the great white throne."8" In the same histrionic
fashion the three Hebrew children11 are marched out of
the fiery furnace.'86 Rural Negroes still enjoy their excursions
and the " Black Diamond Express Train to Hell, " with
Sin as the conductor and the devil as the engineer, stopping
at various stations to take on liars, gamblers, hypocrites,
and other sinners,187 makes an intensely dramatic appeal to
these travel-loving folk. The "Swamp Angel from Virginia,"
on the other hand, addressing Negro miners in the
region about Pittsburgh, was equally dramatic with his
"Diamond Drill" sermon, the drill being used figuratively
to test the soundness of the rock of Christian faith, with
language familiar to a mining folk being used throughout.'88
I have seen a Primitive Baptist minister in Columbus,
Georgia, act out the episode of David and Goliath even to
the extent of plunging himself full-length upon the platform
floor in imitation of the smitten Goliath.
White ministers, here and abroad, have a certain degree
of acting in connection with their religious appeals. " One
of the chief points which distinguished medieval religion
from modern was its intensely dramatic character. In an
age when there were few books, teaching was largely conveyed
through the eye. " The " Miracle-Plays, " which presented
to the people various episodes of the Bible in pageant
form, illustrate well this type of instruction. Something of
the nature of the festivities may be inferred from a curious
list of properties, apparently belonging to the Easter celebrations
in one of the English churches in 1470, which included
among other things:
"Item, Thereto longeth Heaven, made of timber and
stained clothes.
I Johnson, J. W., The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Boston,
1912), 173.
'Daniel: 3.
'm McKinney, Louise R., The Religious Education of the Negro. Unpublished
Master's Thesis (Oberlin College, 1926), 18.
Roark Bradford, New Orleans, La.
'I George Brown, Cleveland, Ohio.
34 JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
"Item, Hell, made of timber and ironwork thereto, with
Divels to the number of 13.
"Item, 4 payr of Angels wings for 4 Angels, made of
timber and well painted.
"Item, the Holy Ghosht coming out of Heaven into the
sepulchre."'89 Finney, preaching in New York about 1830,
"pictured the devil as a huntsman with a long bow, treading
the forest paths of the nether world," and acted out certain
details of this stygian chase.190 Holy Rollers in the mountains
of Tennessee demonstrate the power of faith, not by
empty words, but by taking up and stroking a live rattlesnake
in full view of the audience. During such a performance
one minister was bitten by a copperhead and died.
The congregation did not lose faith, but said simply, "He
war too brash, an' tried to handle ther snake whin he wuz
not under ther Power."'' Exaggerated acrobatics of the
Billy Sunday type and Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson's
really theatrical stage settings'92 testify that the religious
appeal of dramatic action is by no means extinct among
modern whites.
It seems, then, that the rural Negro is a very conservative
factor in American folk life today, reproducing in his religious
affairs many traits common to European and American
whites of generations ago, some of which traits are still
retained by white folk, more commonly in extremely isolated
mountain sections. The broad creed, or religious belief, of
the Negroes follows after that of the whites, with indications
of a greater tendency towards the literal acceptance of such
items as a real River Jordan to be crossed after death or
an actual Old Ship of Zion or Gospel Train. The devil is
more real to Negro folk today than to the average rural
white man, but he follows closely the old European pattern.
:89Rouse, W. H. D., "Religious Tableaux in Italian Churches," Folk-Lore,
V (1894), 4ff.
'"Davenport, op. cit., 200.
"' Mrs. Eleanor Risley, Ink, Ark.
192 Comstock, S., " Aimee Semple McPherson. " Reader's Digest, VI (1928),
531ff.
RELIGIOUS FOLK-BELIFS 35
With both races the hereafter is often interpreted in terms
of the here-and-now, and, with both, petty tabooes, gross immorality,
and sectarianism is to some extent to be found.
In matters of the Negro cult, or religious practise, such
items as emotionalism, religious visions, practical applications
of Christianity, and the general type of ministry and
style and technique of preaching, were commonplaces with
the earlier whites and persist with some of the modern
whites. Other details, including religious dancing, footpatting,
and the taking of contributions to the front, offer
greater possibilities of African origins or of independent
Negro developments in America. Final conclusions are difficult
to establish until exhaustive first-hand surveys have
been made of Negro folk life and custom, not only in the
United States, but also in West Africa, in the West Indies,
and in South America.
In the United States these ancient beliefs of the Negro
are rapidly disappearing under the influence of education
and general racial advancement. Almost daily many valuable
items of folklore are lost forever for want of a recorder.
Some are prone to feel that such "old fogism" had best be
forgotten in the interest of race pride,'93b ut such individuals
should recall that true pride in race is not demonstrated by
the ignoring of the products of the peasant mind, but by
the careful preservation of these mental cornerstones upon
which group progress has been built. Once the value of such
collections is realized the social scientist in backward, isolated
communities will no longer deplore the absence of
library facilities or the triviality of local history, for almost
invariably that group which is the least articulate as regards
the written word is the most articulate as regards oral traditions
and folk-beliefs. NEWBELLN.PUCKETT
WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
CLEVELAND, OHIO
-------------------
1. Delivered at the annual meeting of the Association in Cleveland, Ohio, October 28, 1930.
2. Almost 75 per cent of all Southern Negroes according to the 1920 census.
3. Lundquist, G. A. and Carver, T. N., Principles of Bural Boodology (N.Y., 1927), 405-406.
See Puckett, N. N., Race Pride and Folklore. Opportunity, IV (1926),
82-85.