Bahama songs and stories : a contribution to folk-lore / by Charles L. Edwards.

  • Edwards, Charles Lincoln, 1863-1937.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bahama songs and stories : a contribution to folk-lore / by Charles L. Edwards. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    130/148 (page 106)
    “ Oh, you will never speak to us any more, We cannot see your face any more, You will never walk with us again. You will never settle our palavers for us.” (Cf. LaingS (pp. 233, 237), Waitz^ (pp. 240,243) and Endemann® (PP- 57, 63).) Although the words of these primitive compositions are often senseless, as sometimes happens in the songs of the Southern negroes of the United States, yet they are just as freely applauded. The best-developed music is that of Dahomey, which has been brought to complete accord; and that of Aschanti, which moves in fifths and octaves, but seldom in thirds. Now, turning to America, we find, in the many articles and books written about the negro, a large number of references to his music, of which we can only give those most pertinent. Stedman ^ (pp. 258-290) describes the negroes of Guinea as found in slavery in Surinam Guiana. The musical instruments, the dance, and vocal music had suffered scarcely any modification from American envi- ronment. This, no doubt, was due to the constant infusion of native Africans, as at that time the importation of slaves was unlimited. In a defence of slavery published at Paris in 1802-3, “ancient counsellor and colonist of San Domingo,” signing himself V. D. C.,^^ says of the negroes (p. 331) : “They are so musically inclined that all their pleasure consists in the pipe and dance; nay, negroes have performed in the oratorios of St. Domingo. Their songs and tales run generally on love, either in a lamentation, a hymn, or a satire, and they will join in the choruses with the leader.” Here, too, is a near approach to primitive African conditions. Cable describes the dances of the Creole slaves, which before 1843 were celebrated on the Sabbath afternoons of summer, in Place Congo, New Orleans. The instruments of the orchestra were primitive African drums and wooden horns, the marimbabrett. Pan’s pipes, gourds filled with pebbles or grains of corn, and the jawbones of oxen or horses, over the teeth of which metal keys were rattled. These native African instruments were reinforced by triangles, jews’- harps, and banjos, which are always associated with the American negro. Cable agrees with Harris, however, that the favorite musical instrument of the Southern negro is not the banjo, but the fiddle. These dances were essentially of primitive African nature, with survivals from many different tribes represented. As they were gradually suppressed, there arose instead the “shout” (described farther on), and the various forms, often complicated, of the shuffle and the double shuffle, with the natural addition of the various dances in vogue with the white people.