CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library ML 3556.K92 Afro-American !oI||SOVSI?mimiiiuLi1iiii« 3 1924 021 753 698 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021753698 Afro- American Folksongs A STUDY IN RACIAL AND NATIONAL MUSIC BY Henry Edward Krehbiel Author of "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "How to Listen to Music," "Music and Manners in the Classical Period," "Chapters of Opera," "A Book OF Operas," "The Pianoforte and its Music," etc., etc. G. SCHIRMER NEW YORK AND LONDON A.2.«^|^83 Copyright, 1914, by G. SCHIRMER 24289 TO MY FRIEND HORATIO W. PARKER, Mus. Doc. Professor of Music at Yale University PREFACE This book was written with the purpose of bringing a species of folksong into the field of scientific observation and presenting it as fit material for artistic treatment. It is a continuation of a branch of musical study for which the foundation was laid more than a decade ago in a series of essays with bibliographical addenda printed in the New York "Tribune," of which journal the author has been the musical reviewer for more than thirty years. The general subject of those articles was folksongs and their relation to national schools of composition. It had come to the writer's knowledge that the articles had been clipped from the newspaper, placed in envelopes and indexed in several public libraries, and many requests came to him from li- brarians and students that they be republished in book- form. This advice could not be acted upon because the articles were mere outlines, gi-ound-plans, suggestions and guides to the larger work or works which the author hoped would the be the result of his instigation. Folksong literature has grown considerably since then, especially in Europe, but the subject of paramount interest to the people of the United States has practically been ignored. The songs created by the negroes while they were slaves on the plantations of the South have cried out in vain for scientific study, though "ragtime" tunes, which are their debased offspring, have seized upon the fancy of the civilized world. This popularity may be deplorable, but it serves at least to prove that a marvellous potency lies in the characteristic rhythmical element of the slave songs. Would not a wider and truer knowledge of their other characteristics as well lead to the creation of a better art than that which tickles the ears and stimulates the feet of the pleasure-seekers of London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna even more than it does those of New York? The charm of the Afro-American songs has been widely recognized, but no musical savant has yet come to analyze them. Their two most obvious elements only have been copied by composers and dance-makers, who have wished [ V ] PREFACE to imitate them. These elements are the rhythmical propulsion which comes from the initial syncopation com- mon to the bulk of them (the "snap" or "catch" which in an exaggerated form lies at the basis of "ragtime") and the frequent use of the five-tone or pentatonic scale. But there is much more that is characteristic in this body of melody, and this "more" has been neglected because it has not been uncovered to the artistic world. There has been no study of it outside of the author's introduction to the subject printed years ago and a few comments, called forth by transient phenomena, in the "Tribune" news- paper in the course of the last generation. This does not mean that the world has kept silent on the subject. On the contrary, there has been anything but a dearth of newspaper and platform talk about songs which the negroes sang in America when they were slaves, but most of it has revolved around the questions whether or not the songs were original creations of these native blacks, whether or not they were entitled to be called American and whether or not they were worthy of consideration as foundation elements for a school of American composition. The greater part of what has been written was the result of an agitation which followed Dr. Antonin Dvorak's efforts to direct the attention of American composers to the beauty and efHciency of the material which these melodies contained for treatment in the higher artistic forms. Dr. Dvorak's method was eminently practical; he composed a symphony, string quartet and string quin- tet in which he utilized characteristic elements which he had discovered in the songs of the negroes which had come to his notice while he was a resident of New York. To the symphony he gave a title — "From the New World" — which measurably disclosed his purpose; concerning the source of his inspiration for the chamber compositions he said nothing, leaving it to be discovered, as it easily was, from the spirit, or feeling, of the music and the character of its melodic and rhythmic idioms. The eminent com- poser's'aims, as well as his deed, were widely misunderstood at the time, and, for that matter, still are. They called [ vi ] • PREFACE out a clamor from one class of critics which disclosed noth- ing so much as their want of intelligent discrimination unless it was their ungenerous and illiberal attitude toward a body of American citizens to whom at the least must be credited the creation of a species of song in which an un- deniably great composer had recognized artistic poten- tialities thitherto neglected, if not unsuspected, in the land of its origin. While the critics quarrelled, however, a group of American musicians acted on Dr. Dvorak's sug- gestion, and music in the serious, artistic forms, racy of the soil from which the slave songs had sprung, was produced by George W. Chadwick, Henry Schoenberg, Edward R. Kroeger and others. It was thus that the question of a possible folksong basis for a school of composition which the world would recog- nize as distinctive, even national, was brought upon the carpet. With that question I am not concerned now. My immediate concern is to outline the course and method to be pursued in the investigations which I have under- taken. Primarily, the study will be directed to the music of the songs and an attempt be made by comparative analysis to discover the distinctive idioms of that music, trace their origins and discuss their correspondences with characteristic elements of other folk-melodies, and also their differences. The burden is to be laid upon the music. The poetry of the songs has been discussed amply and well, never so amply or so well as when they were first brought to the attention of the world by a group of enthusiastic laborers in the cause of the freedmen during the War of the Re- bellion. Though foreign travellers had written enthusias- tically about the singing of the slaves on the Southern plantations long before, and though the so-called negro minstrels had provided an admired form of entertainment based on the songs and dances of the blacks which won unexampled popularity far beyond the confines of the United States, the descriptions were vague and general, the sophistication so great, that it may be said that really nothing was done to make the specific beauties of the unique [ vii ] PREFACE * songs of the plantations known until Miss McKim wrote a letter about them to Dwight's "Journal of Music," which was printed under the date of November 8, 1862. In August, 1863, H. G. Spaulding contributed some songs to "The Continental Monthly," together with an interest- ing account of how they were sung and the influence which they exerted upon the singers. In "The Atlantic Monthly" for June, 1867, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson printed the texts of a large number of songs and acconi- panied them with so sympathetic and yet keen an analysis of their psychology and structure that he left practically nothing for his successors to say on the subject. Booker T. Washington and W. E. Burghardt DuBois have only been able to echo him in strains of higher rhapsody. Much use was made of these articles by William Francis Allen in the preface of the first collection of the songs, entitled "Slave Songs of the United States,/' published by A. Simp- son & Co. in New York in 1867. The observations of these writers and a few others make up practically the entire sum of what it is essential to know about the social, literary and psychological side of the folksongs of the American negroes. None of these early collectors had more than a smattering of musical knowledge, and none of them attempted to subject the melodies of the songs to analytical study. Outside of the cursory and fragmentary notices of "The Tribune's" music reviewer called out by a few performances of the songs and the appearance of the collections which followed a popularization of the songs by the singing of the Jubilee Singers of the Fisk University and other choirs from the schools established for the higher education of the eman- cipated blacks, nothing of even a quasi-scientific character touching the melodies appeared during the last generation until M. Julien Tiersot, the distinguished librarian of the Paris Conservatory, published, a monograph^ (first in the Journal of the International Music Society, afterward sep- arately) giving the results of his investigations into the folk- music of Canada and the United States made during a * "La Musique chez les Peupks indigenes de I'Amerique du Nord — Etats- Unis et Canada." Paris, Librairie Fischbacher; Leipsic and New York, Breit- kopf & Hartel. [ viii ] PREFACE visit to America in the winter and spring of 1905- 1906. A few months ago a book entitled "Musik, Tanz und Dichtung bei den Kreolen Amerikas," by Albert Frie- denthal, was published in Berlin. M.Tiersot concerned him- self chiefly with the Indians, though he made some keen observations on the music of the black Creoles of Louisi- ana, and glanced also at the slave songs, for which he formed a sincere admiration; the German folklorist treated of negro music only as he found it influencing the dances of the people of Mexico, Central America, South America and the West Indies. The writer of this book, therefore, had to do the work of a pioneer, and as such will be satisfied if he shall succeed in making a clearing in which successors abler than he shall work hereafter. The scope of my inquiry and the method which I have pursued may be set forth as follows: 1. First of all it shall be detennined what are folksongs, and whether or not the songs in question conform to a scientific definition in respect of their origin, their melodic and rhythmical characteristics and their psychology. 2. The question, "Are they American?" shall be answered. 3. Their intervallic, rhythmical and structural elements will be inquired into and an effort be made to show that, while their combination into songs took place in this country, the essential elements came from Africa; in other words, that, while some of the material is foreign, the product is native; and, if native, then American. 4. An effort will be made to disprove the theory which has been frequently advanced that the songs are not original creations of the slaves, but only the fruit of the negro's innate faculty for imitation. It will be shown that some of the melodies have peculiarities of scale and structure which could not possibly have been copied from the music which the blacks were privileged to hear on the plantations or anywhere else during the period of slavery. Correspondence will be disclosed, however, between these peculiarities and elements observed by travellers in African countries. 5. This will necessitate an excursion into the field of primitive African music and also into the philosophy underlying the conservation of savage music. Does it follow that, because the American negroes have forgotten the language of their savage ancestors, they have also forgotten all of their music? May relics of that music not remain in a subconscious memory? 6. The influences of the music of the dominant peoples with whom the slaves were brought into contact upon the rude art of the latter will have to be looked into and also the reciprocal effect upon each other; and thus the character and nature of the hybrid art found in the Creole songs and dances of Louisiana will be disclosed. To make the exposition and arrangement plain, I shall illustrate them by musical examples, African music will [ ix ] PREFACE be brought forward to show the sources of idioms which have come over into the folksongs created by negroes in America; and the effect of these idioms will be demonstrated by specimens of song collected in the former slave States, the Bahamas and Martinique. Though for scientific reasons I should have preferred to present the melodies of these songs without embellishment of any sort, I have yielded to a desire to make their peculiar beauty and use- fulness known to a wide circle of amateurs, and presented them in arrangements suitable for performance under ar- tistic conditions. For these arrangements I am deeply beholden to Henry T. Burleigh, Arthur Mees, Henry Holden Huss and John A. Van Broekhoven. An obligation of gratitude is also acknowledged to Mr. Ogden Mills Reid, Editor of "The New York Tribune," for his consent to the reprinting of the essays ; to Mr. George W. Cable and The Century Company for permission to use some of the material in two of the former's essays on Creole Songs and Dances published in 1886 in "The Century Magazine;" and to Professor Charles L. Edwards, the American Folk-Lore Society, Miss Emily Hallowell and Harper & Brothers for like privileges. H. E. Krehbiel. Blue Hill, Me. Summer of 191 3. Preface CONTENTS PAGE 1 Chapter I. Folksongs in General ^ 1 The Characteristics of FolksongC=rFyksongslDe--^ -fihed;^5Creative Influences. — Folksong and Suffering. ^==M6aes, Rhythms and Scales. — Russian and Finnish Music. — Persistency of Type. — Music and Racial Ties. — Britons and Bretons. Chapter II. Songs of the American Slaves 11 Originality of the Afro-American Folksongs.^ — Dr. Wallaschek and His Contentiom. — Extent of the_ Imi- tation in the Songs. — Allusions to Slavery.'— Hovr^e So^^^iwf — Are They Entitled to be GalledTAmeri- can. — ^The Negro in American History. Chapter ni. Religious Character of the Songs 26 The Paucity of Secular Songs among the Slaves. — Campmeetings, "Spirituals" and "Shouts." — Work- Songs of the Fields and Rivers. — Lafcadio Hearn and Negro Music. — African Relics and Voodoo Ceremonies. Chapter IV. Modal Characteristics of the Songs 42 An Analysis of Half a Thousand Negro Songs. — Division as to Modes. — Overwhelming Prevalence of Major. — Psychology of the Phenomenon. — Music as a Stimulus to Work. — Songs of the Fieldhands and Rowers. Chapter V. Music Among the Africans 56 The Many and Varied Kinds of African Slaves. — Not All Negroes. — Their Aptitude and Love for Music. — Knowledge and Use of Harmony. — Dahomans at Chicago. — Rhythm and Drumming. — ^African Instru- ments. Chapter VI. Variations from the Major Scale 70 Peculiarities of Negro Singing. — Vagueness of Pitch in Certain Intervals. — Fractional Tones in Primitive Music. — ^The Pentatonic Scale. — The Flat Seventh. — Harmonization of Negro Melodies. Chapter VII. Minor Variations and Characteristic Rh3rthms 83 Vagaries in the Minor Scale. — ^The Sharp Sixth. — Orientalism.— The "Scotch" Snap.— A Note on the Tango Dance. — Even and Uneven Measures. — ^Ad- justing Words and Music. [ xi ] CONTENTS— Continued Chapter VIII. Structural Features of the Poems. Funeral Music 100 Improvization. — Solo and Choral Refrain. — Strange Funeral Customs. — Their Savage Prototypes. — Mes- sages to the Dead. — Graveyard Songs of the American Slaves. Chapter IX. Dances of the American Negroes 112 Creole Music. — ^The Effect of Spanish Influences. — Obscenity of Native African Dances. — Relics in the Antilles. — ^The Habanera. — Dance-Tunes from Mar- tinique. Chapter X. Songs of the Black Creoles 127 The Language of the Afro-American Folksongs. — Phonetic Changes in English. — Grammar of the Creole Patois. — Making French Compact and Musi- cal. — Dr. Mercier's Pamphlet. — Creole Love-Songs. Chapter XI. Satirical Songs of the Creoles 140 A Classification of Slave Songs. — ^The Use of Music in Satire. — African Minstrels. — The Carnival in Mar- tinique. — West Indian Pillards. — Old Boscoyo's Song in New Orleans. — Conclusion. — An American School of Composition. Appendix of Ten Characteristic Songs 157 Index 171 I zii ] CHAPTER I FOLKSONGS IN GENERAL The Characteristics of Folksongs — Folksongs De- fined — Creative Influences — Folksong and Suffering — Modes, Rhythms and Scales — Russian and Finnish Music — Persistency of Type — Music and Racial Ties — Britons and Bretons The purpose of this book Is to study the origin and nature of what its title calls Afro-American Folksongs. To fore- fend, as far as it is possible to do so, against misconceptions it will be well to have an understanding at the outset as to terms and aims. It is essential, not only to an under- standing of the argument but also to a necessary limitation of the scope of the investigation, that the term "folksong" be defined. The definition must not include too much lest, at the last, it prove too compass to little. So as far as possible the method of presentation must be rational and scientific rather than rhetorical and sentimental, and the argument be directed straight and unswervingly toward the establishment of facts concerning a single and distinct body of song, regardless of any other body even though the latter be closely related or actually derived from the former. It is very essential that the word folksong be understood as having as distinctive a meaning as "folklore," "myth," "legend" or "Mdrchen" — which last word, for the sake of accuracy, English folklorists have been forced to borrow from the Germans, It will also be necessary in this ex- position to appeal to the Germans to enforce a distinction which is ignored or set aside by the majority of English writers on folksong — popular writers, that is. The Germans who write accurately on the subject call what I would have understood to be folksong das Folkslied; for a larger body of song, which has community of characteristics with the folksong but is not of it, they have the term volksthum- [ 1 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS liches Lied. This body of song embraces all vocal com- positions which have come to be so fondly liked, loved, admired by the people that they have become a native and na'ive popular utterance. So generous, indeed, is the term that it embraces not only the simple songs based on genuine folksong-texts which musicians have set to music, and the large number of artistic compositions which imi- tate the sentiment and structure of folksongs, but also many lyrics made with conscious art by eminent composers. In the family circles of Germany and at popular gatherings one may hear not only Silcher's setting of "Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz" (which is music set by an artist to a folkpoem), but the same composer's melody to "Ich weiss nicht, was soil es bedeuten" (an artificial folkpoem by Heine), Weber's "Wir winden dir den Jungfernkranz" and Schubert's "Am Brunnen vor dem Thore" (which are ar- tistic products in conception and execution). The English term "popular song" might well and properly be used as a synonym for the German term and be applied to the same kind of songs in English without prejudice to the scientific "folksong," were it not for its degraded and de- grading association with the vulgar music hall ditties. These ditties, which a wise Providence has cursed with the blessing of transientness, have companionship in this study with the so-called "coon songs" and "ragtime tunes" in which some of the elements of the Afro-American folksongs are employed. Only because I cannot see.how a paraphrase would im- prove it in respect of sententiousness, clearness or compre- hensiveness, I make use of a definition which I wrote a decade ago for "The Musical Guide" — a dictionary of terms and much else edited by Rupert Hughes and pub- lished by McClure, Phillips' &- Go. : Folksong is not popular song in the sense in which the word is most fre- quently used, but the song of the folk; not only the song admired of the people but, in a strict sense, the song created by the people. It is a body of poetry Mid music which has come into existence without the influence of conscious art as a spontaneous utterance, filled with characteristic expression of the feelings of a people. Such songs are marked by certain peculiarities of rhythm fomi and melody which are traceable, more or less clearly, to racial (or national) temperament, modes of life, climatic and political conditions, geographical [ 2 ] ^v FOLKSONGS IN GENERAL environment and language. Some of these elements, the spiritual, are elusive, but others can be determined and classified. Though the present purposes are almost purely musical, it will be well to consider that in the folksongs of the world there lies a body of evidence of great value in the study of many things which enter into the science of ethnology, such as racial relations, primitive modes of thought, ancient customs and ancient religions. On this point something shall be said later. X Folksongs a re echoes of the heart-b eats of the vast folk^ and injthem ^re~preserveJTeelings, bdiefs_and habits of vasFantiq uity. "Hot only in the wof3s^ which have almost^ monopolized folksong study thus far,, but also in music, and perhaps more trutEfuUy in the_music than in the words. V Music cannot 'lie7^oFtIiereason that the things which are at its base, the things without which it could not be, are un- conscious, unvolitional human products. We act on a recognition of this fact when we judge of the feelings of one with whom we are conversing not so much by what he says to us as by the manner in which he says it. The feel- ings which sway him publish themselves in the pitch, dynamic intensity and timbre of his voice. Try as we may, if we are powerfully moved we cannot conceal the fact so we open our mouths for utterance. Involuntarily the muscles of the vocal organs contract or relax in obedi- ence to an emotional stimulus, and the drama of feeling playing on the hidden stage of our hearts is betrayed by the tones which we utter. These tones, without purpose on our part, have become endowed with the qualities of gravity and acuteness (pitch), loudness and softness (dynamics), and emotional color (timbre), and out of the union and moaulation of these elements comes expressive melody. Herbert Spencer has formulated the law: "Feel- ings are muscular stimuli" and "Variations of voice are the physiological results of variations of feeling." In this lies the simple explanation of the inherent truthfulness and expressiveness of the music which a folk creates for itself. . "The folksong composes itself" {Das Volkslied dichtet sick selbst), said Grimm. This''is true despite the obvious [ 3 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS fact that every folksong must once have been the utterance of an individual. What is meant by the axiom is that the creator of the folksong is an unindividualized representative of his people, himself a folk-product. His idioms are taken off the tongue of the people; his subjects are the things which make for the joy and sorrow of the people, and once his song is gone out into the world his identity as its creator is swallowed up in that of the people. Not only is his name forgotten, but his song enters at once upon a series of transformations, which (such is the puissant genius of the people) adapt it to varying circumstances of time and place without loss to its vital loveliness. The creator of a folksong as an individual is a passing phenomenon — like a wave of the sea. His potentiality is racial or national, not personal, and for that reason it is enduring, not ephe- meral. As a necessary corollary it follows that the music of the folksong reflects the inner life of the people that gave it birth, and that its characteristics, like the people's physical and mental habits, occupations, methods and feelings are the product of environment, as set forth in the de;6nition. s. If Herbert Spencer's physiological analysis of the originS of melody is correct, the finest, because the truest, the jEPSt intimate, folk-music is that provoked by suffering/ The popular mind does not always think so of music. Its attitude is reflected in the phrase: "Oh, I'm so happy I could sing all day!" But do we sing when we are happy? Song, it is true, is a natural expression of the care-free and light-hearted; but it is oftener an expression of a superficial than a profound feeling. We leap, run, toss our arms, indulge in physical action when in an ecstasy of joy; in sorrow we sit motionless, but, oftener than we are our- selves conscious of the fact, we seek comfort in song. In the popular nomenclature of music the symbols of gayety and gravity are the major and minor moods. It is a broad characterization, and not strictly correct from a scientific point of view; but it serves to point a general rule, the exceptions to which (the Afro-American folk- songs forms one of them) invite interesting speculation. [ 4 ] FOLKSONGS IN GENERAL Comparative analysis of the folksongs of widely distri- buted countries has shown that some peoples are predis- posed toward the minor mode, and in some cases explana- tions of the fact can be found in the geographical, climatic or political conditions under which these peoples have lived in the past or are living now. As a general rule, it will be found that the peoples of high latitudes use the minor mode rather than the major, A study of one hundred songs from every one of twenty-two countries made by Carl Engel,^ discloses that of the six most pre- dominantly minor countries of Europe five were the most northern ones, his figures being as follows : Major Minor Mixed Sweden 14 80 6 Russia 3S 52 13 Norway 40 56 4 Wallachia ,. 40 52 8 Denmark 47 52 1 Finland... 58 SO 2 Melancholy is thus seen to be the characteristic note of Scandinavian music, which reflects the gloom of the fjords and forests and fearful winters of the northern peninsula, where nature makes human life a struggle and death an ever-present though not necessarily terrifying contemplation. That geographical and climatic conditions are not the only determining factors in the choice of modes is evident, however, from the case of Russia, which extends over nearly 30 degrees of latitude and has so great a variety of climate that the statement that the mean temperature varies from 32 degrees Fahrenheit at Archangel to 58 de- grees at Kutais in the Caucasus, conveys only an imperfect notion of the climatic variability of the country. Yet the minor mode is dominant even in the Ukraine. If an attempt were made, therefore, to divide Europe into major and minor by drawing a line across the map from west to east along the parallel of the 50th degree of latitude the rule would become inoperative as soon as the Russian border was reached. Thence the isomodal line would take a sharp southward trend of no less than 15 1 See his "Introduction to the Study of National Music." [ s ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS degrees. All Russia is minor; and Russian folksong, I am prone to think, is the most moving and beautiful folk-music in the world. Other influences than the ordinary are therefore at work here, and their discovery need not detain the reader's mind long. Suffering is suffering, whether it be physical or spiritual, whether it spring from the unfriendliness of nature or the harshness of political and social conditions. While Russian folksong is thus weighted with sorrow, Russian folkdance is singularly energetic and boisterous. This ' would seem to present a paradox, but the reason becomes plain when it is remembered that a measured and decorous mode of popular amusement is the normal ex- pression of equable popular life, while wild and desperate gayety is frequently the reaction from suffering. There is a gayety of despair as well as of contentment and happi- ness. Read this from Dr. Norman McLeod's "Note Book" :"My father once saw some emigrants from Lochaber dancing on the deck of an emigrant ship and weeping their eyes out! This feeling is the mother of Irish music. It expresses the struggle of a buoyant, merry heart to get quit of thoughts that often lie too deep for tears. It is the music of an oppressed, conquered, but deeply feeling, im- pressible, fanciful and generous people. It is for the harp in Tara's halls!" The rhythms of folksongs may be said to be primarily the product of folkdances, but as these, as a rule, are in- spired by the songs which are sung for their regulation, it follows that there is also a verbal basis for rhythms. Whether or not this is true of the rhythmical elements which have entered into Afro-American folksongs cannot be said, for want of knowledge of the languages spoken by the peoples (not people, for they were many and of many kinds) who were brought from Africa to America as slaves. An analogy for the "snap," which is the most pervasive element in the music which came from the Southern plan- tations (the idiom which has been degraded into "rag- time"), is found in the folk-music of the Magyars of Hun- gary; and there it is indubitably a' product of the poems. [ 6 ] FOLKSONGS IN GENERAL Intervallic peculiarities are more difficult to explain than rhythmic, and are in greater likelihood survivals of primi- tive elements. Despite its widespread use, the diatonic scale is an artistic or scientific evolution, not an inspiration or a discovery in the natural world of sound; and though it may have existed in primitive music before it became the basis of an art, there was no uniformity in its use. The most idiomatic music of the Finns, who are an older race in the northern European peninsula than any of the Ger- manic tribes which are their rulers, is confined to the first five tones of the minor scale; old Irish and Scotch songs share the familiar pentatonic scale (by which I mean the modern diatonic series omitting the fourth and seventh steps) with the popular music of China, Japan, Slam and other countries. It is of frequent occurrence in the melodies of the American negroes, and found not infrequently in those of North American Indians; it is probably the oldest tonal system in the world and the most widely dispersed. Cesar Cui remarks the prevalence in Russia of two major scales, one without the fourth and the other without the third and seventh. Hungarian melodies employ largely the interval called an augmented, or superfluous, second, which is composed of three semitones. The Magyars are Scythians and racially related to the Finns and Turks, and not to their neighbors, the Poles and Russians; yet the same peculiarity is found in Slavic music — In the songs of the Serbs, Bulgarians, Montenegrins and all the other mixed peoples that inhabit the Balkan Peninsula. The idiom is Oriental and a marked feature of the popular and synagogal music of the Jews. Facts like these indicate the possibility of employing folksong as an aid in the determination of ethnological and ethnographical questions; for its elements have a marvellous tenacity of life. Let this be remembered when the specific study of American folksong is attempted. The persistency of a type of song in spite of a change of environment of sufficient influence to modify the civilization of a people has a convincing illustration in Finland. Though the Finns have mixed with their Germanic neighbors for many [ 7 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS centuries, there was originally no affinity of race between them and their conquerors. Their origin is in doubt, but it is supposed that they are Mongols and therefore relatives of the Magyars. The influence of the Swedes uppn their culture began in the twelfth century, when Christianity was forced upon them, and it has never ceased, though Sweden was compelled by the allied powers to cede Finland to Russia in 1809. Now Russia, though she signed a solemn pact to permit the liberty of language, education and religion to the Finns, is engaged in stamping out the last vestiges of nationalism in the country so beautifully called Suomi by its people. The active cultivation of music as an art in the modern sense began in Finland toward the close of the eighteenth century, and the composers, directors and teachers were either Germans or Scandinavians educated in Germany. The artistic music of the Finns, therefore, is identified as closely as possible with that of the Scandinavian people, though it has of late received something of a Russian im- press; but the vigor and power of primitive influences is attested by the unmistakable elements in the Finnish folksongs. The ancient Finns had the Northern love for music, and their legendary Orpheus was even a more picturesque and potent theurgist than the Greek. His name was Wainamoinen, and when he — tuned his lyre with pleasing woe, Rivers forgot to run, and winds to blow; While listening forests covered, as he played, The soft musician in a moving shade. To Wainamoinen was attributed the invention of the kantele, a harp which originally had five strings tuned to the notes which, as has been said, are the basis of the Finnish songs, especially those called runo songs, which are still sung. The five-four time which modern composers are now affecting (as is seen in the second movement of Tschaikowsky's "Pathetic" symphony) is an element of the meter of the national Finnish epic, the "Kalevala," whence Longfellow borrowed it for his American epic, "Hiawatha." It, too, is found in many runo songs. [ 8 ] FOLKSONGS IN GENERAL Music is a marvellous conservator. One reason of this is that it is the most efficient of all memory-helps. Another is that among primitive peoples all over the world music became associated with religious worship at so early a period in the development of religion that it acquired even a greater sanctity than words or eucharistic posturing. So the early secular song, as well as the early sacred, is sometimes preserved long after its meaning is forgotten. In this particular, too, folksong becomes an adjunct to ethnology. A striking story is told of how in the middle of the eighteenth century a folksong established fraternal relations between two peoples who had forgotten for cen- turies that they were of one blood. The tale comes from a French book,' but is thus related in an essay on "Some Breton Folksongs," published by Theodore Bacon in "The Atlantic Monthly" for November, 1892: In September, 1758, an English force effected a descent upon the Breton coast, at Saint-Cast. A company of Lower Bretons, from the neighborhood of Treguire and Saint-Pol do Leon, was marching against a detachment of Welsh mountaineers, which was coming briskly forward singing a national air, when all at once the Bretons of the French army stopped short in amazement. The air their enemies were singing was one which every day may be heard sounding over the hearths of Brittany. "Electrified," says the historian, grandson himself of an eyewitness, "by accents which spoke to their hearts, they gave way to a sudden enthusiasm, and joined in the same patriotic refrain. The Welsh, in their turn, stood motionless in their ranks. On both sides officers gave the command to fire; but it was in the same language, and the soldiers stood as if petrified. This hesitation continued, however, but a moment: a common emotion was too strong for discipline; the weapons fell from their hands, and the descendants from the ancient Celts renewed upon the battlefield the fraternal ties which had formerly united their fathers." M. Th. Hersart de la Villemarque, in his "Barzaz- Breiz," a collection of Breton folksongs, prints two ballads, » "Combat de Saint-Cast, par M. de Saint-Pern Couelan," 1836. [ 9 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS in one of which the battle of Saint-Cast is celebrated, to- gether with two other repulses of English invaders of the Breton coast (at Camaret, in i486, and Guidel, in 1694). Concerning the encounter at Saint-Cast Villemarque ad- vances the theory that the singers were the French sol- diers, and that the reason why the Welshmen stopped in amazement was that they suspected treachery when they heard their own song. The point is of little consequence, but not so the melody which Villemarque prints as that to which the old ballad is sung. This, as it appears in "Bar- zaz-Breiz," is, note for note, the Welsh tune known as "Captain Morgan's March." The same melody is sung to another ballad describing the siege of Guingamp, which took place in 1488. Now, according to Welsh legend, the Morgan whose name is preserved in the ancient Rhyfel- gyrch Cadpen Morgan was "Captain of the Glamorganshire men, about the year 1294, who gallantly defended his country from the incursion of the Saxons and who dis- possessed the Earl of Gloucester of those lands which had formerly been taken from Morgan's forefathers," If the air is as old as that it may well be older still, and, indeed, may have been carried into ancient Armorica by the immi- grants from Great Britain who crossed the Channel in large numbers in the fifth and sixth centuries. Other relics of their earlier home besides those of language survive among the people of lower Brittany. Had the soldiers at Saint-Cast sat down together and regaled each other with hero legend and fairy tale they would have found that Arthur and Merlin and the korrigan (little fairies) were their common glory and delight. "King Arthuf is not dead!" may be heard in Brittany to-day as often as in Cornwall. Moreover, the Welsh song which is sung to the tune of "Captain Morgan's March" and the Breton ballad "Emgann Sant-Kast""- have one vigorous sentiment in common: "Cursed be the Saxon!" ^ See Appendix. [ 10 ] CHAPTER II SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SLAVES Originality of the Afro-American Folksongs — Dr. Wallaschek and his Contention — Extent of Imitations in the Songs — Allusions TO Slavery — How the Songs Grew — Are They Entitled to be Called American ? — The Negro in American History. It would never have occurred to me to undertake to prove the existence of genuine folksongs in America, and those the songs which were created by the black slaves of the Southern States, if the fact of such existence had not been denied by at least one writer who has affected the scientific manner, and it had not become the habit of a cer- tain class of writers in this country, while conceding the interesting character of the songs, to refuse them the right to be called American. A foolish pride on the part of one class of Americans of more or less remote English ancestry, and a more easily understood and more pardonable pre- judice on the part of former slaveholders and their descend- ants, might explain this attitude in New England and the South, but why a foreign writer, with whom a personal equation should not have been in any degree operative, should have gone out of his way to pronounce against the originality of the songs of the American negroes, cannot be so readily understood. Yet, in his book, "Primitive Music,"* Dr. Richard Wallaschek says: There still remains to be mentioned one race which is spread all over America and whose musical powers have attracted the attention of many Europeans — the negro race. It may seem inappropriate to treat of the negroes in this place, but it is of their capabilities under the influence of culture that I wish to make a few remarks. I think I may say that, generally speaking, these negro songs are very much overrated, and that, as a rule, they are mere imitations of European compositions which the negroes have picked up and served up again with slight variations. Moreover, it is a remarkable * "An Inquiry into the Origin and Development of Music, Songs, Instru- ments, Dances and Pantomines of Savage Races" (London, 1893). [ 11 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS fact that one author has frequently copied his praise of negro -songs from another, and determined from it the great capabilities of the blacks, when a closer examination would have revealed the fact that they were not musical songs at all, but merely simple poems. This is undoubtedly the case with the oft quoted negro songs of Day and Busch. The latter declares that the lucrative business which negroes made by singing their songs in the streets of American towns determined the whites to imitate them, and with black- ened faces to perform their own "compositions" as negro songs. We must be on our guard against the selections of so-called negro songs, which are often offered us as negro compositions. Miss McKim and Mr. Spaulding were the first to try to make negro songs known, the former of whom, in connection with Allen and Ware, pub- lished a large collection which for the most part had been got together by the negroes of Coffin's point and in the neighboring plantations at St. Helena. I cannot think that these and the rest of the songs deserve the praise given by the editors, for they are unmistakably "arranged" — not to say ignorantly borrowed — from the national songs of all nations, from military signals, well-known marches, German student songs, etc., unless it is pure accident which has caused me to light upon traces of so many of them. Miss McKim herself says it is difficult to reproduce in notes their peculiar guttural sounds and rhythmical effects — almost as difficult, in fact as with the songs of birds or the tones of an seolian harp. "Still, the greater part of negro music is civilized in its character," sometimes influenced by the whites, sometimes directly imitated. After this we may forego the necessity for a thorough examination, although it must be mentioned here, because the songs are so often given without more ado as examples of primitive music. It is, as a matter of fact, no longer primitive, even in its wealth of borrowed melody. Feeling for harmony seems fairly developed. It was not Miss McKim, but Mr. Allen, who called attention to the "civilized" character of the music of the slaves. In what Miss McKim said about the difficulty of reproducing "the entire character" of the music, as she expresses it, by the conventional symbols of the art, she adduces a proof of the primitive nature of some of its elements. The study of these elements might profitably have occupied Dr. Wallaschek's attention for a space. Had he made more than cursory examination of them he would not have been so sweeping in his characterization of the songs as mere imitations. The authors whom he quotes* wrote before a collection of songs of the American negroes had been made on which a scientific, critical opin- ion might be based. As for Dr. Wallaschek, his critical attitude toward "Slave Songs" is amply shown by his bracketing it with a publication of Christy minstrel songs which appeared in London; his method is illustrated by 'Charles William Day, who published a work entitled "Five Years' Residence m the West Indies," in 18S2, and Moritz Busch, who in 18S4 pub- hshed his Wanderungen zwischen Hudson und Mississippi." [ 12 ] SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SLAVES his acceptance in his resume of the observations of travel- lers among savage peoples (an extremely helpful book otherwise) of their terminology as well as their opinions in musical matters. Now, nothing is more notorious than that the overwhelming majority of the travellers who have written about primitive peoples have been destitute of even the most elemental knowledge of practical as well as theoretical music; yet without some knowledge of the art it is impossible even to give an intelligent description of the rudest musical instruments. The phenomenon is not peculiar to African travellers, though the confusion of terms and opinions is greater, perhaps, in books on Africa than anywhere else. Dr. Wallaschek did not per- mit the fact to embarrass him in the least, nor did he even attempt to set the writers straight so far as properly to classify the instruments which they describe. All kinds of instruments of the stringed kind are jumbled higgledy- piggledy in these descriptions, regardless of whether or not they had fingerboards or belonged to the harp family; bamboo instruments are called flutes, even if they are sounded by being struck; wooden gongs are permitted to parade as drums, and the universal "whizzer," or "buzzer" (a bit of fiat wood attached to a string and made to give a whirring sound by being whirled through the air) is treated even by Dr. Wallaschek as if it were an seolian harp. A common African instrument of rhythm, a stick with one edge notched like a saw, over which another stick is rubbed, which has its counterpart in Louisiana in the jawbone and key, is discussed as if it belonged to the viol family, simply because it is rubbed. He does not challenge even so infantile a statement as that of Captain John Smith when he asserts that the natives of Virginia had "bass, tenor, counter-tenor, alto and soprano rattles." And so on. These things may not influence Dr. Walla- schek's deductions, but they betoken a carelessness of mind which should not exist in a scientific investigator, and justify a challenge of his statement that the songs of the American negroes are predominantly borrowings from European music. [ 13 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS Besides, the utterance is illogical. Similarities exist between the folksongs of all peoples. Their overlapping is a necessary consequence of the proximity and intermingling of peoples, like modifications of language; and there are some characteristics which all songs except those of the rudest and most primitive kind must have in common. The prevalence of the diatonic scales and the existence of march-rhythms, for instance, make parallels unavoidable. If the use of such scales and rhythms in the folksongs of the American negroes is an evidence of plagiarism or imitation, it is to be feared that the peoples whose music they put under tribute have been equally culpable with them. Again, if the songs are but copies of "the national songs of all nations, military signals, well-known marches, Ger- man student songs, etc.," why did white men blacken their faces and imitate these imitations ? Were the facilities of the slaves to hear all these varieties of foreign music better than those of their white imitators ? It is plain that Dr. Wallaschek never took the trouble to acquaint himself with the environment of the black slaves in the United States. How much music containing the exotic elements which I have found in some songs, and which I shall pres- ently discuss, ever penetrated to the plantations where these songs grew.? It did not need Dr. Wallaschek's con- fession that he did not think it necessary to make a. thorough examination of even the one genuine collection which came under his notice to demonstrate that he did not look analytically at the songs as a professedly scientific man should have done before publishing his wholesale charac- terization and condemnation. This characterization is of a piece with his statement that musical contests which he mentions of the Nishian women which are "won by the woman who sings loudest and longest" are "still in use in America," which precious piece of intelligence he proves by relating a newspaper story about a pianoforte play- ing match in a dime museum in New York in 1892. The truth is that, like many another complacent German savant. Dr. Wallaschek thinks Americans are barbarians. He is welcome to his opinion, which can harm no one but himself. r 14 1 SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SLAVES That there should be resemblances between some of the songs sung by the American blacks and popular songs of other origin need surprise no one. In the remark about civilized music made by Mr. Allen, which Dr. Wallaschek attributes to Miss McKim, it Is admitted that the music of the negroes is "partly actually imitated from their music," i. e., the music of the whites; but Mr. Allen adds: "In the main it appears to be original in the best sense of the word, and the more we examine the subject, the more genuine it appears to be. In a very few songs, as Nos. ig, 23 and 25, strains of familiar tunes are readily traced; and it may easily.be that others contain strains of less familiar music which the slaves heard their masters sing or play." It would be singular, indeed, if this were not the case, for It is a universal law. Of the songs singled out by Mr. Allen, No. 19 echoes what Mr. Allen describes as a familiar Methodist hymn, 'Ain't I glad I got out of the Wilderness,' " but he admits that it may be original. I have never seen the song in a collection of Methodist hymns, but I am certain that I used to sing it as a boy to words which were anything but religious. Moreover, the second period of the tune, the only part that is in con- troversy, has a prototype of great dignity and classic ancestry; it Is the theme of the first Allegro of Bach's sonata In E for violin and clavier. I know of no parallel for No. 23 ("I saw the Beam In my Sister's eye") except in other negro songs. The second period of No. 23 ("Gwlne Follow"), as Mr. Allen observes, "Is evidently 'Buffalo,' variously known as 'Charleston' or 'Baltimore Gals.' " But who made the tune for the "gals" of Buffalo, Charleston and Baltimore.'' The melodies which were more direct progenitors of the songs which Christy's Minstrels and other minstrel companies carried all over the land were attributed to the Southern negroes; songs like "Coal- black Rose," "Zip Coon" and "Ole Virglnny Nebber Tire," have always been accepted as the creations of the blacks, though I do not know whether or not they really are. Concerning them I am skeptical, to say the least, if only for the reason that we have no evidence on the sub- [ IS ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS ject. So-called negro songs a.re more than a century old in the music-rooms of America'; A song descriptive of the battle of Plattsburg was sung in a drama to words supposed- ly in negro dialect, as long ago as 1815. "Jump Jim Crow" was caught by Thomas D. ("Daddy") Rice from the singing and dancing of an old, deformed and decrepit negro slave in Louisville eighty-five years ago (if the best evidence obtainable on the subject is to be believed), and this was the starting-point of negro minstrelsy of the Christy type. "Dandy Jim of Caroline" may also have had a negro origin; I do not know, and the question is inconsequential here for the reason that the Afro-American folksongs which I am trying to study owe absolutely nothing to the songs which the stage impersonators of the negro slave made popular in the United States and England. They belong to an entirely different order of creations. For one thing, they are predominantly re- ligious songs; it is a singular fact that very few secular songs — -those which are referred to as "reel tunes," "fiddle songs," "corn songs" and "devil songs," for which the slaves generally expressed a deep abhorrence, though many of them, no doubt, were used to stimulate them while at work in the fields — have been preserved, while "shout songs" and other "speritchils" (spirituals — "ballets" they were called at a later day) have been kept alive by the hundreds. The explanation of the phenomenon is psy- chological. There are a few other resemblances which may be looked into. "Who is on the Lord's side.?"' may have suggested the notion of "military calls" to Dr. Wallaschek. "In Bright Mansions Above"^ contains a phrase which may have been inspired by "The Wearing of the Green." A palpable likeness to "Camptown Races" exists in "Lord, Remember Me."* Stephen C. Foster wrote "Camp- town Races" in 1850; the book called "Slave Songs of the United States" was published in 1867, but the songs were collected several years before. I have no desire to rob 1 "Slave Songs," No. 75. 8 No. 78 of the Fisk Jubilee Collection 8 No. 7 in "Slave Songs" [ 16 ] SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SLAVES Foster of the credit of having written the melody of his song; he would have felt justified had he taken it from the lips of a slave, but it is more than likely that he invented it and that it was borrowed in part for a hymn by the negroes. The "spirituals" are much sophisticated with worldly sentiment and phrase. There are surprisingly few references to the servitude of the blacks in their folksongs which can be traced to ante-bellum days. The text of "Mother, is Massa Gwine to sell us To-morrow?" would seem to be one of these; but it is .not in the earliest collection and may be of later date in spite of its sentiment. I present three interesting examples which celebrate the deliverance from slavery, of which two, "Many Thousands Gone"' and "Many Thousand Go"^ are obviously musical variants of the same song (see pages i8, 19, 20). Colonel Higginson, who collected the second, says of it in his "Atlantic Monthly" essay: "They had another song to which the Rebellion had actually given rise. This was composed by nobody knew whom — though it was the most recent, doubtless, of all these 'spirituals' — and had been sung in secret to avoid detection. It is certainly plaintive enough. The peck of corn and pint of salt were slavery's rations." The editors of "Slave Songs" add: "Lieutenant-Colonel Trow- bridge learned that it was first sung when Beauregard took the slaves to the islands to build the fortifications at Hilton Head and Bay Point." The third song, "Done wid Briber's Dribin'," was first printed in Mr. H. G. Spauld- ing's essay "Under the Palmetto" in the "Continental Monthly" for August, 1863. The song "Oh, Freedom over Me," which Dr. Burghardt du Bois quotes in his "The Souls of Black Folk" as an expression of longing for deliverance from slavery encouraged by fugitive slaves and the agitation of free negro leaders before the War of the Rebellion, challenges no interest for its musical contents, since it is a compound of two white men's tunes — "Lily Dale," a sentimental ditty, and "The Battle-Cry of Free- dom," a patriotic song composed by George F. Root, in » Fisk Jubilee Collection, No. 23 2 "Slave Songs," No. 64 I 17 ] AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS THREE EMANCIPATION SONGS I. Words and Melody from "Slave Songs of the United States";— II. From "The Continental Month- ly" of August, 1863, reprinted in "Slave Songs";— III. From "The Story of the Jubilee Singers." The arrangements are by H. T, Burleigh. Many Thousand Go I Larglietto i No more peck o' com for me. No more, no more, No more peck o' corn for me; Man-y thou- sand g». 2. No more driver's lash for mfe. 3. No more pint o' salt forme. 4. No more hundred lash far me, 5. No more mistress' call forme. \ 18 ] SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SLAVES Done wid Briber's Dribin* n Andante 1. Done wid drl-berfa dri>bin', Done wid dri - faer's drl-bin, Done wid dri - ber's dri biii; Roll, Jor - dan, roll. Z. Done wid Massa's hollerin'. Done wid Massa's holleritf. Bone wid Uassa's hollerin'; Roll, Jordan, roll. 3. Done wid Missus' scoldin', Done wid Missus' scoldin'. Done wid Missus' scoldin'; Roll, Jordan, roll. [ 19 1 AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKSONGS Many Thousands Gone in Lar^hetto No more auc^tion - block for me: Man.y thou- sands g-oae. S. No more peck o" com, etc 4. No more pint o'salt, etc. 3. No more driver's lash, etc. S. No more hundred lash, etc. 6v No more mistress' call, etc. [ 20 ] SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SLAVES Chicago, and inspired by President Lincoln's second call for volunteers in the summer of 1861. There was time for the negro song to have grown up between 1861 and the emancipation of the slaves, but it is not likely that slaves anywhere in the United States outside of the lines of the Federal armies would have dared to sing O Freedom, O Freedom, O Freedom over me! Before I'll be a slave. I'll be buried in my grave, And go home to my Lord, And be free! before 1863. Besides, the song did not appear in print, I believe, till it was published in "Religious Folk Songs of the Negro, as Sung on the Plantations," an edition of "Cabin and Plantation Songs as Sung by the Hampton Students," published in 1909. The early editions of the book knew nothing of the song. Colonel Higginson quotes a song with a burden of "We'll soon be free," for singing which negroes had befen put in jail at the outbreak of the Rebel- lion in Georgetown, S. C. In spite of the obviously appar- ent sentiment, Colonel Higginson says It had no reference to slavery, though he thinks it may have been sung "with redoubled emphasis during the new events." It was, in fact, a song of hoped-for deliverance from the sufferings of this world and of anticipation of the joys of Paradise, where the faithful were to "walk de miry road" and "de golden streets," on which pathways ^'pleasure never dies." No doubt there was to the singers a hidden allegorical significance in the numerous allusions to the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage contained in the songs, and some of this significance may have crept into the songs before the day of freedom began to dawn. A line, "The Lord will call us home," in the song just referred to, Colonel Higginson says "was evidently thought to be a symbolical verse; for, as a little