At the 'praise meetings' on the plantations, one of the elders usually
presides, and conducts the exercises with great solemnity. Passages of
Scripture are quoted from memory, and the hymns, which constitute the
principal feature of the meeting, are deaconed off as at church.
Sometimes the superintendent or one of the teachers attends these
meetings, and is then expected to conduct the exercises and make an
address. After the praise meeting is over, there usually follows the
very singular and impressive performance of the '_Shout_,' or religious
dance of the negroes. Three or four, standing still, clapping their
hands and beating time with their feet, commence singing in unison one
of the peculiar shout melodies, while the others walk round in a ring,
in single file, joining also in the song. Soon those in the ring leave
off their singing, the others keeping it up the while with increased
vigor, and strike into the shout step, observing most accurate time with
the music. This step is something halfway between a shuffle and a dance,
as difficult for an uninitiated person to describe as to imitate. At the
end of each stanza of the song the dancers stop short with a slight
stamp on the last note, and then, putting the other foot forward,
proceed through the next verse. They will often dance to the same song
for twenty or thirty minutes, once or twice, perhaps, varying the
monotony of their movement by walking for a little while and joining in
the singing. The physical exertion, which is really very great, as the
dance calls into play nearly every muscle of the body, seems never to
weary them in the least, and they frequently keep up a shout for hours,
resting only for brief intervals between the different songs. Yet, in
trying to imitate them, I was completely tired out in a very short time.
The children are the best dancers, and are allowed by their parents to
have a shout at any time, though, with the adults, the shout always
follows a religious meeting, and none but church members are expected to
join. It is to one of these shouts of the negro children that Mr.
Russell alludes in his Diary when describing a visit which he paid to a
plantation near Charleston in April, 1861. He speaks of the children as
a set of 'ragged, dirty, and shoeless urchins, who came in shyly,
oftentimes running away till they were chased and captured, dressed into
line with much difficulty, and, then, shuffling their flat feet,
clapping their hands, and drawling out in a monotonous sort of chant
something about the 'River Jawdam.'' Such a sketch conveys no idea of
the shout as it may be witnessed to-day on any of the plantations among
the Sea Islands. You will find the children clean, and, in general,
neatly dressed, coming into the room when asked by the superintendent,
rendering their impressive and oftentimes pleasing melodies in a manner
seldom surpassed in our schools at the North, while their 'shouting'
reveals a suppleness of limb and peculiar grace of motion beyond the
power of our dancing masters to impart.
There are many features of the negro shout which amuse us from their
strangeness; some, also, that strike the observer as wholly absurd. Yet,
viewed as a religious exercise--and in this light it is always
considered by the older negroes--I cannot help regarding it, in spite of
many of its characteristics, as both a natural and a rational expression
of devotional feeling. The negroes never indulge in it when, for any
reason, they feel downhearted or sad at their meetings. The shout is a
simple outburst and manifestation of religious fervor--a 'rejoicing in
the Lord'--making a 'joyful noise unto the God of their salvation.'
The words of the shout songs are a singular medley of things sacred and
profane, and are the natural outgrowth of the imperfect and fragmentary
knowledge of the Scriptures which the negroes have picked up. The
substitution for these crude productions of appropriate hymns, would
remove from the shout that which is now the chief objection to it in
intelligent minds, and would make of the dance, to which the negroes are
so much attached, a useful auxiliary in their religious culture. The
tunes to which these songs are sung, are some of them weird and
wild--'barbaric madrigals'--while others are sweet and impressive
melodies. The most striking of their barbaric airs it would be
impossible to write out, but many of their more common melodies are
easily caught upon being heard a few times. This music of the negro
shout opens a new and rich field of melody--a mine in which there is
much rough quartz, but also many veins of sparkling ore.
What, for example, could be more animated, and at the same time more
expressive of the thought conveyed in the verse than the following
chorus?--the introduction to which is a sort of recitative or chant:
[music notation]