Fifty years from now, when every vestige of slavery has disappeared,
and even its existence has become a fading memory, America, and
probably Europe, will suddenly awake to the sad fact that we have
irrevocably lost a veritable mine of wealth through our failure to
appreciate and study from a musician's standpoint the beautiful
African music, whose rich stores will then have gone forever from our
grasp.
During my childhood my observations were centered upon a few very old
negroes who came directly from Africa, and upon many others whose
parents were African born, and I early came to the conclusion, based
upon negro authority, that the greater part of their music, their
methods, their scale, their type of thought, their dancing, their
patting of feet, their clapping of hands, their grimaces and
pantomime, and their gross superstitions came straight from Africa.
Some of their later songs, it is true, we must technically call
"modified African," but how far the original African song elements
have been altered (and usually not for the better) by contact with
American life is a question of fact, and can only be settled by a
careful comparison of the songs as sung among the natives of Africa
and the changed forms in which their modified ones are found today in
the South. It must be determined in each case, and can not be settled
by any general theory or formula.
This question of the classification of African music has given rise to
more or less discussion. It seems hardly just to call the genuine
negro songs "the folk songs of America." We are a conglomerate people,
and no one race can claim a monopoly in this matter. English, Scotch,
German, French, Italians, and others have brought their own music and
their own folklore, and in each case it must be considered distinctly
belonging to the nationality that imported it. Why should not the same
be true of the genuine negro music? The stock is African, the ideas
are African, the patting and dancing are all African. The veneer of
civilization and religious fervor and Bible truth is entirely
superficial. The African is under it all, and those who study him and
his weird music at short range have no difficulty in recalling the
savage conditions that gave it birth.
Were I to begin now the study of all the intonations and tortuous
quavers of this beautiful music, I fear I should be able to do little
toward imitating it; for it was only possible to catch the spirit of
it and the reason of it all while my voice had the flexibility of
childhood, and the influences of slavery were still potent factors in
the daily life of the negroes. I followed these old ex-slaves, who
have passed away, in their tasks, listened to their crooning in their
cabins, in the fields, and especially in their meeting houses, and
again and again they assured me the tunes they sang came from Africa.
Possibly I have an unusual predilection for this imported African
music, but to me some of the strange, weird, untamable, barbaric
melodies have a rude beauty and a charm beside which, as Cowper says--
"Italian trills are tame."
It is indeed hard to account for the strange misconceptions which
prevail as to what really constitutes genuine African music. The "coon
songs" which are so generally sung are base imitations. The white man
does not live who can write a genuine negro song. At home there used
to be a rare old singer, an old Kentucky mammy, whom everybody loved.
She once said: "Us ole heads use ter make 'em up on de spurn of de
moment, arter we wrassle wid de Sperit and come thoo. But the tunes
was brung from Africa by our granddaddies. Dey was jis 'miliar songs.
Dese days dey calls 'em ballots, but in de ole days dey call 'em
spirituals, case de Holy Spirit done revealed 'em to 'em. Some say
Moss Jesus taught 'em, and I's seed 'em start in meetin'. We'd all be
at the 'prayer house' de Lord's Day, and de white preacher he'd splain
de word and read whar Ezekial done say--
"'Dry bones gwine ter lib ergin.'
And, honey, de Lord would come a-shinin' thoo dem pages and revive dis
ole nigger's heart, and I'd jump up dar and den and holler and shout
and sing and pat, and dey would all cotch de words and I'd sing it to
some ole shout song I'd heard 'em sing from Africa, and dey'd all take
it up and keep at it, and keep a-addin' to it, and den it would be a
spiritual. Dese spirituals am de best moanin' music in de world, case
dey is de whole Bible sung out and out. Notes is good enough for you
people, but us likes a mixtery. Dese young heads ain't wuth killin',
fur dey don't keer bout de Bible nor de ole hymns. Dey's completely
spiled wid too much white blood in 'em, and de big organ and de
eddication has done took all de Holy Spirit out en 'em, till dey ain't
no better wid der dances and cuttin' up dan de white folks."
The negro usually sang religious music at his work. He was often
turned out of church for crossing his feet or singing a "fiddle sing,"
which is a secular song, but he could steal all the chickens he wanted
and never fall from grace. One of the most persistent fancies that the
old slaves cherished was that they were the oppressed Israelites, that
the Southerners were the cruel Egyptians, and that Canaan was freedom.
Bondage was of course their slavery. They believed that some day the
Red Sea would come in a sea of blood, which was verified in the civil
war. In many of their songs they appropriate Bible prophecies and
ideas to themselves. The song given on the opposite page is a
characteristic one, illustrating many peculiarities; and if it did not
come from Africa, where did it come from?
It is often asserted at the North that, as a rule, the negro was
punished if he prayed or received religious instruction. On the
contrary, many fine plantations had their "prayer houses," where a
white minister was employed to hold services and to instruct them in
the Bible. In nearly every section they were permitted and encouraged
to hold their own meetings. That this is true is attested by these
same thousands of "spirituals," all of which are filled with Bible
texts. Some of the most devout Christians were, and are yet, the old
"mammies" and "uncles" who lived all the closer to the heavenly Father
because of their simplicity and lack of learning. The deeply religious
and better class of old negroes maintain that the reason that this
music is so fascinating to whites and blacks is because it is God's
own music inspired by the Holy Spirit.
[Music: DONE FOUND DAT NEW HIDIN' PLACE.
1. Who dat ... yon- der dressed in white? ... Must be de
2. Who dat ... yon- der dressed in black? ... Must be de
3. Jes on-ly could see lee-tle ba - by to-day-- ... An - gel done
4. When I was down in E - gypt's land, ...Heard a mighty
chil-lun ob de Is - rael - ite ... Done found dat new hid-in' place!
nig - gers a - turn - in' back! Done found dat new hid-in' place!
drug her thoo de twelve pearly gates! Done found dat new hid-in' place!
talkin' 'bout de promised land-- Done found dat new hid-in' place!
Who dat ... yon- der dressed in red? ... Must be de
God don't talk like a nat-er-al man--... Talk so a
Pur- ti- est ting what eb-ber I done ... Was to
And when we get on Ca - naan's shore.... We'll
chil-lun dat a Mos-es led! .. Done found dat new hid-in' place!
sin-ner can a - un-der-stand-- Done found dat new hid-in' place!
git religion when I was young-- Done found dat new hid-in' place!
shout and sing for-eb-ber more-- Done found dat new hid-in' place!