X Angola Song
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Hobaognion
Hobaognion
Hoba
Hobaognion ognion.
XI.
Papa Song.
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XII Koromanti Songs
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Meri Bonbo mich langa meri wá langa.
From A Voyage to... Jamaica... by Hans Sloane, M.D. London. 1707. Vol. i. pp. l, li.
The words of these songs are Hobaognion, ognion and Meri Bonbo mich langa meri wá langa. Sir Hans Sloane observes that the Jamaican negroes of that time had their native instruments: (i) gourds with necks and strung with horsehair, (ii) a “hollow’d Timber covered with Parchment,” having a bow for its neck, the strings tied longer or shorter.
These songs, however inaccurately recorded, are of the greatest value for the hint they give us of Jamaican music as it existed over two centuries ago. It will be observed that the songs are named ‘Angola’ and ‘Koromanti,’ according to their African provenance. In the present collection of modern songs, reference is made in Song CI. to Koromanti (‘Cromanty’). So, too, the word ‘Bungo’ in Song CXXVII. no doubt refers to the large Bongo district of Africa (cf. ‘Bungo talk,’ p. 12, n.).
We can hardly expect to find considerable traces of this aboriginal African music after two centuries of missionary and of trade influence. African travellers have repeatedly told us how prone the negro is to introduce fresh tunes from other villages and to adapt them to his own purposes. Indeed, the contaminating influence which the Arabs and Portuguese have exercised upon primitive African music makes the study of the latter especially difficult.
But a community does not adopt exotic music without at the same time exercising selection. Those melodies have the greatest chance of success which, to some degree at least, follow the current canons of public taste. Revolutionary innovations are rare. The gradual changes in taste which take place are the result of such selective adoption of foreign music as we have indicated.
There is one feature in the above-quoted ‘Angola’ song which is also shared by the modern songs of this collection, namely, the presence of ‘bobbins’ or short refrains.
The simplicity in structure of the songs is still a feature of Jamaican music. I may be allowed to call attention to the repetition of single phrases in Song XVIII. and to the building up of simple phrases in Songs LXXVII. and LXXIX.
I had hoped that some light might be thrown on the antiquity of certain songs by the presence of nonsense words; but in this I was disappointed.
I quite agree with Miss Broadwood (see next page) that the majority of the songs are of European origin. The negroes have learnt them from hearing sailors’ chanties or they have adopted hymn tunes.
But adoption always involves adaptation. A song is modified to suit the current canons of taste. In Song L. I observe ‘Home, Sweet Home’ and (in the latter half) a hymn tune which I frequently heard in the Torres Straits. Song CXXXIX. is doubtless ‘The British Grenadiers.’ But it, again, has not been adopted without modification.
Needless to say, a detailed study of these modifications would throw light on the characteristics of modern Jamaican music.
In Song XXXI. a typical non-European modification is the insertion of an extra (the fifth) bar, so that the phrase consists of nine bars. The five time in Song XI., the change of accent at the close of Song XXIV. and in Song XLI., are no doubt the expression of African delight in the complexities of rhythm.
In the already-quoted ‘Koromanti song,’ we may observe the curious temporary change of rhythm in the second air, and the characteristic measure which prevails throughout the third air with its syncopation and almost baffling changes. Such features are precisely what we should expect to meet with among a primitive people who more than two centuries ago doubtless possessed in a still higher degree that delight in complication of rhythm which according to Mr. Jekyll (p. 6) persists among their descendants of to-day. For a more detailed study of this aspect of the subject I may perhaps refer enquirers to my “Study of Rhythm in Primitive People” (British Journal of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 397-406).
The present taste and preferences of the Jamaican negroes may perhaps be gauged by the similarities and differences in the first bars of Songs LXIII., LXIV., and LXXVIII., by the similarity of Songs I. and VIII., XV. and XXVII., and of the bobbins in LIV. and LXVIII.
But it is not my intention to make a detailed analysis of the songs of the present volume. My object has been rather to emphasize our present ignorance of African music, and to indicate the lines along which a more intimate acquaintance with African and Jamaican songs may be expected to lead to conclusions as to their relation to one another.
C.S. Myers.
B. English Airs and Motifs in Jamaica
By far the greater part of these Jamaican tunes and song-words seem to be reminiscences, or imitations, of European sailors’ “chanties” of the modern class; or of trivial British nursery-jingles adapted, as all such jingles become adapted.
Except in the cases specified below, I have not found one Jamaican tune which is entirely like any one English or European tune that I happen to know. But unrecorded folk-tunes are essentially fluid, and pass through endless transformations. In all countries any one traditional ballad may be sung to dozens of distinct traditional tunes, each of these again having variants. It is therefore quite possible that versions of some of the older-sounding Jamaican airs are being sung unrecorded at this moment in the British Islands or elsewhere.
I note below such instances of modal tunes as occur in this collection. I should perhaps explain that by “Modes” are meant those ancient scales (other than our major and minor scales) which amongst European composers fell into disuse at the beginning of the 17th century, but which survive still in the ancient Church Music (popularly called “Gregorian”), and in the Folk Music of most European countries, and notably that of the British Isles.
III. King Daniel, p. 14.
Cf. the old ballads “May Colvin” and “Young Hunting.” In the latter the parrot reveals a murder. In both ballads the lady makes the same promises to the bird (see Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads).
VII. The Three Sisters, p. 26.
Although the story of the monster outwitted by the maiden he tries to carry off is an almost world-wide motif, and is found in Africa among other countries, this particular version has evidently been in contact with European (English or Scottish) sources. This is shown not only by the fact that the suitor proves to be the Devil, but by the question and answer (misplaced by the story-teller):
“What is roguer than a womankind?”
“The Devil is roguer than a womankind.”
This riddle appears in three versions of the ballad of “The Three Sisters,” otherwise “The Elfin Knight,” or “Riddles wisely Expounded” (Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. i. pp. 1-6), as:
“O what is greener than the grass?
Or what is worse than e’er woman was?”
“O poison’s greener than the grass,
And the Devil’s worse than e’er woman was....”
“As soon as she the fiend did name,
He flew away in a blazing flame,”
says one version, but in the rest there is no disenchantment, and the youngest sister wins the visitor as her husband by her ready wit in replying, which Professor Child (Additions and Corrections, vol. v. p. 283), thinks a modernization of the original story. He quotes a manuscript version taken from a book of Henry VI.’s time, wherein the “Elfin Knight” is the foul fiend himself undisguised.
For similar survivals of Riddle Songs and Tales see “There was a Lady in the West” and “Scarborough Fair” in English County Songs, and Kidson’s Traditional Tunes, and “The Lover’s Task” in Songs of the West, etc.
The tune is evidently an old ballad air. It is in the Aeolian Mode.
XVII. Man Crow, p. 54.
The tune is the same as that sung in Worcestershire by children to “A finger and thumb keep moving.”
XVIII. Saylan, p. 59.
This is a version of “The Maid freed from the Gallows,” “The Golden Ball,” or “The Prickly Bush.” For the latter see English County Songs. Child gives very exhaustive notes on the story and its variants; also a tune, noted in North Carolina, “The Prickly Bush” has a tune quite unlike Child’s, and the Jamaican air is quite distinct from both.
XXI. Tacoma and the Old Witch Girl, p. 65.
Cf. “The Keys of Heaven” in English County Songs, “Blue Muslin” in Songs of the West, and “Madam I will gi’e you,” etc., in Journal of the Folk-Song Society, No. 7. All these airs are distinct from each other, and from the Jamaican tune.
XXIX. Parson Puss and Parson Dog, p. 91.
This tune is the first half of the old French air “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman?” used so often by English children in their games. See note in Moffat and Kidson’s Children’s Songs and Games of Long Ago, p. 42. Other adaptations of the same tune are CXVI. (p. 215), CLXXVII. (p. 264), and CLXXXIX. (p. 272).
XXXI. Pretty Poll, p. 96.
Cf. “King Daniel.” This is again the story of “May Colvin” or “The Outlandish Knight.” The tune “Come, pretty Poll” here given is rather reminiscent of one traditional air to the ballad sung still in different parts of England (where numerous tunes to the favourite story have been noted). See “The Outlandish Knight” in Songs of Northern England (Stokoe and Reay) for the type of tune referred to, but plentiful variants from Hertfordshire, the West of England, Yorkshire, etc., exist in MS.
XXXVI. Leah and Tiger, p. 108.
The tune is in the Aeolian Mode.
LXIII. Oh, Samuel, oh, p. 168.
This tune is in the Mixolydian Mode.
LXXXVIII. War down a Monkland, p. 187.
The tune is in the Dorian Mode. By far the most interesting tune in this collection. It is a fine Dorian air, I should think an old traditional tune imported by English or Irish.
There are slight modal influences in other tunes, viz.: “Bad homan oh,” “Bell oh,” “A Somerset me barn,” “Whé me loon dé,” “Me da lí,” and “Since Dora Logan a wahk with Gallawoss” (Nos. 56, 57, 85, 91, 100, 122).
CXI., p. 209.
This tune is a variant of the well-known children’s game-song, “Here come three Dukes a-riding.”
CXIX., p. 218.
The tune is a variant of one commonly sung in the North of England and in various parts of Scotland, to a children’s game, “Hullaballoo ballie,” in which reference is made to lifting the right foot and the left foot.
CXXVII., p. 225.
This air is the first part of the tune of “O dem Golden Slippers,” the negro revival song of some twenty years ago.
CXXX., p. 227.
This is a reminiscence of the Scotch dance-tune usually sung to the words “There’s nae luck aboot the hoose.”
CLXXVIII., p. 264.
This is a well-known old English dance-tune, known also in Scotland.
CLXXXII., p. 267.
The second part of this tune is merely a reminiscence of “We won’t go home till morning.”
CLXXXVII., p. 271.
This tune is the first part of a very commonplace modern Italian popular composition called “La Mandolinata,” played on every conceivable instrument, and sung also, about the year 1876 and for some years afterwards.
L.E. Broadwood.
Footnotes
1 Fanti is a dialect of this language, which is variously called Twi, Chwi, Otyi, and Ochi.
2 One is given by Mr. G.W. Cable in the Century Magazine, xxx. 820, as a Louisiana Voodoo song:
Héron mandé, tigui li papa, Héron mandé, dosé dan godo.
Another by Mr. W.E. Burghart Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk, p. 254—apparently a lullaby:
Doba na coba gene me, gene me!
Ben d’ nu li, nu li, nu li, nu li, bend’le.
I can make nothing of these. In the latter case, uncertainty as to the phonetic system adopted complicates the puzzle. One might be tempted to connect the last two words with Zulu endhle or pandhle = outside,—but I can find nothing else to support this resemblance, and such stray guesses are unprofitable work.
3 R.E. Dennett, Folklore of the Fjort, p. 8.
4 December, 1877, p. 751. The article is one on “Negro Folk-lore,” by W. Owens, and contains several stories, some of these independent versions of “Uncle Remus” tales, while others are not to be found in that collection.
5 J.C. Christaller, in Büttner’s Zeitschr. für Afr. Sprachen. M. Réné Basset says of a similar story included in Col. Monteil’s Contes Soudanais: “L’Enfant et le caïman est le sujet bien connu de l’ingratitude punie que l’on retrouve dans tous les pays de l’ancien monde, et dont M. Kenneth Mackenzie vient d’étudier les diverses variantes.” The idea is one so likely to occur independently that we must not in all cases resort to the hypothesis of borrowing.
6 Duff Macdonald, Africana, ii. 346.
7 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast.
8 No. 16 in the Handbook of Folklore (p. 122). It might also be referred to the “Golden Goose” type (51). Stories of this kind are the Ronga “Route du Ciel,” and “The Three Women” in Duff Macdonald’s Africana. But perhaps the tale referred to in the text comes nearer to “The Two Hunchbacks.”
9 In Mr. Dudley Kidd’s Savage Childhood (published since the above was written), I find that Zulu (or Pondo?) boys draw certain omens from spiders, in connection with dreams (p. 105), and that in Gazaland the rainbow is called “the spider’s bow” (p. 153).
10 Magana Hausa, 63.
11 See Ursprung der Sprache (Weimar, 1868), pp. xix, xxiii (Introduction).
12 McCall Theal, Kaffir Folk-Tales, pp. 96-98.
13 “Afrikanische Studien,” 1898 (Transactions of the Berlin Oriental Seminary, vol. i.) p. 194.
14 He had been brought to Europe by a German naval officer in 1885, and remained for some time an inmate of Professor Meinhof’s family.
15 May 25, 1906, p. 202.
16 Contes Soudanais, p. 49.
17 P. 425. Another Mauritius negro tale from the same source is identical with the Yao one of the Elephant and the Hare (Duff Macdonald, ii. 353)—also found elsewhere in East Africa.
18 Chants et Contes, p. 135, see also the preceding story, and some remarks on p. 86, footnote 2.
19 Alcée Fortier, Louisiana Folklore, p. 24.
20 Cunnie Rabbit, p. 219.
21 “Mr. Wolf makes a failure.”
22 Jacottet, p. 19.
23 Cunnie Rabbit, p. 133.
24 Folklore of the Fjort, pp. 82-84.
25 Kalunga in Angola, Ko by the Né Kru-men. Some curious episodes connected with the latter are given by M. Georges Thomann in his Essai de Manuel de la langue néonlá (Paris: E. Leroux).
26 McCall Theal, p. 68.
27 See Junod, Chants et Contes des Baronga, p. 197; also a note in Chatelain, Folk-tales of Angola, p. 254, and Callaway, Zulu Tales, p. 199.
28 This story is also given by Arbousset.
29 R. Wolff, “Grammatik der Kingasprachen” (Archiv für das Studium deutschen Kolonialsprachen, iii.), p. 135.
30 One kind of duppy is a mermaid—but I can find no indication that she came from Africa.
31 Jacottet, p. 15.
32 Suaheli Märchen, p. 154 (p. 241 in the German translation).
33 Ib. p. 304.
34 See Thomann, op. cit., “Trois maris pour une femme.”
35 Chatelain, No. I. and No. II.
36 P. 135, “Liebe bis zum Salz.”
37 See Folk-Lore, March, 1904, p. 90.
38 These idioms are very similar to those of Cape Dutch, especially as spoken by the coloured people, and may help to illustrate its development. Cf. Jy is te skellum,—ek gaan (or better, Corp) korp, etc. “To warm fire” reminds one of the Bantu Ku ot a moto, of which it is almost a literal translation. (A.W.)
39 The well-known and lately-current ballad of May Colvin, in which this incident occurs (though it is the false lover, not the sister, who is murdered), has a cage of gold with an ivory door. (C.S.B.)
40 “The ‘three-foot horse’ is believed to be a kind of duppy with three legs, hence its name; and is able to gallop faster than any other horse. It goes about in moonlight nights, and if it meet any person it blows upon him and kills him. It will never attack you in the dark. It cannot hurt you on a tree.” Folklore of the Negroes of Jamaica, in Folklore, Vol. XV., p. 91. (C.S.B.).
41 This is evidently a reminiscence of the “medicine” (Nyanja, chiwindo) used in Africa to protect gardens. Sometimes it kills the thief, sometimes makes him ill. (A.W.)
42 Cf. the story of “Rombas” in Duff Macdonald’s Africana II., which would seem to have reached Africa through the Portuguese. Rombas kills the whale which has swallowed the girl, and removes the tongue. (A.W.)
43 Cf. The Maid Freed from the Gallows, F.J. Child, Ballads, vol. ii., p. 346. (C.S.B.)
44 Cf. the Bantu use of nyama (“meat”) for “an animal.” (A.W.)
45 Is this a survival of the African institution of “sureties” (Yao, ngoswe, see Duff Macdonald, I. 118), or “sponsors,” who arrange the marriage? I am not sure whether the custom exists among Negro as well as Bantu tribes. (A.W.)
46 Cf. Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, No. xiv., and note, p. 233. (C.S.B.)
47 See the story of Tangalomlibo in Torrend, Comparative Grammar of S. African Bantu Languages, p. 319, where the cock is chosen as messenger, when the ox and goat are rejected. (A.W.)
48 [Cf. Miss Kingsley, The Fetish View of the Human Soul, in Folk-Lore, vol. viii., p. 138; also R.E. Dennett, Bavili Notes, ibid., vol. xvi., p. 371.]
49 [See Folk-Lore of the Negroes of Jamaica, in Folk-Lore, vol. xv., pp. 87, 206, 450, and vol. xvi., p. 68.]
50 “The” always tends to the pronunciation “de,” but it has not been thought advisable to write it so as this might render it liable to confusion with “dé,” meaning “is,” with its differently sounded vowel. Moreover, it is not quite a true d, but has a pretty lisping sound intermediate between th and d.
51 For a discussion of this game, perhaps the best-known and most widely-spread of all English singing games, see A.B. Gomme, Traditional Games, vol. ii., p. 149.
52 To avoid the tiresomeness of contraction marks, “see him ya” has been written in one word. It sounds exactly like senior with an m instead of an n.
53 [Cf. “Bull in the Park,” Gomme, Traditional Games, vol. i. p. 50.]
54 “Yah?” = Do you hear?
55 Other unusual girls’ names are Ambrogine, Ateline, Irene, Melmorine. These rhyme with Queen. The same Italian i is found in Elgiva, Seppelita, Barnita, Justina, and the English i in Alvira, Marina. The next are all accented, like the last six, on the penultimate; Etilda, Iota, Clarista, Pastora, Barzella, Zedilla, Amanda, Agarta (evidently a variant of Agatha), Timinetia (like Polynesia), Cherryana, Indiana. Then there is Hettybel, and one girl has this astonishing combination—Ataria (rhymes with Samaria), Azadell (? Isabel).
56 A last reminder to pronounce “acrahss,” “harse.” The Negro rejects the sound aw altogether and always changes it to ah.
57 Bolow, comrade.
58 Yaws, see p. 57.
59 Mowitahl = Mowatt Hall.
60 Bahss, Boss. “Carry him” is in two syllables, sounding like ca-yim.