TO H. E. KREHBIEL
New Orleans, 1885.
Dear K.,—Just got a letter from you. Hope my reply to your delightful suggestion was received. I fear I write too often; but I can only write in snatches. Were I to wait for time to write a long letter, the result would be either 0 or something worse.
I have already in my mind a little plan. Let me suggest a long preface, and occasional picturesque notes to your learning and facts. For example, I would commence by treating the negro’s musical patriotism—the strange history of the Griots, who furnish so singular an example of musical prostitution, and who, although honoured and petted in one way, are otherwise despised by their own people and refused the rites of burial. Then I would relate something about the curious wanderings of these Griots through the yellow desert northward into the Moghreb country—often a solitary wandering; their performances at Arab camps on the long journey, when the black slaves come out to listen and weep;—then their hazardous voyaging to Constantinople, where they play old Congo airs for the great black population of Stamboul, whom no laws or force can keep within doors when the sound of Griot music is heard in the street. Then I would speak of how the blacks carry their music with them to Persia and even to mysterious Hadramaut, where their voices are held in high esteem by Arab masters. Then I would touch upon the transplantation of negro melody to the Antilles and the two Americas, where its strangest black flowers are gathered by the alchemists of musical science, and the perfume thereof extracted by magicians like Gottschalk. (How is that for a beginning?)
I would divide my work into brief sections of about 1½ pages each—every division separated by Roman numerals and containing one particular group of facts.
I would also try to show a relation between negro physiology and negro music. You know the blood of the African black has the highest human temperature known—equal to that of the swallow—although it loses that fire in America. I would like you to find out for me whether the negro’s vocal cords are not differently formed, and capable of longer vibration than ours. Some expert professor in physiology might tell you; but I regret to say the latest London works do not touch upon the negro vocal cords, although they do show other remarkable anatomical distinctions.
Here is the only Creole song I know of with an African refrain that is still sung:—don’t show it to C., it is one of our treasures.
(Pronounce “Wenday,” “makkiyah.”)
Ouendé, ouendé, macaya!