Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes

by Howard Washington Odum

The situation of the Southern negro is unique. His problems are peculiarly intricate. The problem of the relations between the whites and blacks is far-reaching. Social conditions are changing and it is of paramount importance that every step taken shall be well founded and in the right direction. The political, the social, and the economical position of the negro, his education, his religion, his tendencies—these are themes that demand definite and accurate comprehension above all else. Truths have too often been assumed. Passion and prejudice have often hindered the attainment of noble ends which were earnestly sought. A true knowledge of actual conditions, if properly set forth, must convince the sincere observer as to the proper relations which should exist between the two races. Nothing else should do it; nothing else can do it. And any evidences that will assist in fixing the real status of the negro should be welcomed by both the whites and the blacks; progress may then be encouraged from the proper starting point. In revealing much of what he is rather than what he appears to be, the folk-songs of the Southern negro are superior to any superficial study made from partial observations. The insight into negro character gained from their folk-songs and poetry accompanied by careful and exhaustive concrete social studies may be accepted as impartial testimony. And on the other hand, the changing economic and educational conditions, the increasing influence of the white man upon the negro, and the rapid progress that is being made on every hand in the South indicate that if the present-day folk-songs of the negro are to be preserved, they must be collected now. Should they be permitted to become a lost record of the race?

In the present work some of the popular songs that are current among the negroes of the Southern States are given. They are highly representative. They may be classified into two general divisions: The religious songs or spirituals, and the secular songs. The secular songs are again divided into two classes, the general social songs, and work-songs, phrases and “shanties”. For the most part collections of negro folk-songs in the past have been limited to the old spirituals. The present-day religious songs and the social productions are equally interesting and valuable. The particular nature and characteristics of these songs are discussed in connection with the examples. They are flexible and have various forms, they consist of broken and unbroken melodies, they have stately and rapid minor cadences. Musical notes can give only a skeleton of the real melody that accompanies the words; the peculiar qualification of the negro singers to render their melodies defies art to exactly symbolize it. The words of the songs are given as they are sung, and the reader must needs employ an imagination kindred in vividness to that which is reflected in the songs themselves if he would comprehend their essential qualities. The characteristic quality is often found in an improvised arrangement of words which makes the dominant feeling that of mingling words and cadencies successfully. The meaningless phrases and refrains do not hinder the expression of feeling through the minor chords. Simple emotion, inherent melody, and colloquial language are combined with fine and differentiating imagery and humor in an under-meaning common to the folk-song. An element of melancholia may be felt underlying many of the songs. But with all alike, vigor of expression, concreteness and naturalness of mental imagery, and simplicity of language and thought are combined with striking folk-art. The negro’s projective mental imagery assumes that the hearer’s comprehension can easily grasp the full picture of description, moral maxims, and dramatic dialogues, all combined in a single verse, and that he can do it without confusion. Here may be seen much of the naked essence of poetry with unrefined language which reaches for the negro a power of expression far beyond that which any modern refinement of language and thought may approach. Rhythm, rhyme, and the feeling of satisfaction are accompanying inherent qualities. The natural poetic spirit and the power of the imagination in the negro are worthy of study.

In addition to these general qualities of the negro folk-songs, it need only be suggested here that the best conception of his religious, moral, mental and social tendencies is reflected in them. That which the negro will not reveal concerning his religion, his religious songs tell better than he could possibly do. His social nature and unconscious ideals bubble out from his spontaneous social songs. In the expression of his natural feelings and emotions he gives us the reactions of his primitive thought with environment. That which is subsequently treated at length may be anticipated in the approach to a careful consideration of the fullest spirit of the negro folk-songs, namely, that it is important to note that the faculty of the negro to think, not exactly as the white man, or to think in terms of modern science and literature, but in terms of his own psychological conditions, is pronounced. The negro is a part of a nation at the same time that he is a distinct people; he, perhaps, has more anthropological importance than historical standing. His present status is an essential consideration of each of these relations to the civilization of to-day. The emotions, the religion, social aspirations and ideals—in fine, the character of a people is accustomed to be expressed in their literature. The negro has no literature save that of his folk-song and story. May these not speak for him, both the good and the bad, in the following chapters?

The work here presented is not exhaustive but representative. The songs are not those of a single plantation, community or section of the Southern States. They are not the songs of the coast negroes or of the river type. But they are sung popularly as much in Georgia as in Mississippi, as much in Florida as in Tennessee. They are distinctly the representative average songs that are current among the common mass of negroes of the present generation. They belong to the negroes who have been constantly in contact with the whites and to those who have had less association with the refinement and culture of the white man. They have been collected carefully and patiently under many difficulties. Many of them are sung only when the white man does not hear; they are the folk-song of the negro, and the negro is very secretive. Not only are they not commonly known by the whites but their existence is only recognized in general. They are as distinct from the white man’s song and the popular “coon songs” as are the two races.

The scope of investigation is large and the field is a broad one; the supply of songs seems inexhaustible. Yet the student may not collect them hurriedly. He who has not learned by long observation and daily contact with Southern conditions the exact situation will make little progress in gathering valuable data. While all contributions to the total of negro folk-songs have been very valuable, still it is true that they have been too long neglected and the studies made have been too partial. The nature of the negro’s songs is constantly changing; the number is continually increasing. They should be studied as the conditions of the negroes are investigated. They are the product of our soil and are worthy of a distinct place in literature. In the following work the effort is made to present the best of the negro’s songs and to interpret impartially the exact spirit of their essential qualities. In the following pages the effort is made to note many of the negro’s mental characteristics as studied in the interpretation of the scope, meaning and origin of his songs, and the essential qualities of his religion as found in the analysis of his

Religious Songs and Spirituals.

The religious songs of the negro have commonly been accepted as characteristic music of the race. The name “spirituals” given them long years ago is still current, while these songs, composed by the negroes, and passing from generation to generation with numerous modifications, retain many of their former characteristics. In former days the spirituals were judged to be the most beautiful production of the race and the truest representation of the negro’s real self. Some of these songs have been published, and for a time their emotional beauty and simplicity of expression won for the negro a definite place in the hearts of those who had not hitherto known him. He was often judged by these songs alone, reported only imperfectly and superficially, and forthwith came many expressions of delight and enthusiasm for the future possibilities of the negro. These expressions indicate not only the power of the singing of negro spirituals upon those who heard them, but also many of the characteristics of the old and present-day spirituals.

The following expressions represent a summary of past judgments and criticism of negro spirituals.[2] The hymns of a congregation of “impassioned and impressible worshippers” have been “full of unpremeditated and irresistible dramatic power.” Sung “with the weirdest intonations”, they have indeed appeared “weird and intensely sad”—“such music, touching and pathetic, as I have never heard elsewhere”, “with a mystical effect and passionate striving throughout the whole.” And again, “Never, it seems to me, since man first lived and suffered, was his infinite longing and suffering uttered more plaintively.” Besides being a relaxation to the negroes these quaint religious songs were “a stimulus to courage and a tie to heaven.” Or again, “I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of the record. There is no parallel instance of an oppressed race thus sustained by the religious sentiment alone. These songs are but the vocal expression of the simplicity of their faith and the sublimity of their long resignation.” Such songs “are all valuable as an expression of the character and life of the race which is playing such a conspicuous part in our history. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hope, keen sorrow and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand the words breathe a trusting faith in rest for the future to which their eyes seem constantly turned. The attitude is always the same, and, as a comment on the life of the race, is pathetic. Nothing but patience for this life—nothing but triumph for the next.” “One can but feel that these quaint old spirituals with their peculiar melodies, having served their time with effectiveness, deserve a better fate than to sink into oblivion as unvalued and unrecorded examples of a bygone civilization.” Many have thought that these songs would pass away immediately with the passing of slavery and that the old system of words and songs “could not be perpetuated without perpetuating slavery as it existed and with the fall of slavery its days were numbered.” And “if they be found neither touching in sentiment, graceful in expression, nor well balanced in rhythm, they may at least possess interest as peculiarities of a system now no more forever in this country.”

The negro found satisfaction in singing not only at church but perhaps even more while he performed his daily tasks. Those who heard the old slaves sing will never forget the scenes that accompanied the songs. After the lighter songs and brisk melodies of the day were over the negroes turned toward eventide to more weird and plaintive notes. The impressions of such singing have been expressed: “Then the melancholy that tinges every negro’s soul would begin to assert itself in dreamy, sad and plaintive airs, and in words that described the most sorrowful pictures of slave life—the parting of loved ones, the separation of mother and child or husband and wife, or the death of those whom the heart cherishes. As he drove his lumbering ox-cart homeward, sitting listlessly upon the heavy tongue behind the patient brutes, the creaking wheels and rough-hewn yokes exhibiting perhaps his own rude handiwork, the negro slave rarely failed to sing his song of longing. What if his words were rude and its music ill-constructed? Great poets like Schiller have essayed the same theme, and mighty musicians like Beethoven have striven to give it musical form. What their splendid genius failed adequately to express, the humble slave could scarce accomplish; yet they but wrought in the same direction as the poor negro, whose eyes unwittingly swam in tears, and whose heart, he scarce knew why, dissolved in tenderness as he sang in plaintive minor key one or another of his songs.”

The above quotations have been given promiscuously, and while others might be added, these suffice to give the general attitude toward the songs of the negroes in the ante-bellum days and since. One other will be added, giving the expression of a present-day negro leader toward the songs of the slave, as the best interpretation that has come from within the race. In his introduction to Twenty-four Negro Melodies by Coleridge-Taylor in The Musicians Library, Booker Washington says: “The negro folk-song has for the negro race the same value that the folk-song of any other people has for that people. It reminds the race of the ‘rock whence it was hewn,’ it fosters race pride, and in the days of slavery it furnished an outlet for the anguish of smitten hearts. The plantation song in America, although an outgrowth of oppression and bondage, contains surprisingly few references to slavery. No race has ever sung so sweetly or with such perfect charity, while looking forward to the ‘year of Jubilee.’ The songs abound in scriptural allusions, and in many instances are unique interpretations of standard hymns. The plantation songs known as the ‘Spirituals’ are the spontaneous outbursts of intense religious fervor, and had their origin chiefly in the campmeetings, the revivals and in other religious exercises. They breathe a child-like faith in a personal father, and glow with the hope that the children of bondage will ultimately pass out of the wilderness of slavery into the land of freedom. In singing of a deliverance which they believed would surely come, with bodies swaying, with enthusiasm born of a common experience and of a common hope, they lost sight for the moment of the auction-block, of the separation of mother and child, of sister and brother. There is in the plantation songs a pathos and a beauty that appeals to a wide range of tastes, and their harmony makes abiding impression upon persons of the highest culture. The music of these songs goes to the heart because it comes from the heart.”