The Negroes when they get together never stop chattering and laughing. They have a keen sense of the ludicrous, and give a funny turn to their stories as they relate the common incidents of daily life. The doings of their neighbours form the chief topic of conversation here as in most places, and any local event of special importance is told over and over. Presently, after repeated telling, the story, or part of it, is set to one of their dance tunes, and tune and words henceforth belong to one another. This is the origin of the songs which follow. With the explanatory notes attached to them it is hoped that they will afford some insight into the peasant life of Jamaica.
The tunes fall into two main divisions, "dancing-tunes" and "digging-sings," and besides the formal dances, whose steps are thoroughly known, there is an informal kind called "playing in de ring." It may be described as dancing mixed with horse-play. It was in this kind of romping that Parson Puss took part in the Annancy story ([No. XXIX.]), and perhaps it was hardly the thing for the cloth! Ring tunes begin anywhere and anyhow, and do not necessarily conform to the eight-bar rhythm of the more regular dance tunes.
To the other class of songs belong the "digging-sings" used, together with rum, as an accompaniment to field labour. In March it is time to think of getting the land ready for planting. So, having rented a piece of hillside from a neighbour, if he has none of his own, the Jamaican begins to clear the ground. The biggest of the trees fall to the axe, and the brushwood, or bush, as it is called, is chopped down with the cutlass, a few rod-like saplings being left here and there to serve as supports for the yams, which will by and by climb them like hops. After a few days' exposure to the sun, he burns all the top and lop that lies on the ground, which is then ready for digging. He now calls in some of his friends to help him dig yam-hills—so the phrase runs. What they dig is, of course, holes, to begin with. The loose soil is then piled up into small mounds in which the yam heads will be placed. The object of the mound is to enable the proprietor to see easily at any time how the tuber is getting on, by just "gravelling" it with his hand. As the hills are being dug, the rum bottle circulates, and the digging-sings, which began quietly enough, get more and more lively. The Negro is cheery at all times, but when well primed with liquor he is hilarious. Nothing more joyous can be imagined than a good "digging-sing" from twenty throats, with the pickers—so they call their pickaxes—falling in regular beat. The pickers work faster and faster to the strains of a rousing "[Oh, Samwel, oh!]" or "[The one shirt I have ratta cut ahm]." One man starts or "raises" the tune and the others come in with the "bobbin," the short refrain of one or two words which does duty for chorus. The chief singer is usually the wag of the party, and his improvised sallies are greeted with laughter and an occasional "hi," which begins on a falsetto note and slides downwards, expressing amusement and delight very plainly.
LII.
Here is a specimen:—
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Oh Miss Nancy Ray, Oh hurrah boys! Oh Miss Nancy Ray, Oh hurrah boys! Nancy Banana da broke man heart, Oh hurrah boys! Nancy Banana da broke man heart, Oh hurrah boys! Oh Miss Nancy Ray, Oh hurrah boys! Oh Miss Nancy Ray, Oh hurrah boys! |