In 1843, during Mr. Bryant’s visit to the South, he had the pleasure of witnessing one of those antebellum southern institutions known as a Corn-Shucking—one of the ideal occasions of the colored man’s life, to which both men and women were invited. They were free to tell all the jokes, sing all the songs and have all the fun they desired as they rapidly shucked the corn. Two leaders were usually chosen and the company divided into two parties which competed for a prize awarded to the first party which finished shucking the allotted pile of corn. Mr. Bryant thus graphically describes one of these novel occasions:
Barnwell District,
South Carolina, March 29, 1843.
UT you must hear of the corn-shucking. The one at which I was present was given on purpose that I might witness the humors of the Carolina negroes. A huge fire of light-wood was made near the corn-house. Light-wood is the wood of the long-leaved pine, and is so called, not because it is light, for it is almost the heaviest wood in the world, but because it gives more light than any other fuel.
The light-wood-fire was made, and the negroes dropped in from the neighboring plantations, singing as they came. The driver of the plantation, a colored man, brought out baskets of corn in the husk, and piled it in a heap; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst of laughter. The songs were generally of a comic character; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well to reduce to notation. These are the words:
Johnny come down de hollow.
Oh hollow!
Johnny come down de hollow.
Oh hollow!
De nigger-trader got me.