Some Current Folk-Songs of the Negro

by W. H. Thomas

You will notice that I have taken as my title, “Some Current Folk-Songs of the Negro and Their Economic Interpretation.” Now it is somewhat misleading at this day and time to speak of the negro as a “folk.” That word seems to me to be applicable only to a people living in an industry in which economic function has not been specialized. So it would be more accurate to speak of “negro class lore.” The class that I am treating of is the semi-rural proletariat. So far as my observation goes, the property-holding negro never sings. You see, property lends respectability, and respectability is too great a burden for any literature to bear, even our own. Although we generally think of beliefs, customs, and practices, when we hear the word “folk-lore” used, I believe all treatises on the subject recognize songs, sayings, ballads, and arts of all kinds as proper divisions of the subject. So a collection and study of the following songs is certainly not out of place on a program got up by this society.

Now just one word more under this head. I have found it very difficult to keep separate and distinct the study of folk-lore and the study of folk-psychology. The latter has always been extremely interesting to me; hence I can’t refrain from sharing with you the two following instances: A negro girl was once attending a protracted meeting when she “got religion” and went off into a deep swoon, which lasted for two whole days, no food or drink being taken in the meantime. A negro explained to me as follows: “Now when that nigger comes to, if she’s been possumin’, she sho’ will be hungry; but if she hasn’t been possumin’, it will be just the same as if she had been eatin’ all the time.” The other instance is that of an old negro who just before he died had been lucky enough to join a burial association which guaranteed to its members a relatively elaborate interment. So, when this old negro died, the undertaker dressed him out in a nice black suit, patent leather shoes, laundered shirt and collar, and all that. His daughter, in relating the incident after the funeral, said: “Bless your life, when they put Pappy in that coffin, he looked so fine that he just had to open his eyes and look at his self.”

I imagine that folk-lore appeals differently to different individuals according to what intellectual or cultural interest predominates their beings. I suppose that the first interest in folk-lore was that of the antiquarian. Then came the interest of the linguist and the literateur. But it seems to me that if the pursuit of folk-lore is to be thoroughly worth while to-day the interest must above all be psychological and sociological. At least these are my interests in the subject. For instance, take that piece of well known folk-lore—the belief that by hanging a dead snake on a barbed wire fence—one can induce rain in a time of drought. I would give almost anything to know just how the two ideas “hanging a snake on a fence” and “raining” were ever associated. But I can perhaps still better illustrate my attitude by relating a piece of Herbert Spencerian lore. Herbert Spencer tells in his autobiography of this incident that he met with while on one of his annual trips to Scotland. The house at which he was a guest contained a room which bore the reputation of being haunted. It was in this room that Herbert Spencer was asked to sleep. So he did and lay awake most of the night, though not out of fear that the ghost would choose that particular night to pay a visit, but out of a philosophical curiosity to figure out the origin of such a “fool” belief.

In reference to these songs, when I say that I am interested in a study of origins, I do not mean the origin of any particular song, but the origin of the songs as a social phenomenon. Or to put it interrogatively, why do the members of this particular class sing, and why do their songs contain the thoughts that they do?

I believe it is pretty generally agreed today that any well-defined period of literature is merely the reflection of some great economic change. I notice that the critics have begun to speak of Victorian literature as merely the ornament of nineteenth century prosperity—the prosperity that was incident to the utilization of steam as motive power.

Now a great change has come into the negro’s economic life within the past two decades. Its causes have been two. He has come into competition with the European immigrant, whose staying qualities are much greater than his; and agriculture has been changing from a feudalistic to a capitalistic basis, which requires a greater technical ability than the negro possesses. The result is that he is being steadily pushed into the less inviting and less secure occupations. To go into the intricacies of my thesis would be to abuse the privilege of the program; so I shall have to content myself with merely stating it. The negro, then, sings because he is losing his economic foothold. This economic insecurity has interfered most seriously with those two primal necessities—work and love—and you will notice that the thoughts in all these songs cluster around these two ideas.

So much for the interpretation; now for the appreciation. It has been my experience that where a knowledge of the negro’s every day, or rather every-night, life is lacking, the appreciation of these songs is never very keen. Hence, in order to make it certain that you will appreciate these songs, I deem it necessary to try to acquaint you with the life of one of the “songsters.” Otherwise I am afraid that too many of you will look upon these songs as absolutely puerile. Remember that a greater man than you or I once declared the ancient ballads to be without merit and also maintained that he could write, on the spur of the moment, a stanza that was just as good and that contained just as much meaning. Whereupon, being challenged he sat down and wrote:

“I put my hat upon my head and went into the Strand,
And there I met another man with his hat in his hand.”

The colored semi-rural proletarian, then—how shall I describe him so that you may see him in your mind’s eye, as I read these songs? I don’t know how many of you are already acquainted with him, but, if any of you have ever tried to employ him profitably, I am sure you will never forget him. Perhaps I can picture him best by using the method of contrast. Let us follow one as he works with a white man, the latter, of course, being boss. We shall start with the morning.

The white man rises early and eats his breakfast. My proletarian doesn’t rise at all for the chances are that he has never gone to bed. At noon they “knock off.” While the white man is preparing to eat his lunch, the “nigger” has already done so and is up in the bed of a wagon or on a plank underneath a tree fast asleep, usually with his head in the sun. At nightfall, the white man eats supper and spends the evening reading or with his family. Not so my proletarian. He generally borrows thirty-five cents from the white man, steps out the back gate, gives a shrill whistle or two, and allows how he believes he’ll “step off a piece to-night.”