PART IV.: DANCING TUNES, 216
117. When I go home, 217
118. Guava root a medicine, 218
119. Crahss-lookin' dog up'tairs, 218
120. Goatridge have some set a gal, 219
121. Me carry me akee a Linstead market, 219
122. Since Dora Logan, 220
123. Fire, Mr. Preston, Fire! 221
124. Tief cahffee, 222
125. Fan me, soldierman, 223
126. Manny Clark, 224
127. Bungo Moolatta, 225
128. Bahl, Ada, 225
129. Rise a roof in the morning, 226
130. Oh we went to the river, 227
131. Aunty Jane a call Minnie, 228
132. Marty, Marty, 228
133. What make you shave old Hall? 229
134. Run, Moses, run, 230
135. Whe you da do? 231
136. Mother William, hold back Leah, 232
137. Oh, General Jackson! 233
138. Soldier, da go 'way, 234
139. Don't cry too much, Jamaica gal, 234
140. Dip them, 235
141. Very well, very well, 235
142. Oh trial! 236
143. Father, I goin' to join the confirmation, 237
144. Obeah down de, 239
145. The other day me waistcoat cut, 240
146. All them gal a ride merry-go-round, 241
147. Merry-go-round a go fall down, 242
148. Try, dear, don't tell a lie, 243
149. Look how you mout', 244
150. Breezy say him no want Brown lady, 244
151. Isaac Park gone a Colon, 245
152. Matilda de 'pon dyin' bed, 246
153. Mas' Charley, 247
154. Me buggy a sell, 247
155. Oh 'zetta Ford, gal, 248
156. Birdyzeena, 249
157. Me an' Katie no 'gree, 249
158. Down-town gal, 249
159. Sal, you ought to been ashame, 250
160. Good morning, Mr. Harman, 250
161. Hullo me honey! 251
162. When mumma dere, 252
163. Oh Jilly oh! 253
164. James Brown, you mahmy call you, 253
165. When I go home, 254
166. Feather, feather, feather, 254
167. Quaco Sam, 256
168. Anch a bite me, 257
169. Me know one gal a Cross Road, 257
170. Moonshine baby, 258
171. I have a news, 259
172. Once I was a trav'ller, 260
173. Oh me wouldn' bawl at all, 261
174. You take junka 'tick, 262
175. Yellow fever come in, 262
176. Jimmy Rampy, 263
177. Susan, very well why oh! 264
178. Bahss, Bahss, you married you wife, 264
179. Blackbird a eat puppa corn, oh! 265
180. Me da Coolie sleep on Piazza, 265
181. Notty Shaw, 266
182. You worthless Becca Watson, 267
183. Since the waggonette come in, 267
184. Them Gar'n Town people, 268
185. Young gal in Jamaica, take warning, 270
186. Me no min de a concert, 270
187. Complain, complain, complain, 271
188. I can't walk on the bare road, 271
189. Come go da mountain, 272
190. Amanda Grant, 273
191. Last night I was lying on me number, 273
192. Me lassie, me dundooze, 274
193. Mister Davis bring somet'ing fe we all, 275
194. A whe the use, 275
195. Quattywort' of this! 276
196. Mahngoose a come, 276
APPENDIX:
_A._ Traces of African Melody in Jamaica--C.S. Myers, 278
_B._ English Airs and Motifs in Jamaica--L.E. Broadwood, 285
INTRODUCTION.
Mr. Jekyll's delightful collection of tales and songs from Jamaica suggests many interesting problems. It presents to us a network of interwoven strands of European and African origin, and when these have been to some extent disentangled we are confronted with the further question, to which of the peoples of the Dark Continent may the African element be attributed?
The exact relationship between the "Negro" and Bantu races,--which of them is the original and which the adulterated stock (in other words, whether the adulteration was an improvement or the reverse),--is a subject quite beyond my competence to discuss. It seems certain that the Negro languages (as yet only tentatively classified) are as distinct from the singularly homogeneous and well-defined Bantu family, as Aryan from Semitic. Ibo, at one end of the area, has possible Bantu affinities, which await fuller investigation; the same thing has been conjectured of Bullom and Temne at the other end (Sierra Leone); but these are so slight and as yet so doubtful that they scarcely affect the above estimate.
The difference in West Coast and Bantu folk-tales is not so marked as that between the languages; yet here, too, along with a great deal which the two have in common, we can pick out some features peculiar to each. And Mr. Jekyll's tales, so far as they can be supposed to come from Africa at all, are not Bantu. The name of "Annancy" alone is enough to tell us that.
_Annancy_, or _Anansi_ is the Tshi (Ashanti)[1] word for "spider"; and the Spider figures largely in the folk-tales of the West Coast (by which we mean, roughly, the coast between Cape Verde and Kamerun), while, with some curious exceptions to be noted later on, he seems to be absent from Bantu folk-lore. His place is there taken by the Hare (Brer Rabbit), and, in some of his aspects, by the Tortoise.
[Footnote 1: Fanti is a dialect of this language, which is variously called Twi, Chwi, Otyi, and Ochi.]
We find the "Brer Rabbit" stories (best known through _Uncle Remus_) in the Middle and Southern States of America, where a large proportion, at any rate, of the negro slaves were imported from Lower Guinea. Some personal names and other words preserved among them (_e.g._ "goober" = _nguba_, the ground-nut, or "pea-nut") can be traced to the Fiote, or Lower Congo language; and some songs of which I have seen the words,[2] _look_ as if they might be Bantu, but corrupted apparently beyond recognition.
[Footnote 2: One is given by Mr. G.W. Cable in the _Century Magazine_,