SURVIVAL OF AFRICAN MUSIC IN AMERICA. 66 1 



grimaces and pantomime, and their gross superstitions came straight 

 from Africa. 



Some of tlieir later songs, it is true, we must teclmically call 

 " modified African," but how far the original African song elements 

 have been altered (and usually not for the better) by contact with 

 American life is a question of fact, and can only be settled by a 

 careful comparison of the songs as sung among the natives of Africa 

 and the changed forms in which their modified ones are found to- 

 day in the South. It must be determined in each case, and can 

 not be settled by any general theory or formula. 



This question of the classification of African music has given 

 rise to more or less discussion. It seems hardly just to call the 

 genuine negro, songs " the folk songs of America." We are a con- 

 glomerate people, and no one race can claim a monopoly in this 

 matter. English, Scotch, German, French, Italians, and others 

 have brought their own music and their own folklore, and in each 

 case it must be considered distinctly belonging to the nationality 

 that imported it. Why should not the same be true of the genuine 

 negro music? The stock is African, the ideas are African, the pat- 

 ting and dancing are all African. The veneer of civilization and 

 religious fervor and Bible truth is entirely superficial. The Af- 

 rican is under it all, and those who study him and his weird music 

 at short range have no difficulty in recalling the savage conditions 

 that gave it birth. 



Were I to begin now the study of all the intonations and tor- 

 tuous quavers of this beautiful music, I fear I should be able to do 

 little toward imitating it ; for it was only possible to catch the spirit 

 of it and the reason of it all while my voice had the flexibility of 

 childhood, and the influences of slavery were still potent factors in 

 the daily life of the negroes. I followed these old ex-slaves, who 

 have passed away, in their tasks, listened to their crooning in their 

 cabins, in the fields, and especially in their meeting houses, and 

 again and again they assured me the tunes they sang came from 

 Africa. 



Possibly I have an unusual predilection for this imported Afri- 

 can music, but to me some of the strange, weird, untamable, bar- 

 baric melodies have a rude beauty and a charm beside which, as 

 Cowper says— . j^^^^^^ ^^.^^^ ^^.^ ^^^^ „ 



It is indeed hard to account for the strange misconceptions 

 which prevail as to what really constitutes genuine African music. 

 The " coon songs " which are so generally sung are base imitations. 

 The white man does not live who can write a genuine negro song. 

 At home there used to be a rare old singer, an old Kentucky mam- 



