SURVIVAL OF AFRICAN MUSIC IN AMERICA. 671 



things? "We don't want them! Take them with you if you are so 

 stuck up; we'll bury them with you! " 



They work themselves into a perfect fury, and one gets a whip 

 and flogs the corpse until it is horribly mutilated. Then the few 

 who have really been friends to the child in their crude way draw 

 near and begin to sing: 



" Anasa yi. 

 Anasa papa," 



which this native African assured me meant, as nearly as he could 

 translate it — 



" Find out how mother is. 

 Find out how papa is." 



The curious identity of the name for father in this African dialect 

 and our own he could not explain. 



Even while the relatives were thus speaking kindly to the de- 

 parted child, others would come up with whips, and with blows spite- 

 fully exclaim : " Tell my father's sister I am happy. Speak to her 

 for me." This they said, mocking the relatives for sending mes- 

 sages. 



What better proof is required of the origin of the peculiar cus- 

 tom of the negroes in our own Southland of sending communica- 

 tions by the dead? He also gave me new stories of Brother Conch, 

 and a tale of a rabbit and a pitch-man. 



He says he has heard a savage tribe often sing to the beat of a 

 peculiar drum, as they started to pillage and destroy a neighboring 

 tribe, these words, which he c*uld not translate: 



" Zo, whine, whine, 

 Zo, bottom balleh. 

 Zo, whine, whine, 

 Zo, bottom balleh." 



Some of the tribes are followers of Mohammed. After they 

 have broken their fast, they sing this hymn to their God: 



" Li li, e li li. 

 Moo moo dooroo, soo moo li." 



I then sang for him a part of " Gawd bless dem Yankees, dey'll 

 set me free," and when I came to the humming, which we all know 



Gawd bless dem Yaukees, dey'll set me free ! 'Most done toil-in' beah : 





Leetle cliiler-den, 'm . . 'ra . . 'Most done toil - iu' . . heah! 



