Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise: With a Study

(ante-bellum → antebellum), and several spelling and punctuation irregularies between the index and the main text have been corrected without note. Several alphabetization errors in the index were also corrected. All other spelling and punctuation is as it appeared in the original. Two identical footnotes on pages 42-43 have been merged into one ( Footnote 16 ). The Table of Contents did not appear in the original—it has been added by the transcriber. NEGRO FOLK RHYMES THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO Negro Folk Rhymes Wise and Otherwise WITH A STUDY BY THOMAS W. TALLEY , OF FISK UNIVERSITY New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Copyright, 1922, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and printed. Published January, 1922. Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company New York, U. S. A. PAGE INTRODUCTION v Dance Rhyme Section 1 Dance Rhyme Song Section 14 Play Rhyme Section 73 Pastime Rhyme Section 93 Love Rhyme Section 127 Love Song Rhyme Section 131 Courtship Rhyme Section 135 Courtship Song Rhyme Section 141 Marriage Rhyme Section 143 Married Life Rhyme Section 144 Nursery Rhyme Section 149 Wise Saying Section 207 Foreign Section 216 PART II: A STUDY IN NEGRO FOLK RHYMES 228 GENERAL INDEX 327 COMPARATIVE STUDY INDEX 337 INTRODUCTION Of the making of books by individual authors there is no end; but a cultivated literary taste among the exceptional few has rendered almost impossible the production of genuine folk-songs. The spectacle, therefore, of a homogeneous throng of partly civilized people dancing to the music of crude instruments and evolving out of dance-rhythm a lyrical or narrative utterance in poetic form is sufficiently rare in the nineteenth century to challenge immediate attention. In Negro Folk Rhymes is to be found no inconsiderable part of the musical and poetic life-records of a people; the compiler presents an arresting volume which, in addition to being a pioneer and practically unique in its field, is as nearly exhaustive as a sympathetic understanding of the Negro mind, careful research, and labor of love can make it. Professor Talley of Fisk University has spared himself no pains in collecting and piecing together every attainable scrap and fragment of secular rhyme which might help…