The author wrote this as part of a dissertation for his doctorate. It does not contain the music of the songs, though some partial lyrics are included. The author focuses more on the social aspect of the negro music than the actual melody and construction. He explains how it is difficult for a white man to hear all negro music, as some of it is sung only out of their earshot.
To know the soul of a people and to find the source from which flows the expression of folk-thought is to comprehend in a large measure the capabilities of that people. To obtain the truest expression of the folk-mind and feeling is to reveal much of the inner-consciousness of a race. And the knowledge of those evidences which are most representative of race life constitutes the groundwork of a knowledge of social and moral tendencies, hence of social and moral needs. The student of race traits and tendencies must accept testimony from within the race, and in the study of race character the value of true expressions of the feelings and mental imagery cannot be overestimated. Thus it is possible to approximate knowledge of a race. To bring a people face to face with themselves and to place them fairly before the world is the first service that can be rendered in the solution of race problems.
Excerpt from Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes Likewise peoples have lived contemporaneously side by side, but ignorant of the treasures of folk-gems that lay hidden and wasting all about them. The heart and soul of the real people are unknown, science is deprived of a needed contribution, and the world is hindered in its effort to discover the full significance of the psychological, religious, social and political history of mankind. That which is distinctly the product of racial life and development deserves a better fate than to be blown away with changing environment, and not even remain to enrich the soil from which it sprang. Justice to the race and the scientific spirit demand the preservation of all interesting and valuable additions to the knowledge of folk-life. The successful study of the common development of the human intellect in primitive thought is thus advanced. The exact form of expression itself constitutes a contribution to knowledge and literature. The value and importance of folk-lore are gladly recognized. Its successful study and a more comprehensive recognition of its worth have revealed new problems and new phases of thought. Not only its relation to civilization as an historical science and as it bears definitely upon peoples of modern cultural areas is recognized, but its essential value in the study of psychological, anthropological, and sociological conditions has called forth the most careful study that has been possible to give it. On the scientist's part, knowledge has been increased, while on the other hand, the peoples of the world have become more united in the appreciation of the kindred development of human thought. The vast contributions to folk-science and their relation to scientific interest, bear testimony to this truth. And perhaps even more with folk-song, a greater work is to be done. As a part of folklore it represents less of the traditional and more of the spontaneous. Its collection and study is now being pursued with more zeal and with marked success. And the hope may well be expressed that with the growing interest in folk-song may come an increased knowledge of all that is nearest and truest to the phyletie as well as the genetic concept of a people, and that with this knowledge may come effective efforts toward race adjustment and new aids in the solution of race problems. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Originally published in 1867, this book is a collection of songs of African-American slaves. A few of the songs were written after the emancipation, but all were inspired by slavery. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in the life after, to which their eyes seem constantly turned.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
While his father works in the city over the winter, a young boy thinks of some good times they've shared and looks forward to his return to their South African home in the spring.
To Know the Soul of a People is a history of religion and race in the agricultural South before the Civil Rights era. Jamil W. Drake chronicles a cadre of social scientists who studied the living conditions of black rural communities, revealing the abject poverty of the Jim Crow south. Theseuniversity-affiliated social scientists documented shotgun houses, unsanitary privies and contaminated water, scaly hands, enlarged stomachs, and malnourished bodies. However, they also turned their attention to the spiritual possessions, chanted sermons, ecstatic singing, conjuration, dreams andvisions, fortune-telling, taboos, and other religious cultures of these communities. These scholars aimed to illuminate the impoverished conditions of their subjects for philanthropic and governmental organizations, as well as the broader American public, in the first half of the 20th century,especially during the Great Depression. Religion was integral to their efforts to chart the long economic depression across the South.From 1924 to 1941, Charles Johnson, Guy Johnson, Allison Davis, Lewis Jones, and other social scientists framed the religious and cultural practices of the black communities as "folk" practices, aiming to reform them and the broader South. Drawing on their correspondence, fieldnotes, and monographs,Drake shows that social scientists' use of "folk"reveals the religion was an important site for highlighting the supposed mental, moral, and cultural deficits of America's so-called folk population. Moreover, these social scientists did not just pioneer rural social science and reform but used theirstudy of religion to plant the seeds of the concept that would become known as the "culture of poverty" in the latter half of the twentieth century. To Know the Soul of a People is an exciting intellectual history that invites us to explore the knowledge that animated the earnest yet shortsightedliberal efforts to reform black and impoverished communities.
