Information About The 19th Century Black American "Coonjine" Dance & An Example Of The New Orleans Black Creole Song "Criole Candjo"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post showcases the 19th century New Orleans, Louisiana Black Creole song entitled "Criole Candjo".

Information about the 19th century -if not earlier- African American dance form known as "coonjine" and similar sounding names such as "counjaille", "coonjar", "cundio", "candjo", and "koundjo") is also included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, cultural, and etymological information.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the early collectors and publishers of this information and this song and special thanks to the memory of Q (Frank Staplin), a Mudcat Folk music forum commenter whose post (comment) I am showcasing.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT THE COONJINE DANCE
Pancocojams Editor:
The following excerpt is showcased in Part I of a two part 2013 pancocojams series entitled "In Search Of Information About Counjaille & Coonjine Songs & Dances" http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/11/in-search-of-information-about_2.html.

Part I of that series provides excerpts from material that provides information about those songs and dances. I also share my speculations in that post about why I think that counjaille and coonjine songs and dances seem to have been largely forgotten.

Part II of that series http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/11/coonjine-baby-other-examples-of.html presents information about coonjine songs and eight examples of songs or song fragments that include the word "coonjine" or "coonshine".

From Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana: The 1934 Lomax Recordings Joshua Clegg Caffery (Google Book, pp. 247-249)
"The word coonjine, as it is employed here, as it was apparently most commonly understood in nineteenth- century America, refers to the particular body movements enacted by black workers while unloading or loading freight (Hardie 2004, 115-16). While the word was associated with these movements, it could also apply to any songs or dances performed by these laborers while going about their work. More broadly, the word came to be associated with any riparian African American song and dance style.

The roots of the word coonjine extend well beyond this meaning, and some have noted that it likely relates to the term counjaille, a dance popular in Creole communities in French Louisiana and the West Indies (Knowles 2002, 63-64). In the seminal Slave Songs Of The South, for instance, mention is made of a counjaille being performed in St. Charles Parish (a “sort of minuet”), suggesting that the counjaille in question may have been part of the complex of quadrille/contredanse sets found disseminated throughout Creole culture (Allen et al, 1867, 137).

Counjaille or Coonjine may also relate to the Haitian dance known as the koudyay or the Nicaraguan kujai. Although these dances are wildly different, their names have a common linguistic root in the West Indian dance performance known as “coup de jaille” (meaning a spontaneous spouting forth), a term that seems to have originated in colonial French military and political celebrations (Manuel, 2009, 31). In 1937 John Lomax recorded a song that referenced dancing the counjallee from a self-described Creole Haitian descendant in a nursing home in New Orleans (AFS 809 A01). In general, then, like European dance forms like the mazurka, quadrille, or jig, counjaile functioned as a basic name for a dance movement that accompanied a wide variety of vernacular, creolized associations.

It should also be mentioned that coonjine performers in the United States were among the most visible exponents of African American oral art in the 19th century. As steamboat roustabouts, they were in close contact with white people of various ethnic and economic backgrounds – a context that allowed their performances to permeate the boundaries of race and class. Not surprisingly, many of the early blackface minstrel performers may have based their performances of the songs and dances of the musical roustabouts (Kenney, 2005, 29-30), and roustabout coonjine songs may have marked an intermediate phase between plantation performances and the explosion of minstrelsy in the mid nineteenth century- a middle stage of African American vernacular music’s absorption into America’s popular music consciousness.”
-snip-
Italics were included in that book.

****
LYRICS FOR AND COMMENTS ABOUT THE NEW ORLEANS BLACK CREOLE SONG "CRIOLE CANDJO"
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=81179 http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=81179 African American Secular Folk Songs

Subject: LYR. ADD: CRIOLE CANDJO
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 09:59 PM

LYR. ADD: CRIOLE CANDJO
Arr. by H. E. Krebiel

(Creole coonjar, cundio, Koundjo, counjaille)

In zou' in zéne Criole candjo,
Belle passé blanc dan-dan là yo,
Li té tout tans apé dire,
"Vini, zamie, pou' nous rire."
"Non, Miché, m'pas oulé rire moin,
Non Miché, m'pas oulé rire;
Non, Miché, m'pas onlé rire moin,
Non, Miché, m'pas oulé rire."

Mo courri dans youn bois viosin,
Mais Criole là prend même ci min,
Et tous tans li m'apé dire,
"Vini, zamie, pou' nous rire."
"Non, Miché, m'pas oulé rire moin,
Non, Miché, m'pas oulé rire."

Mais li té tant cicané moi,
Pou li té quitté moin youn fois
Mo té 'blizé pou' li dire,
"Oui, Miché, mo oulé rire,
Oui, Miché, mo oulé rire moin,
Oui, Miché, mo oulé rire."

Zant tous qu'ap'ès rire moin là-bas
Si zaut te conne Candjo là,
Qui belle façon li pou' rire,
Djé pini moin! zaut s'ré dire,
"Oui, Miché, mo oulé rire moin,
Oui, Miché, mo oulé rire."

One day one young Creole Candio,
Mo' fineh dan sho' nuff white beau,
Kip all de time meckin' free,
"Swit-hawt, meck merrie wid me!"
"Naw, sah, I dawn't want meck merrie, me,
Naw sah, I dawn't want meck merrie;
Naw sah, I dawn't want meck merrie, me,
Naw sah, I dawn't want meck merrie!"

(I go teck walk in wood close by,
But Creole teck same road and try
All time all time to meck free-
"Swithawt, meck merrie wid me."
"Naw sah, I dawn't want meck merrie, me,
Nah sah, I dawn't want meck merrie."

But him slide 'round an 'round dis chile,
Tell jis fo' sheck 'im off lill while
Me I was bleedze fo' say: "Shoo!
If I'll meck merrie wid you?
O, yass, I ziss leave meck merrie, me,
Yass, sah, I ziss leave meck merrie."

You-alls wat laugh at me so well,
I wish you'd knowed dat Creole swell,
Wid all 'is swit, smilin' trick.
'Pon my soul! you'd done say, quick,
"O, yass, I ziss leave meck merrie, me.
Yass, sah. I ziss leave meck merrie,"

The melody written down by Mr. Macrum. English paraphrase by George W. Cable. A note to Krehbiel from Lafcadio Hearn who (at that time a resident of New Orleans), says: "My quadroon neighbor, Mamzelle Eglantine, tells me that the word koundjo (in the West Indies Candio or Candjo) refers to an old African dance which used to be danced with drums. The 'Criole Candjo' ... is sort of a [black] Creole dandy who charms and cajoles women by his dancing- what the French would call un beau valseur."

pp. 118-120, H. E. Krehbiel, 1913, "Afro-American Folk-Songs." Krehbiel corresponded with Lafcadio Hearn in New Orleans in the period 1877-1884, and discussed this and other secular songs with him. George Cable was in correspondence with both Krehbiel and Hearn, and inchuded the above version of the song, credited to krehbiel, in the article "Creole Slave Songs," printed in the Century Magazine, 1886.

Cable, in his description of dances he saw in Place Congo, said the counjaile was accompanied by posing, breast-patting and chanting. He remarked that the counjaile songs were never complete, ending only at the caprice of the improvisator, "whose rich, stentorian voice sounded alone between the refrains. Of the dancers, cable said, "let one flag, another has his place, and a new song gives new vehemence, new inventions in steps, turns, and attitudes." Cable, 1885, "The Dance in Place Congo," Century Magazine, vol. 31, pp. 517-532, Dec.

The Century Magazine is reproduced on line,
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.journals/cent.html"
-snip-
The hyperlink that was given for the Century Magazine now goes to this link http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/c/cent/cent.html.

*I started this Mudcat discussion thread in May 2005.

In the post [comment] that I wrote immediately after Q's post about the song "Criole Candjo", I indicated that I didn't find any information about the "candjo" dance in three books I had at home about Black dance in the United States. But I (somewhat) redeemed myself in my next comment in which I corrected my previous guess that "candjo" might have been a referent for another Black Caribbean/Black American dance such as the "calinda" or the "chica":

Subject: RE: African American Secular Folk Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 08:41 AM

More on 'Candjo':

See this excerpt from harold Courlander's Negro Folk Music, U.S.A {Columbia University Prss, p. 192; 1968} that refutes what I wrote earlier:

"The term Counjaille, or Coonjine, is still used in southern United States waterfront areas to mean moving or loading cotton, an activity that once in all probability, was accompanied by Counjaille-type songs and rhythms. Negro children on the docks and levies sang such songs as:

Throw me a nickel, throw me a dime
if you want to see me do the Coonjine."

-snip-

I take it the children were asking White passerbyers to throw them money and they would do a dance that was patterned after movements made by those loading cotton."...

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.