Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides a list of pancocojams posts about the fictitious characters "Aunt Jemima" or "Aunt Dinah".
This list includes examples of some of the rhymes that are featured in each of those posts.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the composers of these songs and rhymes.
****
Pancocojams Post #1
From http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/10/19th-century-20th-century-examples-of.html
"19th Century & 20th Century Examples Of "Aunt Jemima's Plaster" ("Sheepskin And Beeswax"); October 11, 2014
[post excerpt]
"From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=128733
"Lyr Add: Old Aunt Jemima & Aunt Jemima's Plaster", posted by Q, 10 Apr 10SHEEPSKIN, BEESWAX
19th. C. songsheet
Now I'm gwine to sing a song
'Bout old Aunt Jemima,
Who used to make the Blister Plaster,
Down in North Carolina.
Chorus-
Sheepskin, beeswax,
Bergindy pitch and plaster,
The more you try to pull it off,
It only sticks the faster.
2
Old Aunt Jemima had a dog,
His tail was rather stumpy,
She put the plaster on his back,
And draw'd him to a monkey.
3
She bought a box of blacking,
So big, or a little bigger,
She put de plaster on de box
And draw'd it to a ni-ger*.
4
She had a horse and cart,
They stalled upon de level,
She put de plaster on de cart
And draw'd 'em to de debble.**
5
Old Aunt Jemima's dead and gone,
You mayn't believe the story,
Dey put de plaster on her head,
And draw'd her up to glory.
J. Andrews, No. 38, Chatham St., N. Y.
American Memory.
-snip-
*”n word” fully spelled out
**"debble" = devil
-snip-
That Mudcat thread also includes other text examples of "Aunt Jemima's Plaster" as well as text examples of other 19th century minstrel songs that refer to "Aunt Jemima"."...
****
Pancocojams Post #2
From https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-aunt-jemima-got-her-name-19th.html
"How "Aunt Jemima" Pancake & Syrup Products Got That Name (The 19th century song "Old Aunt Jemima"), Oct 12, 2014
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Aunt_Jemima
[Note this page indicates that Billy Kersands composed "Aunt Jemina" as early as 1875. However, this may not be the earliest version of that song.]
"OLD AUNT JEMIMA
One version of "Old Aunt Jemima" began with a stanza expressing dissatisfaction with the dullness of worship services in white churches, such as a complaint about the length of the prayers. The song ended with the following two stanzas:
The monkey dressed in soldier clothes,
Old Aunt Jemima, etc.
Went out in the woods for to drill some crows,
Old etc.
The jay bird hung on a swinging limb.
Old etc.
I up with a stone and hit him on the shin.
Old etc.
Oh, Carline, oh, Carline,
Can't you dance the bee line
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
The bullfrog married the tadpole's sister,
Old etc.
He smacked his lips and then he kissed her,
Old etc.
She says if you love me as I love you,
Old etc.
No knife can cut out love in two.
Old etc.
Some variants of the song substituted "pea-vine" for "bee line". Another version included the verse:
My old missus promise me,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
When she died she-d set me free,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
She lived so long her head got bald,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
She swore she would not die at all,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh![2]
Sterling Stuckey [cultural historian and author of the 1988 book Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America] maintains that Kersands did not write all of these lyrics, but adapted many of them from "slave songs" (such as field hollers and work songs).[2]"
****
Pancocojams #3
From http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/get-up-grandma-you-aint-sick-all-you.html
"Old Aunt Dinah" & The "Get Up Grandma. You Ain't Sick. All You Need Is A Hickory Stick" Lines In Children's Rhymes", May 5, 2017
[post excerpts]
From: [Google Book: Melody Sheet Music Lyrics Midi]
Richard Hewlett, Sep 4, 2014]
Ole Aunt Dinah went to town,
Riding a billy-goat, leading a hound.
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Hound dog barked, billy-goat jumped
Set Aunt Dinah straddle of a stump.
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Old Aunt Dinah sick in bed
sent for the doctor and the doctor said
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Get up, Dinah, you ain't sick
All you need is a hickory stick.
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O"
-snip-
Here's the Addendum #3 from that post that provides some context to the use of the referent "Aunt Dinah":
"ADDENDUM #3: Excerpt About the use of the name "Dinah" in 19th century United States
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah#Symbol_of_black_womanhood
"[Dinah"] Symbol of black womanhood
In 19th-century America, "Dinah" became a generic name for an enslaved African woman.[12] At the 1850 Woman's Rights Convention in New York, a speech by Sojourner Truth was reported on in the New York Herald, which used the name "Dinah" to symbolize black womanhood as represented by Truth:
In a convention where sex and color are mingled together in the common rights of humanity, Dinah, and Burleigh, and Lucretia, and Frederick Douglas [sic], are all spiritually of one color and one sex, and all on a perfect footing of reciprocity. Most assuredly, Dinah was well posted up on the rights of woman, and with something of the ardor and the odor of her native Africa, she contended for her right to vote, to hold office, to practice medicine and the law, and to wear the breeches with the best white man that walks upon God's earth.[12]
Lizzie McCloud, a slave on a Tennessee plantation during the American Civil War, recalled that Union soldiers called all enslaved women "Dinah". Describing her fear when the Union army arrived, she said: "We was so scared we run under the house and the Yankees called 'Come out Dinah' (didn't call none of us anything but Dinah). They said 'Dinah, we're fightin' to free you and get you out from under bondage'."[13] After the end of the war in 1865 The New York Times exhorted the newly liberated slaves to demonstrate that they had the moral values to use their freedom effectively, using the names "Sambo" and "Dinah" to represent male and female former slaves: "You are free Sambo, but you must work. Be virtuous too, oh Dinah!"[14]
The name Dinah was subsequently used for dolls and other images of black women.[15]"...
****
Pancocojams #4
From http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/is-this-version-of-19th-century-african.html
"Is This Version Of The 19th Century African American Rhyme "Old Aunt Dinah" An Early Example Of Beatboxing?", May 6, 2017
[post excerpt]
"Here's the preface to the "Old Aunt Dinah" rhyme and those rhymes themselves as they are given on page 187-188 in Dorothy Scarborough's 1925 book On The Trail Of Negro Folk Rhymes (1925). I've added italics for the portion that I think is suggestive of beatboxing to highlight those words.
As background, Dorothy Scarborough was a White American collector of Black American non-religious folk songs that she had heard or that other White people sent her from their memories or direct experiences of hearing Black people sing them.
"The unknown author of the song contributed by Mrs Bartlett seems to have felt strongly on her subject. Mrs. Bartlett writes: "There is another that Mr. Bartlett used to delight the children with. I used to know a colored chambermaid at Hollins, named Penny, who said something lie it, only her speech had to do with a rabbit; but she used the same nonsensical interruptions and assumed the same expressions of inspired idiocy that Mr. Bartlett deems fitting for the proper interpretation of Ole Aunt Dinah:
"Old Aunt Dinah---sick in bed,
Eegisty ----ogisty!
Sent for the doctah ----doctah said,
Eegisty ----ogisty!
"Get up, Dinah,--
Ring-ding-ah-ding-ah
You ain't sick
Eegisty ----ogisty!
All you need
Ring-ding-ah-ding--ah!
Is a hickory stick!
Eegisty ----ogisty--Ring-ding-ah-ding--ah! !
The dashes stand for peculiar "spitting and puffings with the lips that defy expression. However, they are an important part of the rhythm of the incantation."...
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment