Edited by Azizi Powell
This post presents the words to & performance instructions, for the Caribbean children's game song "Congotay". This post also includes a comparison of this game with other British, Caribbean, American children's games and my comments about the possible early meaning of that game.
This serves as a companion post to http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-one-day-congotay-congote-means.html. That post provides information and comments about the meanings of the proverb "One day one day Congotay (Congote)".
This also serves as a companion post to http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-love-circle-one-day-congote.html The Love Circle - "One Day Congote (Congotay)" sound file & lyrics
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and entertainment purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
UPDATE: December 20, 2015
Thanks to Jeremy Peretz for this link to a YouTube video of "Congotay" from Surinam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrZCFL-uwQ4 (at around 1:15:41 minutes in this video until around 1:16:23. Unfortunately, that portion of the video which was filmed at night is very difficult to see.
[Description: Added May 13, 2017]
Children are standing in single file with both hands holding on to the hips of the child in front of them them. The first person in that vertical line is taller (probably an adult). Someone is heard saying "Congotay!" and another voice says a short response that I can't decipher. On the word "Congotay!" the line moves (with the children holding on to each other) as if to avoid some action. You can hear the children's laughter while playing this game.
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OVERVIEW OF THE WORD "CONGOTAY"
I have found three online uses for the word "Congotay" ("Congo-tay", "Congote", "Congo-te"). Given in the order of the most often found meaning and the least often found meaning online:
1. "Congotay" refers to the "old" proverb (saying) "One day Congotay". Old" here probably refers to the 19th century, but I can't substantiate this guess.
Most online sites associate this proverb with Trinidad & Tobago and with Grenada.
This sub-category also includes the use of "Congotay" in songs such as The Love Circle's record which is showcased in the previous pancocojams post whose link is given above.
2. "Congotay" is the name of a Caribbean* children's game as well as the refrain used in the chant for that game.
*Online and off-line sources that I've found associate this game with Tobago, but it may have also been played in Trinidad and in other Caribbean nations. I used past tense, but this game may still be played in the Caribbean and, by dissemination, elsewhere.
3."Congotay" refers to a Caribbean* prepared food.
*Caribbean here also means "Tobago" but may also mean Trinidad and other West Indian nations.
-snip-
This post focuses on the use of "Congotay" as the title of and the refrain in a specific Caribbean children's game.
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OVERVIEW OF THE CHILDREN'S GAME
"Congotay" is a children's chasing game that begins as a line game.* My guess is that the "One day Congotay" proverb was created before the singing game (which also includes the words "one day". According to Candice Goucher, author of Congotay! Congotay! A Global History of Caribbean Food, this game was first recorded by J.D. Elder in 1936. A description from J. D. Elder about the performance activity associated with this game is given below.
*Congotay & other line games & dances is the name of a 1996 book by David G Woods (Publisher: Chicago, Ill. GIA Publications, ©1996.). A summary of that book reads:
"A collection of traditional line games and dances for use as a supplemental resource in a comprehensive elementary music curriculum.
-snip-
Note that this book refers to "Congotay" and the other featured games as "traditional". However, although this book is cited numerous times online, I haven’t been able to find a listing online or any of the words to any of its featured games (as they are found in that book). Also "traditional" isn't defined in any of the citations for this book ("Traditional" in which cultures? When were these examples first collected which would make them traditional?)
****
TEXT (WORD ONLY) EXAMPLES
Here are two text examples of that game. Unfortunately, to date, I've not been able to find any YouTube sound files or videos of this game.
Here are two examples of this rhyme. My guess is that example #1 is older than example #2:
Example #1:
One day, one day
Congotay!
I meet an ol' lady,
Congotay!
With a box of chickens,
Congotay!
I ask her for one,
Congotay!
She did not give me,
Congotay!
She’s a greedy mama
Congotay!
-as given by Candice Goucher in the chapter "The Enslaved Africans Kitchen" (p. 67) of her 2014 book Congotay! Congotay! A Global History of Caribbean Food books.google.com/books?isbn=0765642174
Here's the preface that Candice Goucher wrote about this game song:
“On the island of Tobago Congotay is a simple tag-and-capture team game in which half the children are chickens and half are attackers. The attackers try to get past the female leader , “the greedy mama:, to capture her chickens for their side. First recorded by J.D. Elder in 1936, the Congotay song and dance is still remembered in various parts of the Caribbean, where the children’s laughter punctuates the lines of the song."
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Example #2:
One day, one day
Congotay
I went down to the bay.
Congotay
I meet an ol' lady,
Congotay
With a bag of chickens,
Congotay
I ask her for one,
Congotay
But she wouldn't give me,
Congotay
She's a greedy Mama,
Congotay
So I took it anyway.*
" 'Congotay' is an alternating chant game in which two lines of children stand facing each other with the leader (Mama) of one side protecting the children (chickens) behind her."
- from the 1996 book Down By The River: Afro-Caribbean Rhymes, Games, And Songs For Children
compiled by Grace Hallworth and illustrated by Caroline Binch. (New York: Scholastic Inc, 1996)
-snip-
Given the two acknowledgements/dedications in that book are for two people from Tobago, it appears that these examples in that book come from the Caribbean nation of Tobago.
*I believe that this line is a later addition to the words of this song, but that's just my guess.
****
OTHER PLAY INSTRUCTIONS
From http://books.google.com/books?id=nL1aAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=congotay
Jacob D. Elder
American Folklore Society, Jun 1, 1965 - Social Science – 119 [Google books]page 54
"Movements: captured “chickens” are then added to the attackers’ side
The attackers chant “one day one day”, and the “chickens” reply “Congotay”
From time to time the leader of the attackers attempts to get past the greedy “Mama”."
-snip-
In his essay "Recall....Growing Up In Tobago" that is included in the 1997 book Brown Girl In The Ring: An Anthology Of Song Games From the Eastern Caribbean collected & documented by Alan Lomax, J. D. Elder, and Bess Lomax Hawes, J.D. Elders recalls both boys and girls in Tobago playing chasing games. However, the game "Congotay" isn't among the 68 games that are included in that book.
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COMPARISON OF "CONGOTAY" WITH OTHER CHASING GAMES
Several children's chasing games involve children in the role of "chickens" being protected by their mother from attackers. Among those games are "Bull Inna Penn" (original source location: Jamaica), “Chicamy" (original source location: The United Kingdom); and "Chicka Ma Chicka Ma Craney Crow" (African American version of "Chicamy", given as "Hawk and Chickens" in Thomas W. Talley's 1922 book Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise.
Other closely related children's chasing games in the United States are "What's the time, Mr. Wolf", "What time is it Mrs. Witch", "What's The Time, Mr Fox", and "I'm going downtown to smoke my pipe".
To serve as an example, here is a description of "Bull Inna Penn" from Xavier Murphy; "Games played by children in Jamaica" http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/intro/childgames.shtml, Published May 1, 2002, retrieved October 29, 2010:
"[Bull Inna Penn] is a tense, rough and super exciting game, much loved by every child (and adults) in Jamaica.
This game is basically a story of a mother hen and her chicken, a bull in the pen and a hawk.
The mother hen is protecting her brood who are tightly lined up behind her, each little chick clutching tightly onto each other and in step with every move that mother hen does.
The Bull is standing a couple feet in front of mother hen, taunting and jeering, making noise, and trying everything to reach behind Mother Hen to grab one of her precious chicks. The game has a song and little play..."
****
MY SPECULATION ABOUT THE EARLY MEANING OF THE CHILDREN'S GAME "CONGOTAY"
My folkloric approach to children’s rhymes, cheers, and game songs starts with the premise that the words to many of those compositions have meanings that may have been forgotten and/or changed over time. With regard to Afro-Caribbean and African American children's games and rhymes, like dance songs and work songs, the words to these compositions may have had coded meanings to shield people from the negative consequences that would occur if their criticism, protest, and/or revolutionary intentions were recognized and understood. These folk songs are ways of “hiding in plain sight” anti-systems criticisms, protests, if not revolutionary intents.
To clarify, a game can have English (United Kingdom) sources, or other Anglo sources and mean something else or some thing more when that game is adapted by Black people in the Caribbean, in the United States, or elsewhere. Also to clarify, if the game "Congotay" is still played now or even when it was played in the mid 1960s, I doubt if the children playing that game gave it that same meaning as the speculative meaning that I've shared here.
My guess is that the early meaning of the word "Congotay" in this game song from Tobago is the same as the meaning of that word in the Caribbean proverb: "You might get away with doing wrong today but one day it will catch up with you." As I presented in http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-one-day-congotay-congote-means.html, the word "Congotay" (Congote) probably originally meant "Congo Day" with "Congo" being a referent for Black people and White people were those who were getting away with doing wrong.
What confused me about the game "Congotay" is that the mama who is protecting her chicks from being captured is presented as “the bad guy” (since the Mama is described as being “greedy”.) Presumably, that means that the attackers are “the good guys”. You would think that those good/bad roles would be reversed.
Since chickens are food that people eat, I wonder if the attackers felt justified for stealing the chickens in order to supplement their meager diet. Perhaps the word “congotay” and its promise that one day justice will prevail alludes to the end of systems that caused people to be in such dire conditions that they felt they had to attempt to steal had to steal from those who had plenty in order to get adequate food.
-snip-
"Stealing chickens" is a theme in several antebellum African American social songs that are included in Thomas W. Talley's Negro Folk Songs: Wise And Otherwise. Click http://www.cocojams.com/content/food-beverages-mentioned-thomas-w-talley%E2%80%99s-negro-folk-rhymes for those examples.
****
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Showing posts with label Caribbean children's singing games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caribbean children's singing games. Show all posts
Monday, March 10, 2014
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Game Songs & Sea Shanties Sources For A West Indian Singing Game
Edited by Azizi Powell
I came across the following ring game (circle game) from Carricaou [Grenada, West Indies] some time ago when I was searching online for Caribbean children's games:
[I've number the song's lines for reference purpose. The performance instructions that the blogger Nick Cox wrote are given in parenthesis and italics as he wrote them.]
1. Under the cabin we shall be,
("It" is crouching like a sleeping bird in the center of the ring)
2. Like a blackbird in the air.
3. Rise and stand up on your feet ("It" rises to his/her feet)
4. and show me the one you love the best.
(It goes close to and faces the one he/she likes)
5. Oh sally's going to marry, I wish you well.
6. First the boy, second the girl (everyone points at the one "It" chose)
7. Seven days after seven days ago
8. Oh roll oh roll.
9. Oh Whirl her to the left and to the right
10. To the left and to the right.
(The couple hold hands and swing them left and right)
11. Whirl her to the left and to the right
12. and give her a kiss and send her away. (Only the very brave executed on this.)
13. Oh roll. Oh roll. (The gyration of the couple begins)
14. Oh roll you bamby gyal roll you bamby gyal
15. JUKE AHM (And the signature Juke!)
Source: http://www.bigdrumnation.org/poetry/games.htm oosted by Nick Cox.
Nick Cox wrote that he remembers this singing game from when he was a child in the 1960s, and describes it as "the popular ring game." Nick Cox also writes "The lyrics are just the way I heard them as a boy. Not making complete sense, but not daring to question topics of that nature. Pity I have no means of sharing the melody at this point."
I came across this singing game again yesterday while doing research on the meaning of word "juke" in the Caribbean & in the United States. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/11/jook-juke-words-phrases-in-caribbean-in.html for a post on "Jook (Juke) Words & Phrases In The Caribbean & In The USA".
-snip-
I'm using the first line of that game song as its title. However, I'm not sure if "Under The Cabin We Shall Be" (also given here as "Under The Cabin") is the actual name of this ring game.
I've not been able to find other examples of this entire singing game under that name or other names online or in the few books on Caribbean game songs & rhymes that I have access to. I'd be curious to know if this singing game is documented elsewhere and if it is still played in Carriacao and/or in other parts of the Caribbean.
Children's singing games and rhymes are often made up of lines from multiple sources. I believe that "Under The Cabin We Shall Be" is much older than the 1960s, and, if my guesses are correct, it may be at least a hundred years old. Undoubtedly, some of the words to that game song have changed.
It seems very obvious that the West Indian [Dominica] game song "Down To The Carpet" is the source of lines 1-7 of "Under The Cabin We Shall Be". It also seems obvious that Line #12 is also from the "Down To The Carpet" game song.
Here are the words to "Down To The Carpet" as it is found in Brown Girl In A Ring: An Anthology of Song Games from the Eastern Caribbean (editors Alan Lomax, J.D. Elder, and Bess Lomax Hawes: New York, Pantheon Books, 1997, pp 76-77).
Down in the carpet you must go,
Like a blackbird in the air.
Oh, rise and stand up on your knees,
And choose the one you love the best,
Oh, when you marry, you tell me so,
First a boy, second a girl,
Ten days after, ten days old,
Kiss, kiss, and say goodbye.
-snip-
I think that the words "first a boy, second a girl" refer to the order of the gender of children who will be born in that marriage. But Nick Cox wrote in his performance notes that he remembers "first a boy, second a girl" being taken as references for the middle persons in that particular rendition of that game.
I also think that the singing game "Little Sally Waters"* is the source for the directional lines [9-11] in the "Under The Cabin" game song. However, in "Little Sally Waters" those directional lines [usually? always?] refer to "turning [and "shaking"] to the East and West" rather than "to the left and right".
*"Little Sally Waters" used to be widely known in the United States as "Little Sally Walker". (However, since at least the early 2000s, the updated version of that singing game "Little Sally Walker Walking Down The Street" appears to be much more popular than its older version.)
In their notes for "Down To The Carpet", Lomax et.al. writes that "in play children sometimes use "Down To The Carpet" as a kind of second act for Little Sally Water" [which is also included in that book.] After Little Sally chooses her partner, "Down to the Carpet" is sung at a much speedieer teempo while the two children dance in the center of the ring. At the last line, "Kiss, kiss and say goodbye".
Continuing my analysis of "Under The Cabin", I believe that line numbers 8, 13, and 14 have their source in certain "Sally Brown" sea shanties. Those West Indian shanties include the refrain "Oh, hay, roll and go". And the girl in those shanties is named "Sally" as is the girl in the "Under The Cabin" game song. Of course, other shanties may also include an "oh roll" refrain. Whereas the word "roll" probably originally referred to a ship's rocking, as indicated by Nick Cox's notes, the performance activity that is accompanies that word in that contemporary singing game is the hip twisting, booty shaking "wining" that Cox refers to as "gyrations".
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/04/sally-brown-sally-sue-brown-sea-shanty.html for a pancocojams post that provides a few examples of the "Sally Brown" sea shanties.
I think that the word "bamby" in line 14 is Patois for "baby". If so "bamby gyal" means "baby girl"- a common affectionate referent for females other than babies among African Americans, and presumably also among folks in the Caribbean.
As to line 15, suffice it to say that in the Caribbean one of the definitions of the word "juke" is "to stab or thrust". My guess is that when shouting the exclamation "JUKE AHM" (Jook 'em) the children singing this game song performed a sharply pronounced wine [twist a hip to the side] or, even more likely, did a pelvis thrust movement. For an example of a Caribbean traditional dance that features the pelvis thrust, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtG2uLDEUUI&feature=related Martinque "MARTINIQUE - Bèlè **Mabélo**"
****
Thanks to Nick Cox for sharing this rhyme & his remembrances of its performance activity. Thanks also to authors of the Brown Girl In The Ring book.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitors comments are welcome.
I came across the following ring game (circle game) from Carricaou [Grenada, West Indies] some time ago when I was searching online for Caribbean children's games:
[I've number the song's lines for reference purpose. The performance instructions that the blogger Nick Cox wrote are given in parenthesis and italics as he wrote them.]
1. Under the cabin we shall be,
("It" is crouching like a sleeping bird in the center of the ring)
2. Like a blackbird in the air.
3. Rise and stand up on your feet ("It" rises to his/her feet)
4. and show me the one you love the best.
(It goes close to and faces the one he/she likes)
5. Oh sally's going to marry, I wish you well.
6. First the boy, second the girl (everyone points at the one "It" chose)
7. Seven days after seven days ago
8. Oh roll oh roll.
9. Oh Whirl her to the left and to the right
10. To the left and to the right.
(The couple hold hands and swing them left and right)
11. Whirl her to the left and to the right
12. and give her a kiss and send her away. (Only the very brave executed on this.)
13. Oh roll. Oh roll. (The gyration of the couple begins)
14. Oh roll you bamby gyal roll you bamby gyal
15. JUKE AHM (And the signature Juke!)
Source: http://www.bigdrumnation.org/poetry/games.htm oosted by Nick Cox.
Nick Cox wrote that he remembers this singing game from when he was a child in the 1960s, and describes it as "the popular ring game." Nick Cox also writes "The lyrics are just the way I heard them as a boy. Not making complete sense, but not daring to question topics of that nature. Pity I have no means of sharing the melody at this point."
I came across this singing game again yesterday while doing research on the meaning of word "juke" in the Caribbean & in the United States. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/11/jook-juke-words-phrases-in-caribbean-in.html for a post on "Jook (Juke) Words & Phrases In The Caribbean & In The USA".
-snip-
I'm using the first line of that game song as its title. However, I'm not sure if "Under The Cabin We Shall Be" (also given here as "Under The Cabin") is the actual name of this ring game.
I've not been able to find other examples of this entire singing game under that name or other names online or in the few books on Caribbean game songs & rhymes that I have access to. I'd be curious to know if this singing game is documented elsewhere and if it is still played in Carriacao and/or in other parts of the Caribbean.
Children's singing games and rhymes are often made up of lines from multiple sources. I believe that "Under The Cabin We Shall Be" is much older than the 1960s, and, if my guesses are correct, it may be at least a hundred years old. Undoubtedly, some of the words to that game song have changed.
It seems very obvious that the West Indian [Dominica] game song "Down To The Carpet" is the source of lines 1-7 of "Under The Cabin We Shall Be". It also seems obvious that Line #12 is also from the "Down To The Carpet" game song.
Here are the words to "Down To The Carpet" as it is found in Brown Girl In A Ring: An Anthology of Song Games from the Eastern Caribbean (editors Alan Lomax, J.D. Elder, and Bess Lomax Hawes: New York, Pantheon Books, 1997, pp 76-77).
Down in the carpet you must go,
Like a blackbird in the air.
Oh, rise and stand up on your knees,
And choose the one you love the best,
Oh, when you marry, you tell me so,
First a boy, second a girl,
Ten days after, ten days old,
Kiss, kiss, and say goodbye.
-snip-
I think that the words "first a boy, second a girl" refer to the order of the gender of children who will be born in that marriage. But Nick Cox wrote in his performance notes that he remembers "first a boy, second a girl" being taken as references for the middle persons in that particular rendition of that game.
I also think that the singing game "Little Sally Waters"* is the source for the directional lines [9-11] in the "Under The Cabin" game song. However, in "Little Sally Waters" those directional lines [usually? always?] refer to "turning [and "shaking"] to the East and West" rather than "to the left and right".
*"Little Sally Waters" used to be widely known in the United States as "Little Sally Walker". (However, since at least the early 2000s, the updated version of that singing game "Little Sally Walker Walking Down The Street" appears to be much more popular than its older version.)
In their notes for "Down To The Carpet", Lomax et.al. writes that "in play children sometimes use "Down To The Carpet" as a kind of second act for Little Sally Water" [which is also included in that book.] After Little Sally chooses her partner, "Down to the Carpet" is sung at a much speedieer teempo while the two children dance in the center of the ring. At the last line, "Kiss, kiss and say goodbye".
Continuing my analysis of "Under The Cabin", I believe that line numbers 8, 13, and 14 have their source in certain "Sally Brown" sea shanties. Those West Indian shanties include the refrain "Oh, hay, roll and go". And the girl in those shanties is named "Sally" as is the girl in the "Under The Cabin" game song. Of course, other shanties may also include an "oh roll" refrain. Whereas the word "roll" probably originally referred to a ship's rocking, as indicated by Nick Cox's notes, the performance activity that is accompanies that word in that contemporary singing game is the hip twisting, booty shaking "wining" that Cox refers to as "gyrations".
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/04/sally-brown-sally-sue-brown-sea-shanty.html for a pancocojams post that provides a few examples of the "Sally Brown" sea shanties.
I think that the word "bamby" in line 14 is Patois for "baby". If so "bamby gyal" means "baby girl"- a common affectionate referent for females other than babies among African Americans, and presumably also among folks in the Caribbean.
As to line 15, suffice it to say that in the Caribbean one of the definitions of the word "juke" is "to stab or thrust". My guess is that when shouting the exclamation "JUKE AHM" (Jook 'em) the children singing this game song performed a sharply pronounced wine [twist a hip to the side] or, even more likely, did a pelvis thrust movement. For an example of a Caribbean traditional dance that features the pelvis thrust, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtG2uLDEUUI&feature=related Martinque "MARTINIQUE - Bèlè **Mabélo**"
****
Thanks to Nick Cox for sharing this rhyme & his remembrances of its performance activity. Thanks also to authors of the Brown Girl In The Ring book.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitors comments are welcome.
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