Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents information about Frank C. Brown as well as information about the Frank C. Brown Collection of North American Folklore (1912-1943).
Information about the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones/but names will never hurt me" (or similar second lines) is also included in this pancocojams post.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those unknown people who composed and sung these songs and thanks to Frank C. Brown for his folkloric collecting efforts. Thanks also to all those who were and who are associated with the Frank C. Brown Collection of North American Folklore (1912-1943) and the North Carolina Folkloric Association. Thanks to Duke University and those who are responsible for publishing this collection online.
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INFORMATION ABOUT FRANK C. BROWN
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Clyde_Brown
"Frank Clyde Brown (October 16, 1870 – June 3, 1943) was an
American academic, university administrator, and pioneer collector of folk
songs and folklore from the southeastern United States.
Career
Brown was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and gained an A.B.
degree from the University of Nashville in Tennessee in 1893. He then studied
English literature at the University of Chicago, where he gained an M.A. in
1902 and Ph.D. in 1908. The following year, he was appointed professor of
English at Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina, where he became known as
"Bull" Brown. He wrote a biography of the 17th-century poet and
playwright Elkanah Settle, published in 1910, and as a teacher became noted for
his work as an interpreter of Shakespeare.[1][2]
He was encouraged by John A. Lomax, president of the American Folklore Society, to set up the North Carolina Folklore Society in 1913, an organisation of which he was the inaugural president, and later secretary. Over the next thirty years he became the society's principal collector of folk songs and lore, and traveled around the region, often on summer expeditions to isolated areas, with recording equipment powered by a gasoline generator.[1] Initially he recorded material on an Ediphone, using wax cylinders, and later used a Presto machine for recording onto aluminum discs.[2] He took particular note of previously-unwritten ballads and songs, and in 1915 published Ballad Literature in North Carolina. However, "he was never able to stop collecting long enough to actually assemble his material."[2] The Frank Clyde Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, eventually published after his death, contained seven volumes comprising some 38,000 items including ballads, songs, games, rhymes, beliefs, customs, riddles, proverbs, tales, legends, superstitions, and speech, taken from the southeastern United States, particularly North Carolina, and has been described as "the most imposing monument ever erected in this country to the common memory of the people of any single state.""...
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SAYING "STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES"...
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_and_Stones
"Sticks and Stones" is an English-language
children's rhyme. The rhyme is used as a defense against name-calling and
verbal bullying, intended to increase resiliency, avoid physical retaliation
and to remain calm and good-living. The full rhyme is usually a variant of:
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words shall never hurt me.
[…]
Earliest appearances
Alexander William Kinglake in his Eothen (written 1830,
published in London, John Ollivier, 1844) used "golden sticks and
stones".
It is reported[1] to have appeared in The Christian
Recorder of March 1862, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church, where it is presented as an "old adage" in this form:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never
break me.
The phrase also appeared in 1872, where it is presented as advice in Tappy's Chicks: and Other Links Between Nature and Human Nature, by Mrs. George Cupples.[2] The version used in that work runs:
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never harm me. "
-snip-
The section entitled "Earliest appearances" indicates that the English author "Alexander William Kinglake include the words "golden sticks and stones" in his 1830 book Eothen. The full text of that book is found online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43684/43684-h/43684-h.htm. However, I haven't read that book and don't know the context that the words "golden sticks and stones" was used in that book. Does it have a second line that is similar to the "but names will never hurt me" line? Or does it have a similar second line as those songs that are showcased in this pancocojams post from the Frank C. Brown collection?
The second paragraph of the "Earliest appearances" section of that Wikipedia article notes that a 1862 publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church included the "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me". That publication indicates that it was an "old adage" in 1862 and that "old adage" is still basically given with the same words in 2021.
It's important to note that the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) is a Black American Christian denomination. That fact that that denomination included that saying in one of its publications helps support the statement that is given in the Frank C. Brown collection that "sticks and stones" songs were popular among "Negroes" (or helps to explain why that saying was well known among Negroes of that time).
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
The excerpt from the Frank C. Brown Collection of North American Folklore (1912-1943) is given "as is" from its pdf file https://archive.org/stream/frankcbrowncolle03fran/frankcbrowncolle03fran_djvu.txt , except for the word "page" that is given in brackets before the number of that page that is given in the text.t
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SONGS THAT INCLUDE THE LINE "STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES" IN THE FRANK C. BROWN COLLECTION OF NORTH AMERICAN FOLKLORE (1912-1943)
Thk Foi-KLork of XoRiii Carolina coLi.inii) i!V I^r. I'Rank t'. Hroun
DURING THF. YEARS 19 I 2 TO I 943 IN COLLAliORATlON WITH TlIK XORTH CARO-
LINA Folklore Society of whkh he was Secretary-Treaslrer 1913-1943
IN FIVE VOLUMES
Genera! Editor
NEWMAN IVKY WHITE
[...][page] 18
Pickle My Bones in Alcohol'
[page] 19
and 'Sticks and Stones I\Iay Break My Bones' are favorites with the Negroes....
Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones
This line is found in Negro songs reported from North Carolina and Alabama (ANFS 145) which are not specifically drinking songs but are concerned, like the texts here presented, with the singer's posthumous reputation — an element which Dr. White says occurs "in various spirituals."
'A Drunkard's Song.' Contributed in 1913 by William B. Covington with the notation : "Reminiscences of my early youth spent in the country on the border of the sand hills of Scotland County."
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
Say what you please when I'm dead and gone;
But I'm gona drink corn liquor till I die,
Till I die, till I die,
I'm gona drink corn liquor till I die.
B
'Song.' From Louise W. Sloan, Bladen county. No date given.
I'm a-living high till I die.
Bet your life I'm a-living mighty high;
Oh, sticks and stones for to breaker my bones,
I know you'll talk about me when I'm gone
But I'm a-living high till I die.
'Ise Gwine to Live in de Harvest.' Reported by Julian P. Boyd as obtained from Duval Scott, one of his pupils in the school at Alliance, Pamlico county.
1 Ise gwine to live in de harvest.
Till I die, till I die ;
Life Ise livin' is not so very high ;
Sticks and stones gwine break my bones,
I know you gwine talk about me when Ise gone ;
Ise gwine live in de harvest till I die !
2 Ise gwine build me a graveyard
Of my own, of my own !
Ise gwine build me a graveyard of my own.
Sticks and stones gwine break my bones,
I know you gwnne talk about me when Ise gone.
Ise gwine live in de harvest till I die !"
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