Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from African American folklorist J. Mason Brewer's 1968 book "American Negro Folklore". This is a complete reprint of a http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-February/046024.html post that was published in 2005 by Wilson
Gray (Bapopik).
This post also presents information about J. Mason Brewer.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to J. Mason Brewer for his folkloric and cultural legacy. Thanks also all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to Wilson Gray (Bapopik) for publishing this excerpt online.
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INFORMATION ABOUT J. MASON BREWER
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mason_Brewer
"John Mason Brewer (March 24, 1896 – 1975) was an American
folklorist, scholar, and writer noted for his work on African-American folklore
in Texas. He studied at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, and Indiana
University, while he taught at Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas, Booker
T. Washington High School in Dallas, Claflin College in Orangeburg, South
Carolina, Texas Southern University in Houston, Livingstone College in
Salisbury, North Carolina, and East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas (now
Texas A&M University–Commerce). He published numerous collections of
folklore and poetry, most notably The Word on the Brazos (1953), Aunt Dicey
Tales (1956), Dog Ghosts and Other Texas Negro Folk Tales (1958), and Worser
Days and Better Times (1965).
Brewer was the first African American to be an active member
of the Texas Folklore Society, to be a member of the Texas Institute of
Letters, and to serve on the council of the American Folklore Society. He was
also the first African American to deliver a lecture series at the University
of Arizona, the University of California, and the University of Colorado, and
he broke the color barrier at Austin's Driskill Hotel. He has been compared to
Zora Neale Hurston, Joel Chandler Harris, and Alain Locke. He also published a
book on African American legislators in Texas during the Reconstruction era up
until their disenfranchisement."...
****
Excerpt #2
From https://www.humanitiestexas.org/programs/tx-originals/list/j-mason-brewer
"J. Mason Brewer
March 24, 1896–January 24, 1975
Scholar and folklorist John Mason Brewer was born in Goliad in 1896. Over his fifty-year career, Brewer almost single-handedly preserved the African American folklore of his home state.
Brewer's grandfathers were wagoners who hauled dry goods across Texas. His father worked as a cowboy, traveling to the Indian Territories and Kansas. The stories they shared fostered Brewer's love of folk tales, while his mother, Minnie, a schoolteacher, inspired him to make scholarship his life's work.
When Brewer graduated from Wiley College in 1917, he worked as a teacher and wrote poetry. But he also collected the folk tales he heard at schools and churches, in general stores and barbershops—the places of everyday life for black Texans.
While teaching in Austin in the 1930s, Brewer shared some of his tales with folklorist J. Frank Dobie. Impressed, Dobie arranged for their publication under the title Juneteenth.
Many more books followed, filled with tales that Brewer learned firsthand from Texas's former slaves and their descendants. Recorded in the dialect of their tellers, the stories revolve around preachers and overseers, husbands and wives, reflecting the hardship and humor of the "coming-up times" after slavery.
Brewer became the first African American member of the Texas Folklore Society and the Texas Institute of Letters. His books serve as a timeless record of Texas storytelling, and powerful proof of what he called "folklore as a living force."
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EXCERPT FROM "AMERICAN NEGRO FOLKLORE" edited by J. Mason Brewer
[Pancocojams Editor's Note: This is a complete reprint of this 2005 online post.
How many of the examples given below do you recognize from other old or contemporary songs, rhymes, and cheers?
Warning: One example that includes profanity and two examples that include what is commonly known as "the n word" are found in this reprint. Those words are given in this pancocojams post with dashes replacing certain letters.]
From http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-February/046024.html
"American Negro Folklore (1968)
Wilson Gray at RCN.COM
Sat Feb 12 23:39:11 UTC 2005
On Feb 12, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:
American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:
Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Subject:
American Negro Folklore (1968)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> "Hawkins," "made in de shade, sold in de
sun," and others of interest
> here.
AMERICAN NEGRO FOLKLORE
> by J. Mason Brewer
J. Mason Brewer
Old friend of my family down in Texas. A few other notes are
below.
-Wilson Gray
> Chicago: Quadrangle Books
> 1968
>
> Pg. 189 (Slave Seculars and Work Songs):
> _I Went to Atlanta_
>
> I Went to Atlanta
> Never been dere a-fo'
> White folks eat de apple
> Ni--er wait fo' co'
>
> (Other verses are "White folks sleep on feather
bed" and "White folks
> wear de fancy suit" and "White folks sit in
Lawd's place"--ed.)
Pg. 304 (Cold Weather Signs): If turkeys roost high in a
tree, it's a
> sign of cold weather. You will hear the old folks say,
"Look out,
> children. Hawkins is coming."
>
> Pg. 323 (Creole Proverbs):
> Great to speak, little to do.
> One goes everywhere with fine clothes.
> Ox who comes first always drinks clear water.
> Pg. 324:
> That is not the baptism of a doll. (No laughing
matter.)
> When the tree falls the goat climbs it.
> The best swimmer is often drowned.
> When one is very hungry one does not peel the sweet
potato.
> His tongue knows no Sunday.
> I keep nothing hidden in the sideboard. (I keep nothing
back.)
> Set your type before you go and then read it. (Have on
your tongue
> what you are going to say.)
>
> Pg. 338 ("Dirty Dozens" Rhymes):
> Yo' mama's in de kitchen; yo' papa's in jail;
> Yo' sister's round de corner, hollerin' "Hot stuff
for sale."
Clearly, the last line above has been bowdlerized.
How's yo' mama?
She[my mama]'s a sco'. How's yo' 'ho'?
F--ked yo' mama on a red-hot stove
Baby come out sellln' Post* 'n' Globe.* *Local newspapers in
St. Louis.
Pg. 339 (Street Cries):
> I sell to the rich,
> I sell to the po';
> I'm gonna sell the lady
> Standin' in that do'.
>
> I got water with the melon, red to the rind!
> If you don't believe it just pull down your blind.
> You eat the watermelon and preee-serve the rind!
> Pg. 340:
> We sell it to the rich, we sell it to the poor,
> We give it to the sweet brownskin, peepin' out the
door.
> _Tout chaud, Madame, tout chaud!_
> Git 'em while they're hot. Hot _calas_!
>
> The Waffle Man is a fine old man.
> He washes his face in a frying-pan.
> He makes his waffles with his hand.
> Everybody loved the waffle man.
>
> Char-coal! Char-coal!
> My horse is white, my face is black.
> I sell my charcoal, two-bits a sack--
> Char-coal! Char-coal!
Pg. 342:
> Porgy walk; Porgy talk,
> Porgy eat wid a knife an' fork;
> Porgy-e-e-e-!
>
> Vanilla, chocolate, peach cream
> Dat surely freezed by de stream.
> It was made in de shade, an' is sold in de sun.
> If you ain't got a nickel, you can't get none.
>
> Any rags, any bones, any bottles today?
> The same old rag man comin' this a-way.
>
> Swimp man, swimp man, raw, raw, raw.
swimp
Shreveport (Louisiana) is often pronounced
"Sweepo" in the local BE.
(In Texas, we say "Sreepote."
Fifteen cents a plate, two for a quarter.
> Raw, raw, raw.
Pg. 343 (Jeering and Taunting Rhymes):
> A bushel o' wheat, a bushel o' san',
> Ah'd rather be a ni--er than a po' white man.
>
> You bowlegged, lazy,
> An' almo' half crazy.
>
> Pg. 367 (Autograph Album Rhymes):
> You can kiss beneath a grapevine, you can kiss beneath
the rose,
> But the best place I know of is to kiss beneath the
nose.
>
> Pg. 368:
> Apples on the table, peaches on the shelf,
> If you don't love nobody, keep it to yourself.
>
> Up the hickory, an' down the pine;
> Good-looking boys is hard to find.
>
> Sugar is sweet, an' coffee is strong;
> Write me a letter, and don't be long.
>
> It takes a rocking chair to rock,
> A rubber ball to roll,
> A tall, skinny papa
> To satisfy my soul.
Football cheer used by Sumner High School in St. Louis:
It takes a rocking chair to rock
It takes a football to roll
it takes a team like Sumner
To groove my soul
Oh, yes, yes, yes
Oh, yes, yes, yes
>
> Orange is a city, Lemon is a state;
> I wrote you a letter, but I forgot de date.
Pg. 369:
> My papa is a butcher,
> My mama cuts de meat.
> Ah'm de little weiner-wish
> Dat runs around destreet.
>
> If the ocean was milk, and the bottom was cream,
> I'd dive for you like a submarine.
> Cream cheese, cream cheese floatin' in the air,
> That bald-headed man ain't got no hair.
> Pg. 373 (Ring-Game Songs):
> Ooka dooka soda cracker,
> Does your father chew tobacco?
> Yes, my father chews tobacco.
> Ooka dooka soda cracker.
I know only the "Acka backa soda cracker" version
Copy cat, copy cat, sittin' on duh fence,
> Trying' tuh make a dollar out o' fifteen cents.
>
>
> (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE)
> Trenton
Times Monday, October 17, 1904 Trenton,
New Jersey
> ...of whioti starts off with "ANY RAGS, ANY BONES,
ANY bottles today."
> Of course.....Fred Barlow, asked, "Have you ANY
rags today''" H
> happened that Just.."
****
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