pancocojams: "Who Dare"- The 19th Century Black American Source For The 20th Century United States Hand Clap Rhymes "Bobo Ski Otten Totten"

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

"Who Dare"- The 19th Century Black American Source For The 20th Century United States Hand Clap Rhymes "Bobo Ski Otten Totten"

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest update- May 28, 2026

This pancocojams post presents a 19th century Black American song entitled "Who Dare" that is an early source for the 20th century hand clap rhyme "Bobo Ski Otten Totten" (and similar titles).

This post also includes my editorial notes about that 19th century song.

The content of this post is given for historical, folkloric, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown creator of the 1845 song entitled "Who Dare". Thanks also to Ben Zimmer whose comment in Donna Richoux's 2005 post about this rhyme led me to a 1845 book on Google books that includes an African American song with the words "otten totten".

[Update: April 13, 2026: The link to that post now has a warning about malware when visiting that site.]

Thanks also to all the publishers of that 1845 song and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/05/examples-of-bobo-ski-otten-wotten.html for as 2026 pancocojams post "Examples Of "Bobo Ski Otten Wotten" Rhymes (Or Similar Titles) With Decade & City/State Demographics"

Also, click the "Bobo Ski Otten Totten" tag below for more pancocojams posts about that rhyme.

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WARNING - This pancocojams post includes forms of what is commonly called "the n word".

That word is usually given with amended spelling in this blog. However, I decided to retain the original spelling because this song appears to be difficult to find and I want to preserve it as it is originally written in that 19th century book.

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THE 2005 ONLINE COMMENT THAT LED ME TO A 1845 BLACK AMERICAN SONG WHICH INCLUDES THE WORDS 'OTTEN TOTTEN"

Update April 13, 2026- The link to narkive:English.com "What is this thing" has a Warning message that visiting that site leads to malware.

Quote from 2023
"Ben Zimmer- 2023

For a "negro melody" using "otten dotten" from the _Knickerbocker_

magazine of 1845, see Google Book Search:

http://books.google.com/books?q=otten-dotten

Also, http://books.google.com/books?q=oaten-doaten includes this chant that appears in "The Magic Journey" by John Nichols (1978. Here's an excerpt from that book:
" "Ish biddley oaten doten, sis boom bah;
boomalaka booomalaka, rah rah rah!"

This of course is highly reminiscent of the cheer in "Super Rabbit"
(Chuck Jones, 1943):

Bricka-bracka, firecracka,
Sis boom bah!
Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny,
Rah rah rah!

But now we're getting off course."

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"WHO DARE"
From https://www.google.com/books
"The Popular National Songster And Lucy Neal And Dan Tucker's Delight: Containing A Choice Collection Of The Most Admired, Patriotic, Comic, Irish, Negro & Sentimental Songs;

published by Perry, John B

Date: 1845

Publication Place: Philadelphia

SKU b00481

"PAGE 155

WHO DARE

Come all you jolly niggars
To you the truth I tell, ah
Neber lib wid white folks
For de neber use you well, ah
-Dingee, I otten totten
Ballio otten dotten
Dingee I otten dotten ,
WHO DARE?

Cold frosty mornin
Niggar bery good
ah ! With he axe on his shoulder ,
He go to cut the wood ,
…..-ah ! Dingee , & c .

Come home to breakfast
Get something to eat
An de set before him
A little stinkin meet, ah!
----Dingee, & c

156

Den at noontide come,
He come home to dine, ah!
And dey take em in de corn field
And sweet thirty-nine, ah!
----Dingee, &c.

Den de night come on.
An dey cum home to supper, ah!
And dey nock down an break down,
An hop ober Juber., ah!
----Dingee ,&c

Den a little cold pancake,
an a little hog fat, ah!
An dey grumble like de debil
If you can eat too much of dat, ah!
----Dingee,& c.

Den massa he tell him
For to go to bed, ah!
He up wid a broom-stick
And hit him ober de head, ah!
---Dingee, &c.

Den dey go up stairs
An he take off he shoe, ah!
An he cut off de back
Like oder niggas do, ah!
----Dingee, &c

Go down to momo Dinah’s
Why yu tink we do, ah!
We play upon de banjo
And dance a jig a bou, ah!
---Dingee, & c."
-snip-
I used italics for the words "otten totten" words for highlighting purposes only.

These words in italics serve as the chorus to this song.

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ANOTHER PUBLISHED REFERENCE TO THIS COMPOSITION
"The Knickerbocker: Or, New-York Monthly Magazine

books.google.com › books

Charles Fenno Hoffman, ‎Timothy Flint, ‎Lewis Gaylord Clark · 1845

Found inside – Page 339

... otten dotten , balli ' otten dotten , Dingee I otten , who dar ' ? Come home to breakfast , get somethin ' to eat - ah ; And dey set down before him a little nasty meat - ah ; Den at noon poor nigger , he come home to dine - ah , And ..."

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTES

Part #1- Explanation about the song's format

The chorus of this song begins with the words "Dingee, I otten totten"

The symbol "&" and letter "c" is a no longer used way of writing etc.(etcetera).

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Part #2- Pancocojams Editor's Note- My Idea About The Overall Meaning Of The Song "Who Dare"
The 19th century song "Who Dare" was published in the "Negro Songs" section of John B. Perry's 1845 book The Popular National Songster And Lucy Neal And Dan Tucker's Delight: Containing A Choice Collection Of The Most Admired, Patriotic, Comic, Irish, Negro & Sentimental Songs.

That song was composed by a Black man (name unknown) who could have been enslaved. "Who Dare" provides social commentary about the mistreatment that Black people experienced from White people prior to the United States Civil War. That song serves as an example to other Black people during that time (and afterwards) to voice what they feel about their mistreatment by White people.

"Who Dare" provides social commentary from the perspective of an enslaved Black American man who dares to "tell it like it is" i.e. to speak "truth to power" about the hardship and injustice that Black men were experiencing at the hands of White men. The singer states that he is going to tell the truth and then gives examples about how badly a Black man was mistreated who had done nothing to deserve such mistreatment. Perhaps to hide its serious message or perhaps to share one way that Black people had of coping with the difficult situations that they experienced, the Black man who is told to stay inside sneaks out of the back of the house and goes to Mama Dinah's to play the banjo and dance

The song "Who Dare" also implores Black people to circumvent those unjust conditions even iif it's only in small ways such as sneaking out at night to play music and dance.

Here's the chorus of the song "Who Dare" *
"Dingee, I otten totten
Ballio otten dotten
Dingee I otten dotten
WHO DARE?"
-end of quote-

* The 20th & 21st century hand clap rhyme & hand slapping rhyme "Bo Bo Ski ten Totten" (and similar titles) is a folk processed form of the chorus of the song "Who Dare"

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Part #3 -My guesses about the meanings of certain words in this song

"Who dare' - The title for this song "Who Dare" is repeated in the chorus. The composer of this song dares [has the courage to] sing about how life really is for Black people during the 1840s. He also calls upon other Black people to be daring (i.e. to be courageous in spite of the consequences).This song "Who Dare" is a call for Black people to dare to be strong in the face of the "double trouble" that is their lives.

"Niggar bery good" - The Black man is very good (meaning, he's not doing anything wrong)

**
"Neber lib wid white folks" - Stay away from White people; Don't involve yourself with White people

**
For de neber use you well" - because they never treat you well

**
"Dingee, I otten totten

Ballio otten dotten"
-end of quote-

My position is that the Black man who composed this 19th century "protest song' purposely used vernacular "Pig Latin-like" words to hide their meaning from White people. "Pig Latin is not a true language. It's a coded way of speaking based on English"."https://lighthouseonline.com/blog-en/what-is-pig-latin/
-snip-
The word "Dingee" may be a form of the word "dingy" meaning "dirty". However, that word might have been understood by Black people during those times (or made up by that composer for the purpose of that song) to be a substitute for the referent "Black people".

The words " I otten totten" might be a "pig latin"-like form of the words "I ought to tell you".

The word 'ballio" may be another pig latin-like word that is based on the French word "battre" meaning "fight". (Assuming that the Black composer was from Louisiana where a number of Black people spoke a form of French.)

- "A little stinkin meet" = a little stinking meat

-"And dey take em in de corn field

And sweet thirty-nine, ah!" = and they take him to the corn field an lash him with a whip

-"And dey nock down an break down", - and they knock down and break down (throw on the ground)

-"An hop ober Juber., ah!" - and jump all over Juber (a generalized term for "Juba"- meaning "a Black man"

-Den massa he tell him
For to go to bed, ah!" - Then master (the White man who owned the enslaved man" told him to go to bed ("retire for the night")

-"He up wid a broom-stick
And hit him ober de head, ah!" - He (the White man) picked up a broom and hit him on his head

-"Den dey go up stairs" =The White men who beat the Black man live upstairs from him.

-"An he take off he shoe, ah!" = He took off his shoes so that he could sneak away without being heard

-An he cut off de back

Like oder niggas do, ah!" - "He snuck out the back of the building like other Black men are known to do".

-"Momo Dinah" = Mama Dinah ("Dinah" being a generalized name for a Black woman).

-"And dance a jig a bou, ah!"= "jog" =dance; a "bou" = I believe that "jig a bou' in this song is an early source for the word "jigaboo" which became a derogatory referent for Black people.

My guess is that "bou" is a folk processed form of the French word "beau' meaning "good"; handsome", or as a descriptor of a dance- to dance fancy, to dance well/skillfully. (This French influence is in keeping with my earlier reference to the possibility that this song's composer was Black French.

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AN EXAMPLE OF A YOUTUBE VIDEO OF A 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THIS RHYME

Bo Bo Ski Watten! With Subtitles!

published by sisterearthification, Jul 28, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj07ESavLZ8

"Miss Julie and Miss Katie in their fabulous performance of Bo Bo Ski Watten!! Now with subtitles!! There are many different versions but this is the one that was most familiar to them from their childhoods!!"
-snip-
Here are the words from the video’s transcript (and the video’s sub-titles)

"Bo bo see otten totten Nay nay I am boom boom boom

Itty bitty otten totten Bo bo see otten totten

Bo bo see otten totten Boom boom boom"

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9 comments:

Azizi PowellNovember 9, 2023 at 11:24 AM
Here's a 2014 "tweet" (if they are still called that) about this rhyme:
" 🔞 toilet cleaning club 👻🔪
@glitterandtrash
a shiny penny to anyone who can find me the origin of "bo-bo ski watten totten" (spelling may vary). racist? gibberish? cant tell
7:00 PM · Oct 15, 2014"
https://twitter.com/glitterandtrash/status/522522466770374656?lang=en
ReplyDelete
Replies
ThrinMay 27, 2026 at 9:55 AM
Thank you so much for replying so quickly.

I first remember this song/game from daycare or kindergarten in Farmington, Minnesota, USA, in the mid-1990s.

The movement I remember was a circle hand-slapping elimination game: hands were placed so the slap passed around the circle, then after the chant we counted to ten, and the person whose hand was slapped on ten was out unless they pulled their hand away in time.

I agree that the 1845 link is the hard historical question. I am not claiming I have proven a Swahili origin. What I’m trying to track is a sound-based hypothesis: if the words were passed down by children phonetically, like a game of telephone, some individual syllable-clusters in my remembered version line up surprisingly well with Swahili words.

The Swahili idea came after I tried to re-hear the remembered syllables phonetically, not before.

For example:

* mbu = mosquito
* mbumbumbu = fool / ignorant / silly / stupid person
* nene = big / fat / thick
* tena = again
* tenda = do / act
* osha/oshe = wash

The reason I started wondering about Swahili was not because I already had a translation. It was because the remembered syllable pattern felt language-like rather than random to me, especially in the version I remember:

o-bo-oh shi-NA ten-TA-ten
ne-ne-eh ai/em-bum-BUM-bu(m)
i-ty bi-ty-AH-ten-TA-(t)en
o-bo-oh shì-NA ten-TA-ten — MBU!

When I run it through my mind, the syllable pattern sounds Swahili-like to me in the same way that different languages have recognizable sound-shapes even when I don’t understand them. I’m not fluent in Swahili, so I’m treating that as a listening hunch rather than evidence by itself. The hunch is what led me to start checking individual syllable clusters.

The strongest pieces to my ear are mbu at the end, mbumbumbu in the “bum-BUM-bu” section, and nene in “ne-ne.” I’m still treating all of it as tentative puzzle pieces, not a final translation.

I agree that the sounds I learned and clapped to about 30 years ago could very plausibly come from the 1845 song you wrote about. That part of your article made a lot of sense to me. What I’m wondering about now is the deeper/integral question: whether the 1845 form itself might preserve an already-distorted sound pattern from an older source.

Your question about how Swahili material could have reached, or potentially provided source material for, an African American song by 1845 is exactly the weak point I don’t know how to test. I agree that this may be a stretch historically. Since Kiswahili has long functioned as a regional lingua franca in parts of East Africa, I’m wondering whether there are any documented transmission paths, older examples, or parallel syllable patterns that might either support or rule out that possibility.

Thank you again for engaging with this. I’d be very interested if you know of any earlier or parallel examples with similar syllables. For example, I remember the opening as something like “obo-she not en tot en,” but when I looked it up, “bo bo” were the first two syllables in the examples you collected/discussed. It seems possible that “bo bo” could have faded in my memory to “o-bo,” especially since I learned it as a child.
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Azizi PowellMay 27, 2026 at 6:33 PM
I was motivated by my comment exchanges Thrin to publish this pancocojams post: "Examples Of "Bobo Ski Otten Wotten" Rhymes (Or Similar Titles) With Decade & City/State Demographics".

The earliest date that I've found thus far for these rhymes is the 1940s.

Thanks Thrin for motivating me to gather and publish this information. Thanks also to all those whose examples are included in that compilation.
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Wednesday, November 8, 2023

"Who Dare"- The 19th Century Black American Source For The 20th Century United States Hand Clap Rhymes "Bobo Ski Otten Totten"

9 comments: