Lawd I ast that woman
Lemme be her kid,
And she looked at me
And began to smile.
CHORUS:
SOLOIST:
Oh Lulu! Oh Gal!
ALL:
Want to see you, so bad.
GOING TO SEE MY LONG-HAIRED BABE
(Spiking Rhythm)
CAN’T YOU LINE IT?
NOTE: This song is common to the railroad camps. It is suited to the “lining” rhythm. That is, it fits the straining of the men at the lining bars as the rail is placed in position to be spiked down.
1 When I get in Illinois
I’m going to spread the news about the Florida boys.
Chorus: (All men straining at rail in concert.)
Shove it over! Hey, hey, can’t you line it?
(Shaking rail.) Ah, shack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack-a-lack.
(Grunt as they move rail.) Can’t you move it? Hey, hey, can’t you try.
2 Tell what the hobo told the bum,
If you get any corn-bread save me some.
CHORUS:
3 A nickle’s worth of bacon, and a dime’s worth of lard,
I would buy more but the time’s too hard.
CHORUS:
4 Wonder what’s the matter with the walking boss,
It’s done five-thirty and he won’t knock off.
CHORUS:
5 I ast my Cap’n what’s the time of day,
He got mad and throwed his watch away.
CHORUS:
6 Cap’n got a pistol and he try to play bad,
But I’m going to take it if he make me mad.
CHORUS:
7 Cap’n got a burner* I’d like to have,
A 32:20 with a shiny barrel.
CHORUS:
8 De Cap’n can’t read, de Cap’n can’t write,
How do he know that the time is right?
CHORUS:
9 Me and my buddy and two three more,
Going to ramshack Georgy everywhere we go.
CHORUS:
10 Here come a woman walking ’cross the field,
Her mouth exhausting like an automobile.
CAN’T YOU LINE IT?
(Work Song Series)
From the Zora Neale Hurston
Arranged by Portia D. Duhart
Collection of Negro Folklore
THERE STANDS A BLUE BIRD (CHILDREN)
Another version: Going around de mountain, two by two (actions suit words).
1 There stands a blue-bird, tra, la, la, la.
There stands a blue-bird tra, la, la, la.
Gimme sugar, coffee and tea.
2 Now trip around the ocean, tra, la, la, la.
Now trip around the ocean, tra, la, la, la.
Gimme sugar, coffee and tea (one in ring dances around ring).
3 Show me your motion, tra, la, la, la (does solo dance).
Show me your motion, tra, la, la, la.
Gimme sugar, coffee and tea.
4 Show me a better one, tra, la, la, la (second solo step).
Show me a better one, tra, la, la, la.
5 Choose your partner, tra, la, la, la.
Choose your partner, tra, la, la, la.
Gimme sugar, coffee and tea.
(One in ring chooses partner and the new chosen partner takes his place in the ring and the other comes out.)
THERE STANDS A BLUE BIRD
(Children’s Game)
From the Zora Neale Hurston
Arranged by C. Spencer Tocus
Collection of Negro Folklore
MULE ON DE MOUNT
NOTE: The most widely distributed and best known of all Negro work songs. Since folk songs grow by incremental repetition the diversified subject matter that it accumulates as it ages is one of the evidences of its distribution and usage. This has everything in folk life in it. Several stories to say nothing of just lyric matter. It is something like the Odyssey, or the Iliad.
1 Cap’n got a mule, mule on the Mount called Jerry
Cap’n got a mule, mule on the Mount called Jerry
I can ride, Lawd, Lawd, I can ride.
(He won’t come down, Lawd; Lawd, he won’t come down, in another version.)
2 I don’t want no cold corn bread and molasses,
I don’t want no cold corn bread and molasses,
Gimme beans, Lawd, Lawd, gimme beans.
3 I don’t want no coal-black woman for my regular,
I don’t want no coal-black woman for my regular,
She’s too low-down, Lawd, Lawd, she’s too low-down.
4 I got a woman, she’s got money ’cumulated,
I got a woman, she’s got money ’cumulated,
In de bank, Lawd, Lawd, in de bank.
5 I got a woman she’s pretty but she’s too bulldozing,
I got a woman she’s pretty but she’s too bulldozing,
She won’t live long, Lawd, Lawd, she won’t live long.
6 Every pay day, pay day I gits a letter,
Every pay day, pay day I gits a letter,
Son come home, Lawd, Lawd, son come home.
7 If I can just make June, July and August,
If I can just make June, July and August,
I’m going home, Lawd, Lawd, I’m going home.
8 Don’t you hear them, coo-coo birds keep a’hollering,
Don’t you hear them, coo-coo birds keep a’hollering,
It’s sign of rain, Lawd, Lawd, it’s sign of rain.
9 I got a rain-bow wrapped and tied around my shoulder,
I got a rain-bow wrapped and tied around my shoulder,
It ain’t goin’ rain, Lawd, Lawd, it ain’t goin’ rain.
MULE ON DE MOUNT
(Work Song Series)
From the Zora Neale Hurston
Arranged by C. Spencer Tocus
Collection of Negro Folklore
LET THE DEAL GO DOWN
(Gaming song suited to the action of Georgia Skin Game.)
SOLOIST:
1 When your card gits lucky, oh partner,
You ought to be in a rolling game.
CHORUS:
Let the deal go down, boys,
Let the deal go down.
SOLOIST:
2 I ain’t had no money, Lawd, partner,
I ain’t had no change.
CHORUS:
SOLOIST:
3 I ain’t had no trouble, Lawd, partner,
Till I stop by here.
CHORUS:
SOLOIST:
4 I’m going back to de ’Bama, Lawd, partner,
Won’t be worried with you.
LET THE DEAL GO DOWN
II FORMULAE OF HOODOO DOCTORS1
CONCERNING SUDDEN DEATH
Put an egg in a murdered man’s hand and the murderer can’t get away. He will wander right around the scene.
If a murder victim falls on his face, the murderer can’t escape punishment. He will usually be executed.
If the blood of the victim is put in a jug and buried at the north corner of his house, the murderer will be caught and convicted.
Bury the victim with his hat on and the murderer will never get away.
If you kill and step backwards over the body, they will never catch you.
If you are murdered or commit suicide, you are dead before your times comes. God is not ready for you, and so your soul must prowl about until your time comes.
If you suspect that a person has been killed by hoodoo, put a cassava stick in the hand and he will punish the murderer. If he is killed by violence, put the stick in one hand and a knife and fork in the other. The spirit of the murdered one will first drive the slayer insane, and then kill him with great violence.
If people die wishing to see someone, they will stay limp and warm for days. They are waiting.
If a person dies who has not had his fling in this world, he will turn on his face in the grave.
If a person dies without speaking his mind about matte
rs, he will purge (foam at the mouth after death). Hence the expression: “I ain’t goin’ to purge when I die (I shall speak my mind).”
TO RENT A HOUSE
Tie up some rice and sycamore bark in a small piece of goods. Tie six fig leaves and a piece of John de Conquer root in another piece. Cheesecloth is good. Boil both bundles in a quart of water at the same time. Strain it out. Now sprinkle the rice and sycamore bark mixed together in front of the house. Put the fig leaves and John de Conquer root in a corner of the house and scrub the house with the water they were boiled in. Mix it with a pail of scrub water.
FOR BAD WORK—(DEATH)
Take a coconut that has three eyes. Take the name of the person you want to get rid of and write it on the paper like a coffin. (Put the name all over the coffin.) Put this down in the nut. (Pour out water.) Put beef gall and vinegar in the nut and the person’s name all around the coconut. Stand nut up in sand and set one black candle on top of it. Number the days from one to fifteen days. Every day mark that coconut at twelve o’clock A.M. or P.M., and by the fifteenth day they will be gone. Never let the candle go out. You must light the new candle and set it on top of the old stub which has burnt down to a wafer.
COURT SCRAPES
a. Take the names of all the good witnesses (for your client), the judge and your client’s lawyer. Put the names in a dish and pour sweet oil on them and burn a white candle each morning beside it for one hour, from nine to ten. The day of the trial when you put it upon the altar, don’t take it down until the trial is over.
b. Take the names of the opponent of your client, his witnesses and his lawyer. Take all of their names on one piece of paper. Put it between two whole bricks. Put the top brick crossways. On the day of the trial set a bucket or dishpan on top of the bricks with ice in it. That’s to freeze them out so they can’t talk.
c. Take the names of your client’s lawyer, witnesses and lawyer on paper. Buy a beef tongue and split it from the base towards the tip, thus separating top from bottom. Put the paper with names in the split tongue along with eighteen pods of hot pepper and pin it through and through with pins and needles. Put it in a tin pail with plenty of vinegar and keep it on ice until the day of court. That day, pour kerosene in the bucket and burn it, and they will destroy themselves in court.
d. Put the names of the judge and all those for your client on paper. Take the names of the twelve apostles after Judas hung himself and write each apostle’s name on a sage leaf. Take six candles and burn them standing in holy water. Have your client wear six of the sage leaves in each shoe and the jury will be made for him.
e. Write all the enemies’ names on paper. Put them in a can. Then take soot and ashes from the chimney of your client and mix it with salt. Stick pins crosswise in the candles and burn them at a good hour. Put some ice in a bucket and set the can in it. Let your client recite the One Hundred Twentieth Psalm before Court and in Court.
f. To let John the conqueror win your case; take one-half pint whiskey, nine pieces of John the Conqueror Root one inch long. Let it soak thirty-eight hours till all the strength is out. (Gather all roots before September 21.) Shake up good and drain off roots in another bottle. Get one ounce of white rose or Jockey Club perfume and pour into the mixture. Dress your client with this before going to Court.
TO KILL AND HARM
Get bad vinegar, beef gall, filet gumbo with red pepper, and put names written across each other in bottles. Shake the bottle for nine mornings and talk and tell it what you want it to do. To kill the victim, turn it upside down and bury it breast deep, and he will die.
RUNNING FEET
To give anyone the running feet: Take sand out of one of his tracks and mix the sand with red pepper; throw some into a running stream of water and this will cause the person to run from place to place, until finally he runs himself to death.
TO MAKE A MAN COME HOME
Take nine deep red or pink candles. Write his name three times on each candle. Wash the candles with Van-Van. Put the name three times on paper and place under the candles, and call the name of the party three times as the candle is placed at the hours of seven, nine or eleven.
TO MAKE PEOPLE LOVE YOU
Take nine lumps of starch, nine of sugar, nine teaspoons of steel dust. Wet it all with Jockey Club cologne. Take nine pieces of ribbon, blue, red or yellow. Take a dessertspoonful and put it on a piece of ribbon and tie it in a bag. As each fold is gathered together call his name. As you wrap it with yellow thread call his name till you finish. Make nine bags and place them under a rug, behind an armoire, under a step or over a door. They will love you and give you everything they can get. Distance makes no difference. Your mind is talking to his mind and nothing beats that.
TO BREAK UP A LOVE AFFAIR
Take nine needles, break each needle in three pieces. Write each person’s name three times on paper. Write one name backwards and one forwards and lay the broken needles on the paper. Take five black candles, four red and three green.
Tie a string across the door from it, suspend a large candle upside down. It will hang low on the door; burn one each day for one hour. If you burn your first in the daytime, keep on in the day; if at night, continue at night. A tin plate with paper and needles in it must be placed to catch wax in.
When the ninth day is finished, go out into the street and get some white or black dog dung. A dog only drops his dung in the street when he is running and barking, and whoever you curse will run and bark likewise. Put it in a bag with the paper and carry it to running water, and one of the parties will leave town.
III
PARAPHERNALIA OF CONJURE
It would be impossible for anyone to find out all the things that are being used in conjure in America. Anything may be conjure and nothing may be conjure, according to the doctor, the time and the use of the article.
What is set down here are the things most commonly used.
1. Fast Luck: Aqueous solution of oil of Citronella. It is put in scrub water to scrub the house. It brings luck in business by pulling customers into a store.
2. Red Fast Luck: Oil of Cinnamon and Oil of Vanilla, with wintergreen. Used as above to bring luck.
3. Essence of Van Van: Ten percent. Oil of Lemon Grass in alcohol. (Different doctors specify either grain, mentholated, or wood alcohol), used for luck and power of all kinds. It is the most popular conjure drug in Louisiana.
4. Fast Scrubbing Essence: A mixture of thirteen oils. It is burned with incense for fish-fry luck, i.e., business success. It includes:
Essence Cinnamon
Essence Wintergreen
Essence Geranium
Essence Bergamot
Essence Orange Flowers, used also in initiation baths
Essence Lavender, used also in initiation baths
Essence Anice
Essence St. Michael
Essence Rosemary.
5. Water Notre Dame: Oil of White Rose and water. Sprinkle it about the home to make peace.
6. War Water: Oil of Tar in water (filtered). Break a glass of it on the steps wherever you wish to create strife. (It is sometimes made of creolin in water.)
7. Four Thieves Vinegar. It is used for breaking up homes, for making a person run crazy, for driving off. It is sometimes put with a name in a bottle and the bottle thrown into moving water. It is used also to “dress” cocoanuts to kill and drive crazy.
8. Egyptian Paradise Seed (Amonium Melegreta). This is used in seeking success. Take a picture of St. Peter and put it at the front door and a picture of St. Michael at the back door. Put the Paradise seeds in little bags and put one behind each saint. It is known as “feeding the saint.”
9. Guinea Paradise seed. Use as above.
10. Guinea pepper. This may also be used for feeding saints; also for breaking up homes or protecting one from conjure.
11. White Mustard seed. For protection against harm.
12. Black Mustard seed. For causing disturbance and strife.
13. Has-no-harra: Jasmine lotion. Brings luck to gamblers.
14. Carnation, a perfume. As above.
15. Three Jacks and a King. A perfume. As above.
16. Narcisse. As above but mild.
17. Nutmegs, bored and stuffed with quicksilver and sealed with wax, and rolled in Argentorium are very lucky for gamblers.
18. Lucky Dog is best of all for gamblers’ use.
19. Essence of Bend-over. Used to rule and have your way.
20. Cleo-May, a perfume. To compel men to love you.
21. Jockey Club, a perfume. To make love and get work.
22. Jasmine Perfume. For luck in general.
23. White Rose. To make peace.
24. French Lilac. Best for vampires.
25. Taper Oil: perfumed olive oil. To burn candles in.
26. St. Joseph’s Mixture:
Buds from the Garden of Gilead
Berries of the Fish
Wishing Beans
Juniper Berries
Japanese scented Lucky Beans
Large Star Anice
27. Steel dust is sprinkled over black load stone in certain ceremonies. It is called “feeding the he, feeding the she.”
28. Steel dust is attracted by a horse-shoe magnet to draw people to you. Used to get love, trade, etc.
29. Gold and silver magnetic sand. Powdered silver gilt used with a magnet to draw people to you.
30. Saltpetre is dissolved in water and sprinkled about to ward off conjure.
31. Scrub waters other than the Fast Lucks (see above, 1 and 2) are colored and perfumed and used as follows: red, for luck and protection; yellow, for money; blue (always colored with copperas), for protection and friends.
32. Roots and Herbs are used freely under widespread names: