The Ancestry of a "Negro Spiritual"
by Louise Pound
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 33, No. 7 (Nov., 1918), pp. 442-444
THE ANCESTRY OF A "'NEGRO SPIRITUAL"
Mr. H. E. Krehbiel includes among his Afro-American Folk-Songs, [1] a three-stanza song called Weeping Mary, which runs as
follows:
If there's anybody here like weeping Mary,
Call upon Jesus and he'll draw nigh,
He'll draw nigh.
O glory, glory, hallelujah,
Glory be to my God, who rules on high.
If there's anybody here like praying Samuel,
Call upon Jesus, etc.
If there's anybody here like doubting Thomas,
Call upon Jesus, etc.
In his sixth chapter Mr. Krehbiel prints Weeping Mary as arranged musically by Mr. Arthur Mees. He prints the melody again, as
harmonized by Mr. H. H. Huss, in the Appendix, the text remaining the same. This negro " spiritual " is unmistakably identical with a religious song Weeping Mary, known to my mother, who brought it to Nebraska from New York.
Is there anybody here that's like weeping Mary?
I'll tell you what the Lord has done for me.
Why the Lord has passed by and has given me his blessing,
Anid that's what the Lord has done for me;
Glory, glory, glory, hallelujah,
For that's what the Lord has done for me.
Is there any here that's like sinking Peter?
I'll tell you what the Lord has done for me, etc.
Is there any here that's like doubting Thomas?
I'll tell you what the Lord has done for me, etc.
The melody known to my mother is not identical with that given by Mr. Krehbiel. It is somewhat less simple; but it is of the same general movement and type. There were many verses, she says. Indeed the whole might be continued indefinitely by similar stanzas based on matter from the Scriptures. Her account of the song, is as follows:
I learned it from my mother, who caught it from the singing of a white woman, Nancy . . . . [last name forgotten], in the village of Hamilton, Madison County, New York. Mly mother used to repeat it, imitating the original singer. Nancy had just come from a Methodist " protracted meeting," and was singing "Weeping Mary" over and over again, on the occasion when my mothe-r
lheard her, working herself up to a frenzy and beating incessantly with something in her hands as she sang. Finally she attracted so much attention from passers-by that she had to be stopped. My mother had a tenacious memory, and was a good mimic, and she often reproduced for our entertainment Nancy's hysterical singing of her religious sonag. Mother was born in 1808, and lived in Hamilton between 1826 and 1830, when she was married.
This takes Mir. Krehbiel's negro spiritual back to the singing of a white woman who learned it at a Methodist revival between 1826 and 1830, a period long antecedent to its recovery from the negroes. It has seemed to me worth while to record this ancestry for Weeping[1] Mary, since the main contention of Mr. Krehbiel's book is that Dr. Waallasehek[2] was wrong when he called the songs of the American negroes predominantly borrowings, and held that negro music is partly actually imitated from the music of the whites.
Generalizing from a collection of slave songs made by Miss Mechim and Mr. Allen in 1867 [3] Dr. Wallasehek formecl the opinion that the negroes ignorantly borrowed from the national songs of all nations, from military signals, well-known marches, student songs, etc. He thinks that the greater part of negro music is civilized, sometimes influenced by whites, sometimes directly imitated. Mr. Krehbiel limits his claim for the originality of negro songs to their religious songs; but he finds in the negro "shouts" and "spirituals " an inherited African or aboriginal element. Apparently he quotes "Weeping Mary" as a song of negro creation.
LOUISE POUND.
University of Nebraska.
Footnotes:
1. New York and London, 1914.
2. Primitive Music, London, 1893.
3. Slave Songs of the United States, 1867.