Jamaican Song and Story Part 55

LXI.

They are clever at inventing nonsense words to run easily off the tongue. For instance:--

[Music:

Away, away oui oui Madame.

I never see the sight of Robart, I never see the sight of F'edrick, Ding dogaraggaway, Ding dogaraggaway, Ding dogaraggaway, Ding dong.]

("Away" is clearly a corruption of _oui oui_.)

LXII.

They like to complain of their little ailments, as thus:

[Music:

Wednesday morning before day, Wednesday morning before day, Wednesday morning before day, me ma'am, me feel me head a hurt me.]

If a man happens to hurt himself, he sends or brings the most exaggerated account of the accident. If it is a cut on the hand, he "nearly chop him hand off." If there is a trickle of blood, "the whole place running in blood." In my early days in Jamaica my boy Robert came rus.h.i.+ng up with gestures expressing the utmost consternation, and gasped out "Rufus hang!" Rufus was the pony. "He dead?" I asked.

"'Tiff dead!" was the reply. We were doing a piece of important planting in the garden, and I said "Well! as he's dead there's nothing to be done, and we'll go on with this job." Two or three hours later, to my surprise, I saw Robert carrying gra.s.s towards the stable. "What are you doing with the gra.s.s, Robert?"

"It for Rufus."

"But Rufus dead."

"No! he don't dead again," which meant that he was still alive. When I went to see, I found him rather exhausted with his struggling--he had fallen on the hillside and got entangled in the rope--but not very bad, and by next day he had quite recovered.

This kind of exaggeration enters into all their talk. Once, travelling in a tram-car, there was a slight accident. The car just touched the shaft of a pa.s.sing carriage and broke it. One man said to his neighbour, "See dat? de buggy 'mash to pieces."

"All gone to snuff," replied the other.

LXIII.

Here are two different versions of the same sing. The chord of the seventh held on by the voices sounds well.

[Music:

Oh Samwel oh! Oh Samwel oh!

Oh Samwel oh! Oh Samwel oh!

Samwel, the lie you tell 'pon me turn whole house a me door.]

(They never tell lies _about_ people here, but always _upon_ people.

"Turn whole house a me door," turns the whole house out of doors, upside down as we should say.)

LXIV.

[Music:

Oh 'liza oh!

Oh 'liza oh!

Oh 'liza oh!

Oh 'liza oh!

'liza 'pread you coat make I lie down d under the Bushatahl.]

"Coat" is petticoat. I am told that 'liza could take off a petticoat and still be quite properly dressed.

"Make I lie down," etc., _i.e._, let me lie down under the Butcher's Stall. This is the name of a precipice just below my house. Horses have several times fallen over it and been killed. They then become butcher's meat for the John Crows, the vulture-like birds which are so useful as scavengers.

LXV.

We do not get many songs of the American plantation type like the following:--

[Music:

Aunty Mary oh!

Aunty Mary oh!

Aunty Mary oh!

Aunty Mary oh!

Aunty Mary oh!

Aunty Mary oh!

Aunty Mary Thomas, O meet me a cross road.]

(Cross roads are always a favourite place of meeting, and a rum shop is generally to be found there.)

This is a monotonous form, and I am glad the musical bent of our people turns in another direction.

LXVI.