caribbean traditional music || belizean creole folk songs

BELIZEAN CREOLE FOLK SONGSAuthor(s): ERVIN BECKSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1, Caribbean Traditional Music (MARCH, 1983), pp.44-65Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40653589 .

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44

BELIZEAN CREOLE FOLK SONGS

by

ERVIN BECK

Work Songs The work song in traditional Afro-American cultures is a call-and-response song in which the lead singer, who frequently does no manual labour, sings out the call while a group of labourers returns the one-line response as they perform the work. The function of the song is to regulate the actual flow of the work. Likewise, working tools sometimes add a regular percussive effect to the rhythm of the song.1

This essentially African use of song is illustrated by the "digging sings" of Jamaica as collected before 1907 by Walter Jekyll2 and as still used in Trinidad in the 1930s3 and in the Jamaican countryside as late as 1968.4 Roger Abrahams has also studied similar songs used by fishermen in Nevis, Tobago, and St Vincent.5 The call- and-response work song survived into the 1930s in the United States primarily because of the convict-lease system in southern prisons, which preserved the tradition of communal labour in work gangs. John and Alan Lomax gave "special attention" to these songs in their important collection, American Ballads and Folk Songs.6

A Belizean Creole folk song that seems to fit this description is the well-known "KellymanTown":

Go to Kellyman Town, go tell dehn gal me di bruk rockstone Kellenby!

Go to Kellyman Town, go tell dehn gal me di bruk rockstone Kellenby!

Bruk dehn one by one. Kellenby!

Bruk dehn two by two. Kellenby!

Bruk dehn three by three. Kellenby!

Bruk dehn four by four. Kellenby!

(etc.) - Women of the Baptist family of Burrell Boom,

recorded by Shirley Warde in 1956-57.

dehn = those di bruk = am breaking



45

-Φ - - 4JJJJJ J 1J J J «Lf ̂̂ * ̂ J J I el ____ _»■

ft û Ù Call Response Call Response

Evidence suggests, however, that "Kellyman Town" cannot be regarded as a truly Belizean work song. Both Walter Jekyll and Martha W. Beckwith have published Jamaican variants of the same song, with Jekyll's appearing as early as 1907.7 Although one Belizean informant associated "Kellyman Town" with Kelly Street in Belize City, the word "Kellyman" probably should be regarded as a Belizean transmutation of the "Gallo- way road" (site of a stone quarry) in Jekyll's variant.8 Similarly, the apparently non- sensical response, "Kellenby!" is probably a slightly altered version of "Gal an boy" of all versions reported by Jekyll and Beckwith.

Although the lyrics suggest that the song originated with the communal labour of quarry workers, it was being used as a song to accompany a stone-passing game when Beckwith recorded it in Jamaica prior to 1928. Like the other Jamaican digging sings, whose descended variants became used as dance tunes in Jamaica as well as Belize, "Kellyman Town" probably was used for purposes other than the enhancement of labour from the time of its earliest use in Belize.

Wood Harvesting Activities The only song in my collection that is clearly a call-and-response work song in the

sense described above is one from Seferino Scott, a native of Orange Walk who had spent much of his life as a woodsman. He called the following song a "log-rolling song":

Run, Johnny, run, boy, caulkin [?] on your block today.

Hey, yey! Bur-ah-yin da yagga [?] .

Monkey play the fiddle and the baboon dance the tune. Hey, yey! Bur-ah-yin da yagga.

- Seferino Scott, recorded by Shirley Warde in 1956-57.

Call r^ Response u r

cjr r icJcr^Jiir^r r^

iJJflj j s ^ ^ Call ^mmí fmmi t Response

_|_Ίι ^ ^

j-j

j-j -Γ3 ^mmí -Γ3 fmmi

1 e_T cj- ̂ t

llf'pf

IJJJljjll



46

No testimony regarding the precise use of this tune by loggers has been preserved. Research into logging procedures and terminology may help clarify the meaning of "caulking on your block" as well as "Bur-ah-yin da yagga".

Thus, evidence so far collected suggests that the use of the traditional call-and- response work song has not been as widespread in Belize as elsewhere in Afro-American cultures - a situation that probably derives from the nature of the labour associated with traditional Creole culture in Belize. The economy of Belize has, until recent years, been based on wood-harvesting activities - first logwood, then mahogany and chicle. Yet work songs have traditionally been found in agricultural societies, which require much communal labour, rather than in forest-harvesting cultures, which require relative- ly less. For instance, in Africa the collective work song is common in the cultures of the open savannah, but uncommon in the rain forest belt of the Yoruba, Ewe, and Ibo peoples. Perhaps Belizean labourers have tended to resemble the bush-cutters in Liberia, who sing while they work, but only intermittently and casually.9

In this casual use of song, working Belizeans have, of course, sung songs with no specific connection with manual labour in their lyrics or percussive effects. Leonie White, for instance, recalls pounding out rice in a mortar and pestle while singing the familiar song from Anancy stories, "Me Elinor, Elinor, gai-na-yo me doh doh." Just as many songs can be used as quarrelling songs, so almost any song can become a work song insofar as it is used to accompany, and therefore lighten, the burden of work.

Belizeans have also composed songs about work. Many songs, for instance, refer to ordinary domestic labour, whether housework or field work. Some examples are "And I Won't Give a Damn", "And I Work Underneath Till He Come", "Bring Me Half a Hoe", and "You Can't Walk Da Me Planwalk". 10 Of these call-and-response dancing songs, the last two deal with agricultural contexts, which might point to origins or earlier use in communal field labour.

Along with Seferino Scott's log-rolling song, four others in my collection were used in or are specifically concerned with the logging industry in Belize. Since they document and express the experience of the typical, traditional Creole who hired him- self out for pay in logging operations, these five songs more than any others seem to epitomize the uniquely Belizean contribution to the work songs of the world. Only Scott's is call-and-response; one is verse-and-chorus; the other three illustrate more free, lyrical structures.

In Scott's song, the reference to Monkey fiddling and Baboon dancing suggests that it may also have been used in an Anancy story. A song by Percy Gillett, which definitely comes from an Anancy story, may also have been used to accompany logging operations. In the tale, Anancy first sings the song, followed by the ladies and then by the children. Gillett sings Anancy's lines in a bold baritone, the women's in a high voice, and the children's in a falsetto.

0, cut in a row, brother Cut in a row, And a cut in a row. - Percy Gillett, recorded by Shirley Warde in 1956-57.



47

Λ Α m ,__ - ,__^

Gillett sings this song in the tale, "Anancy and Brudda Crane",11 in which Anancy cuts down the tree holding Crane's nest in order to steal the treasure cached there. Anancy first builds a "conga barbecue" around the huge tree; that is, he constructs a platform large and high enough to enable a gang of woodcutters to chop at the tree with ease.12 The words, of course, call upon a fellow labourer, or labourers, to cut together and/or evenly: "Cut in a row." In the narration proper, Anancy/Gillett echoes the sound of the axes with the words, "Ju jing! jing! de chop!"

It does not take much imagination or additional evidence to suggest that there may have been some kind of tradition of communal work song in logging camps, and that perhaps Anancy's song was one actually used in real life and then naturally inserted in a story that depicts the animal -trickster as a wood-cutting hero.

After being pressed several times to sing a work song, Christabel Bevans, whose husband Edward worked in logging camps for sixteen years, sang the following log- cutting song:

Ο Tony Bey! Ο ho Tony Boy! Ο Mister Yorke .carry me down to Burrell Boom [?] . Ο ho, ho, ho.

Yeh hey Tony Boy! Ho To-Tony Boy! Ο Mister High Man run me down to my a Bomba [?] home.

Ο this da the time, This da the time, This da the time, This da the time, When Creole going home.

This da the year, This da the year, This da the year, When Creole going home.

Ο ho, Tony Bey! Ο ho, Tony Bey! Ο Mister High Man bring me down to Bermuda, hey. Ο ho Tony Bey! - Christabel Bevans, 26 August 1975 Burrell Boom = on the Belize River Bomba = Bomba Bank on the Northern River da = is Bermuda = Bermudian Landing on the Belize River



48

m i f "

"Fjl J " Γ 1 rf ^J 1 ι * ν κ Π 1

ft» J JjJ ̂ J ~JJ 1 .HJ || ? Jj J, ρ ;||

j, 3 ^ r-T- Ί . ι 3

. 3 ÄC

"^ J~P ^

I J >U r-T- Ί J .

JT1 ι .

Ι Γ j j j 3

^^ Immediately after singing the song, Christabel added the spoken comment: "And

here the log 'da da de ding ding ding' - tumbled right down, right down the hill." In contrast to the call-and-response songs and the short work song just discussed, ChristabeFs song is in a more lyrical form. As Christabel sings it, it also becomes a wistful lament over not being able to go "home".

Lament becomes outright social protest in two songs that deal with difficult working conditions in the logging camps. Cleopatra White's song is about a logging foreman who overworks his men:

0, Captain Ginger, I no come y a fu you kill me, I come ya fu you work me. Yes, Captain Ginger. CHORUS: For one year and six months,

I no see me Lola [?] . Carry me back da Lola, Lowland da me country.

Yes, Captain Ginger, do sir, Me no come y a fi you beat me. Me no come y a fi you kill me. Yes, Captain Ginger. - Cleopatra White, 8 July 1978

ya = here fu, fi = for da = to, of lowland = Perhaps Belize City, since it is built on the

marshy delta of the Belize River.



49

Verse ^^ ^^^

|> M f J^f J l^-ÜJJf ^^

Jl^-ÜJJf ^^^

Jlf Ef J J 11 a Chorus «

4 fc J f rf r I *y ETC Γ Γ f IgfrT^ J l-rrrr^ J 11 One informant pointed out that the normal contract for cutting logs in the bush

was only four, six, or nine months - not the eighteen months of hard labour cited by the person in the song.

Probably the best-known song about labour in Belize is "Iguana Creek", which also documents the difficult terms of the "contract" under which the work is done:

I'll never go back to Iguana Creek Not as long as life exists. I'll never go back to Iguana Creek Not as long as life for me. They work men from six to six. One dollar [?] twenty-five per day. You may carry your wife You may carry your sweetheart But she won't be no use to you. I'll never go back to Iguana Creek Not a Waika do you need. You may carry your wife You may carry your sweetheart But she won't be no use to you. All I plea and all I ask my friend To see the captain to slacken my contract. Home, home, sweet home, my boy, There is no place like home. - Duncan Pinkard, recorded by Shirley Warde in

1956-57.

Waika = Mosquito Indian (skilled logger)

$*i j>iJ»J J»J * fli -I- J>j [j ι r J r J iJ' -Hi Although one informant says the song refers to the building of the Western High-

way bridge over Iguana Creek in 1938, more people associate it with logging operations. Ed Casasola of Belize City, who used to drive trucks that hauled logs out of the bush,



50

remembers hearing the song sung by one man while logs were being loaded by a gang of men into the trucks.

The songs and other evidence cited here suggest that there is a definite tradition of the work song in Belize, but that it does not conform to the typical pattern and use of the work song in many other Afro-American cultures. Over three hundred years of logging in Belize must have generated many more work songs than are printed here and that deserve being brought to public attention. Such songs are not only interesting compositions in their own right, but also important documents in the history of labour in Belize.

Belizean Creole Boat Songs Until recent years, Belize has relied on coastal and inland waterways for its major

routes of transportation. As Narda Dobson points out, the present network of roads was initiated in the 1930s and the first extensive development of all-weather roads occurred only in the 1970s with completion of the paving of the Western Highway from Belize City to Belmopan.13

Now that bus and truck have virtually replaced the boat in internal transportation, Belizeans are understandably showing an interest in recreating the history of boat transportation while oral and written records are easily accessible. Hence the significance of Vernon Leslie's essay, which documents the beginning of boat service to San Ignacio,14 as well as Charles John Emond's, which concerns boat trips up the coast and down the Northern River to Orange Walk Town.15 The unfortunate and untimely death of Leslie, who expected to write a monograph on boat transportation in Belize, means that the history will be delayed. It is to be hoped that someone else will be found to complete the important work that he began.

The written history will not be comprehensive, however, unless it also takes into account the way water traffic has stimulated the imagination and artistic creativity of the folk who plied the waters. In particular, a number of Creole folk songs document the experiences of travellers on the coastal, Sibun and Belize River waterways. For the historian they are important because they retain the names of individual boats and allude to general and localized incidents associated with water traffic.

The motorized doreys that plied the Sibun River are memorialized in a song learned by Adelia Dixon of Belize City around 1932:

Looku, three gunboat come: Sunrise, Radio and Dominion. Dehn di fight fi bigger coco. Dehn di fight fi bigger plantain. Dehn di fight fi bigger potato. Dehn di fight fi bigger yampa. Shuboon, Shuboon, Shuboon.



51

Shuboon, Shuboon, Shuboon. Shuboon, three gunboat come:

Sunrise, Radio and Dominion. Dehn di fight fi bigger orange. Dehn di fight fi bigger coco. Dehn di fight fi bigger bukut. Dehn di fight fi bigger yampa.

Shuboon, Shuboon, Shuboon. - AdeliaDixon, 21 July 1978

Looku = Look! Dehn = they di fight = are fighting fi = for coco = potato-like vegetable yampa = yams bukut = long, hard, black fruit with pungent odour

J=aU04 , 1

^'ίΓ P"pr'V 1

it-f C-T £j [j ι O.i' ..μ, Ν . ι I

- J I 3 . . ι f>* Lr ..μ, íl/Lt *T Ν . ι |J I J I cuff^ . . ι

rit.

gk V' *' J) γτ j) | Γ j^ 1 *· J^ r* J^ a tempo



52

O.|, _ j , fi κ , ΓΙ 3 rit· .IS ι ^ O.|,

LJ CI/ _ j , -* ̂ κ * ' , ΓΙ CUT * .IS ̂ ι

0 J» v è" J V.J. J' 1 ι ■ Π §

J» v è" J 1 J' Ji 1 r' ^ ι 1 ■ ° I

These apparently highly competitive vessels were called "gunboats" because of the exploding noises that their engines made. An alternative designation was "bum" boats, a term that echoes the "boom" or refers to the "bomb "-like sound that they produced. Radio was owned by Oziah Morter of Belize City. The identification of the other boats requires further research.

Songsters frequently refer to "Cayo boat songs", by which they variously mean songs sung or composed on the boats that travelled to Cayo (now San Ignacio), or songs that refer to events and boats associated with that traffic. At least three songs fit into the latter category. All of them are tinged with romantic love, and two of them suggest the bilingual experience of Creoles who travelled from the English-speaking coast into the Spanish-speaking interior.

The first one refers to St James's Boom, which is located across the Belize River from Burrell Boom and therefore was passed early on the trip to Cayo:

As I was going along St James's Boom I fell in love with a cottage girl. And 0! And O! And 0! And O-i-0! And 0! And 0! And all she said to me, "Look at my finger and remember me." - Oswald Sutherland, 20 June 1976

Λ ύ β· β 3 ' ^ ^ I m η

0 % f*__ ß m m m - m 1

fL ̂4 ill·1 II· Γ Sr 1/ LT Γ r m 1 Γ' ff A 1 ''I1 HI Γ U Γ- Γ ΓΓΓΓΓ MlíLJ Γ 1 1 ^

1 1 - (φ ill·1 1/ LT Γ Γ r Γ m Μ ff '> A ''I1 U MlíLJ 1 1 - j ς^ γ

Sutherland says that the speaker in his song is a boatman who proposes to a village girl, only to have her stall his advances by showing him an engagement ring on her finger. Sutherland learned this song from Leslie Gentle of Belize City, whom Sutherland cites as the composer of many Cayo boat songs, including perhaps this one.



53

Adelia Dixon's Cayo boat song tells an incomplete story of a Creole man courting a Spanish-speaking girl whose father apparently disrupts the affair by means of trickery.

I went down to Cayo in January. I met with a nice Spanish gal. I met with a nice Spanish gal, my friend. She was the prettiest gal to me.

Then I ask her in English, "What is your name, young lady?" And she answered in Spanish to me, "6Quien sabe? 6Quien sabe, senor?" Then she answered in Spanish to me, "^Quien sabe?òQuien sabe, senor?"

But e daddy da mi wahn tricky old man. But she was the prettiest gal to me. Then I say, "Dame tu mano izquierda. Dame tu mano izquierda. Dame tu mano izquierda, mi amor, Que esta mas cerca de tu corazon. Dame tu mano izquierda, mi amor, Que esta mas cerca de tu corazon."

Yes, e daddy da mi wahn tricky old man. But she was the prettiest gal to me. - Adelia Dixon, 22 July 1978

6 Quien sabe?= Who knows? e = her da mi = used to be wahn = a Dame tu mano . . . = Give me your left hand, which is

closest to your heart.

ja j υ j j ir r 'J iJ· i-^

j J > j~n J / π ι ρ - ι - j ι

j j * j]N * j j ι j * j ir^^

$ r r J i^J ' iJ s i4j^i



54

Another Cayo boat song by Sutherland makes a satiric use of Spanish dialogue: You yerri Quesik? You yerri Quesik? You yerri Bellona blow? Get up, open you door, Fa you lover di out a door,

(repeat) Panya call me. "Digo yo. Digo y o." Panya call me. "Digo yo." Get up, open you door. Fa you lover di out a door. - Oswald Sutherland, 20 June 1976 You yerri = Did you hear? Fa = for di = is Digo yo = I say.

fLh' Ji^jip ji^jip' ji|p-jY im J i> }

* .t % 3 Fine

| Η J mi J j ι

j-j ̂ j j j ν ίΐι Λ ^ 5 D.S. al Fine

Names of Boats Quesik and Bellona apparently are the names of boats owned by Carlos Melhado

and Sons that travelled from Belize City to San Ignacio. When the boats "blow" their horns, people along the shore open their doors and come to greet them. Although the "Digo yo" could come from a "panya" (Spaniard) along the shore, Sutherland says it is spoken by the Creole, who uses the only Spanish he knows in trying to communicate with a potential Spanish "lover".

This apparently discrete song is embedded by several informants in a longer song, the fullest version of which comes from Violet Gabourel and Adelia Dixon:

[All dehn gal da] Sand Point Bay Cungo go burn down Heron Dale. All dehn gal da Sand Point Bay Cungo go burn down Heron Dale.



55

Fi-me turkey da fi me-wahn. Me no buy ahn fi me and you. Fi-me turkey da fi me-wahn. Me no buy ahn fi me and you.

(more) You yerri Quesik? You yerri Cairo? You yerri Bellona blow? You yerri Quesik? You yerri Cairo? You yerri Bellona blow? So get up, open you door, For you lover di out a door. So get up, open you door, For you lover di out a door.

0, fi-me turkey da fi me-wahn. Me no buy ahn fi me and you. Fi-me turkey da fi me-wahn. Me no buy ahn fi me and you. - Violet Gabourel and Adelia Dixon, 21 July 1978 dehn = those da = from Cungo = Let's go Fi-me turkey da fi me-wahn = My sweetheart belongs

only to me. ahn = her fi=for

Cleopatra White's variant substitutes Cutish for Quesik and Colon for Cairo in the list of boats.

ffi'Trrrri^r r if frü iü- r ι . SäJ.J

j^üftj) .

J J J1 r if r i' ι Γ' Fine 1Γ2

-f^f'CfT iJr ' il' ι '"ill" ι1 1 1



56

fl t» it r it r ρ is r g r r if" fî -.Ur r » . k | | D.S. alFine

^iiiJ'r k J

pJ ι r ί· |

J'iJ" |

j>j ji.i f !ii One question to ask about this song is how its three parts - the burning, the

turkey, the boats - are logically connected. Another question concerns the meaning of stanza one: Does "burn down" refer to a big dance, as Cleopatra White insists, or to a literal burning? And are Sand Point Bay (Sunshine Bay in Laurel Hall's variant) and Heron Dale (Heron Bay for Cleopatra White; Herring Bay for Oswald Sutherland) in Jamaica, as Sutherland claims? on the Belize River, as Dixon and Gabourel insist? or on the Northern River, as Cleopatra White says?

Some evidence toward answering these questions may be contained in a song about coastal boat traffic sung by Hubert Gardner and composed by his brother George around 1946.

CHORUS: Be careful how you talk, gal, Be careful how you talk. Although you dream say Heron burn, Be careful how you talk.

The scandal start da market When wahn woman tell e dream. Ε say, "Old Heron burn right up And e let out lot a steam."

(CHORUS) You dream say Heron burn up And e let out lot a steam. You see weh you cause, you woman, With you nasty slippery tongue. (CHORUS) - Hubert Gardner, 26 July 1978 da=at wahn = a e = her, she weh = what

a ,i A Chorus J ο . 0 a

a ,i

iff A ji γλ J ^_l

. - ̂ - ^""1



57

Λ Λ à Verse 3

g'* J κ'Π iti 'Π J>] I Al ΓΙ IJ^ I '

According to Gardner, one day the Heron H was several hours overdue in its regular trip to Belize City from Punta Gorda Town. A woman in Central Market began a rumour that the boat had burned up, causing much consternation among those who heard the report. However, shortly after the rumour had spread, the boat appeared, unharmed.

So perhaps the line "burn down Heron Dale" in the Gabourel-Dixon song original- ly referred to the presumed burning of the Heron H - as the opening lines of Laurel Hall's variant would indeed allow: "I light me candle da Sunshine Bay/Fi go burn down the Heron Dale [italics mine] ." Following this line of thought, Sand Point (or its equivalent) was located between Punta Gorda and Belize City, and "burn down" refers both to the rumoured fire as well as to the intense dancing (with one's "turkey") that usually accompanied this song when it was most popular in Belizean Creole culture.

Concerns like this may be more convincingly clarified through more research in oral and written sources for the history of boat transportation in Belize. And, conversely, these boat songs may also contribute to the reconstruction of that history. They will certainly add the human, expressive dimension to the historical facts.

Five Kinds In several earlier essays on Belizean Creole folk songs and earlier in this essay I have

tried to identify different genres of songs and offer representative examples of each type. I have described songs in terms of structural features (call-and-response), function (work songs, quarrelling songs) and content (topical songs, boat songs).16 I will now survey five additional kinds of songs and, in most cases, illustrate each type with a single example.

The Nursery Song Since "nursery song" designates function rather than structure or content, any

song that a mother or nursemaid may choose to sing to an infant belongs in this category. The designation is imprecise, as is also the case with work songs and quarrelling songs.

Nevertheless, some songs are obviously nursery songs because of content and/or restricted use. One modest example comes from Violet Fuller of Belize City, who, like her mother, was a nursemaid for many years:

Kurachi. Kurachi. Baby can play kurachi. Kurachi. Kurachi. Mama can play kurachi. Granny can play kurachi. - Violet Fuller, 3 July 1978



58

JL ^ ί? g ι r J Jg ι r* J «/ ι Π f a« ι f y J ̂

The song is for use with a very young baby, rattle in hand. When the nurse sings "Kurachi", she turns her hand, thus encouraging the baby to imitate her and activate the rattle in a patterned way.

The Salvation Army Song Oswald Sutherland of Belize City knows three "Salvation Army" songs that he

says arose from and were used in the worship and evangelistic services of that Protestant group, which remains active in Belize today but was even more influential in 1920-25.

Although some such songs were no doubt brought to Belize by missionaries, many apparently were composed in Belize in the course of regular worship services. According to Sutherland, members of the audience would pick up a key phrase from the preacher, repeat it with hand-clapping and then improvise a catchy tune for it.

Of Sutherland's three songs - which also include "Look Here, Sinners" and "When I Go to Heaven" - the following has the most celebrative, lilting tune and the most imaginative lyrics:

I'll put my finger on the golden pen, The golden pen, the golden pen. I'll put my finger on the golden pen And write my name up there.

Write my name, Ο write my name up there. Write my name, I'll write my name up there.

So I'll put my finger on the golden pen, The golden pen, the golden pen. I'll put my finger on the golden pen And write my name up there. - Oswald Sutherland, 20 June, 1976

V j j J J J J r r f f ι



59

Fine

γ u D J iir r r }'uu r ι Λ ω ι- -ι _- D.C. al Fine )l Λ ω ff r r i>" ». ι * J

ι- -ι * 3 ^

_- Ι ■* Ι ι h fe Γ r r Ι Γ i>" h ». 1 ι * * ^ ■* J·· ^ h

Sutherland also recalls this tune being played by the trumpet of ι Salvation Army band between singings of the stanzas by members of the church.

The Kunjai Song Some Creole songs have lyrics that call upon dancers to imitate certain actions.

Violet Gabourel of Belize City calls them kunjai songs. Her designation, which is not in widespread use among Creole songsters, may be related to gunjai, the word the Caribs of Belize use to refer to a dramatic dance performed together by a man and a woman.17 Such Carib and Creole songs have in common an imitative action performed by persons dancing to the songs.

Since prime examples of the kunjai genre have been printed (but not called such) in earlier essays, none will be given here. All are call-and-response songs whose improvised lyrics in the "call" focus upon a related set of activities.

For example, "Guruzondo" calls upon the dancing "young gal" to shake various parts of her body: "O young gal, shake you belly." "Palmer William" asks dancers to imitate ludicrous actions attributed to relatives: "Show me how you grampa dance."18 And many, but not all, of the lines of "Cyaan Peepee" describe steps that the dancers should execute: "Wheel am back way." "Chemise 0" and "Junior Call Me to Shashay" may also be part of this tradition.19

The School Song Oswald Sutherland and also knows three songs that he learned in 1926-27 when

he was a student in Standards 5 and 6 at the Holy Redeemer Primary School in Belize City. They are "Jubilee!", "Merry, Merry Christmas", and "We Are the Boys of the Sisters' School". All were composed by Fr. Barnard Abeling (d. 1947), a priest in the American Jesuit Mission from 1898 to 1901 and then again from 1907 to the late 1930s. He wrote the songs on the blackboard and then taught them to his students, usually in connection with a special event, such as a school Christmas programme. Abeling is also remembered in Belize as the composer of

" 'Twas the Tenth Day of September", which is sung by Belizeans on National Day every 10 September.

These school songs somewhat strain the traditional definition of "folk song", which usually refers to a song that exists in a number of variant forms because it was passed on orally from singer to singer after being composed - but not written down -



60

by an author, whose identity is often unknown. But since the written versions of these school songs were soon erased, and since the songs have survived exclusively through oral transmission, they can legitimately be regarded as folk songs.

"We Are the Boys" represents the tradition and also contains some interesting historical references:

We are the boys of the sisters' school. Belize is our home. Happy are we to welcome you And hope you will be glad you've come.

Ho! Ho! McConkey! And the wind is blowing strong. Ho! Ho! McConkey! You must come along.

We are the C.O.F. You must understand. Loyal and true We will always be to you And the C.O.F.

Then let us march, march, march. Keep the flag held higher. Fly the right. Keep your flag on high and Fly [flee?] the wrong. Let your hearts be ever true and strong. Three cheers for the C.O.F. - Oswald Sutherland, 23 July 1978

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61

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The song was composed for the Christmas programme at Holy Redeemer School in 1926. "C.O.F." stands for the Catholic Order of Foresters, a fraternal order begun by the Catholic Church in Belize in order to counter the influence of the popular, but non- religious, Ancient Order of Foresters Friendly Society, which offered its members insurance and other mutual aid. The reference to "McConkey" - used as a by-word here - is obscure.

The Creolized Sentimental Ballad Just as the school song shows academic culture moving into the folk tradition,

so the Creolized sentimental ballad shows a genre from popular culture being assimilated into folk art.

When asked to sing "old" songs, many informants first responded by singing their versions of sentimental ballads from late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain and America. Such songs were commercially produced and reached a mass market by being printed in songbooks and sheet music. They found their way into Belizean homes and schools by being sung around the piano, heard over the radio or played on phonograph records.

Key lines from some informants' sentimental ballads suggest the flavour of this popular genre: "Once I loved with fond affection", as sung by Violet Fuller; "In her hair there was moonlight", by Eulalio Smith of Rancho Dolores; "Light of my heart, like the sun", by Rosita Sutherland of Rancho Dolores; and "0, here am I alone to die, Love", by Doris Young of Rancho Dolores. Even though these songs have survived in Belize through oral transmission, they were sung almost entirely in standard English diction and performed in an especially "sweet" manner - not much Creolized at all.

The best example of the way the sentimental ballad can be absorbed into the Creole folk tradition is a long, complex song from Leonie White of Belize City:

San Jones came down the other night From goddie knows where. Invited everybody was to have a gambling game. Says! Miss Jones came back, Miss Jones came back, Miss Jones came back When the money get slack To pay back Baby - Baby and his own.

Says I, "You coon - you terraccoon. You coon that live next door."



62

Says I, "You coon - your terraccoon You coon that live next door."

O, you jump ina room And you jump out of bed. Baby, come and kiss your papa. You jumped ina room And you jump out of bed. Baby, come and kiss your papa.

Mother gone and lees me. Sorrows break my heart. 0, Mother, lay me down to sleep For I have no mother tonight.

Take good care of your mother, my boy. Take good care of your mother, my boy. For it is a blessing God given to you, my boy. For it is better, better than gold.

I thought I heard when the church bell ring. Li-ning! Li-ning!

I thought I heard when the church bell roll. Roll! Roll!

Stand fa the midnight. Come in the dark night. Cap'n and e wife came down to see. Stand fa the main line. Stand fa the back line. And a cunjie rock upon e cunjie.

Cunjie rock upon e cunjie. Cunjie rock upon e cunjie. Rock upon e cunjie, Rock upon e cunjie, cunjie, Cunjie rock upon e cunjie. - Leonie White, 10 July, 1978

goddie = godmother lees = leave fa = for e = his cunjie = hammock



63

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64

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^ r r r r ir cjcjLj'r r r ;|lrr' " Looked at as a whole, the lyrics, of course, make little coherent sense. They are

apparently a hodgepodge of lines from various songs - mostly popular sentimental

ballads, as indicated by the admonitions to "my boy" and the cliche' references to

mother, orphaned child, gambling game and church bells.

Leonie, however, would not agree that the song suffers from incoherence. She

hesitated not a bit in moving from line to line and stanza to stanza. She has melded

disparate elements from songs that, being heavily didactic, sometimes make too much

explicit sense and has created a suggestive, haunting lyric that retains the "emotional core" of the songs, if not their literal surfaces.

Leonie calls the song a "lullaby", a designation that is supported by frequent references to baby and mother but that is made most apparent in the especially careful and tender way in which she sings most of the song.



65

From the first line, Leonie flirts with Belizean diction and rhythm. But only near the end, with the "Cunjie rock" section - which is most explicitly the "lullaby" of the

song - does she finally break into genuinely Creole diction and beat. Even though the

syncopated beat there undermines the lullaby effect, such a conclusion is fitting and even symbolic, since it signals the Creole assimilation of and mastery over alien cultural materials.

NOTES

Some of the work upon which this essay is based was supported by grants from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society and the Faculty Research Fund of Goshen College. 1. John Storm Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 28, 67, 133. 2. Jamaican Song and Story (1907; rpt. New York: Dover, 1966). 3. Roberts, p. 67. 4. Olive Lewin, "Jamaican Folk Music," Caribbean Quarterly, 14 (1968), p. 50. 5. Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore: Three Essays on Shantying in the West Indies (Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1974). 6. (New York: Macmillan, 1934), p. xxxiv. 7. Jekyll, p. 199; Beckwith, Jamaica Folk-Lore, Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society,

21 (New York: American Folk-Lore Society, 1928), pp. 90-91. 8. One variant in Beckwith refers to "Maniwell Bay", p. 90; the other, to "Manuel road", p. 91. 9. Roberts, p. 140. 10. For a text of "Won't Give a Damn", see Ervin Beck, "The Answer Songs of Leonie White,"

Belizean Studies, 8 (July 1980), p. 14; for "Planwalk" see Beck, "Call and Response in Belizean Creole Folk Songs," BS, 8 (March 1980), p. 15.

11. Shirley Warde, "We Jus Catch Urn." Folk Stories from Belize (Goshen, IN: Pinchpenny Press, 1974), pp. 29-32.

12. For a drawing of a conga barbecue, see Philip Sherlock, Belize: A Junior History (London: Collins, 1969), p. 81.

13. A History of Belize (Trinidad: Longman Caribbean, 1977), p. 9. 14. "The First 'Cayo Boat' Trip," Belizean Studies, 5 (March 1977), 16-18. 15. "Of Boats and the River," Belizean Studies, 7 (November 1979), 2 1-28. 16. "Call and Response in Belizean Creole Folk Songs," Belizean Studies, 8 (March 1980), 10-20;

"The Answer Songs of Leonie White," Belizean Studies, 8 (July 1980), 10-22; "Belizean Creole Quarrelling Songs," Southern Folklore Quarterly, "Folk History in Creole Topical Songs," Belizean Studies, 8 (November 1980), 17-24.

17. Richard E. Hadel, "Carib Dance Music and Dance," National Studies, 1 (November 1973), pp. 4-10.

18 For texts of "Guruzondo" and "Palmer William" see "Call and Response", pp. 17, 19. 19. For texts of "Cyaan Peepee", "Chemise O," and "Junior" see "The Answer Songs", pp. 15, 16,

20. 20. Tristram P. Coffin uses this phrase to refer to the "impact" that is preserved through oral

transmission of a ballad even though narrative details are lost or changed. (" 'Mary Hamilton' and the Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form," Journal of American Folklore, 70 (1957), pp. 208-14.



caribbean traditional music || belizean creole folk songs

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