dier of de cross!

In the introduction to "Slave Songs of the United States," a
collection made chiefly at Port Royal and published in 1867,
this particular song is set down as spurious, that is, as
being sung to a well-known "white folks'" tune. But most of
the negro music is described as "civilized in its character,
partly composed under the influence of association with the
whites, partly actually imitated from their music. In the
main it appears to be original in the best sense of the word."

The same writer goes on:

"On the other hand there are very few which are of an
intrinsically barbaric character, and where this character
does appear, it is chiefly in short passages, intermingled
with others of a different character.... It is very likely
that if we had found it possible to get at more of their
secular music, we should have come to another conclusion as
to the proportion of the barbaric element.... Mr. E. S.
Philbrick was struck with the resemblance of some of the
rowing tunes at Port Royal to the boatmen's songs he had
heard upon the Nile....

"The words are, of course, in a large measure taken from
Scripture, and from the hymns heard at church; and for this
reason these religious songs do not by any means illustrate
the full extent of the debasement of the dialect." Of words
funnily distorted through failure to understand their
meaning there are, however, many examples. "Paul and Silas,
bound in jail," was often sung "Bounden Cyrus born in jail;"
"Ring Jerusalem" appeared as "Ring Rosy Land," etc., etc. "I
never fairly heard a secular song among the Port Royal
freedmen, and never saw a musical instrument among them. The
last violin, owned by a 'worldly man,' disappeared from
Coffin's Point 'de year gun shoot at Bay Pint.'"

The negroes' manner of singing is pretty well suggested by
the following:

"The voices of the colored people have a peculiar quality
that nothing can imitate; and the intonations and delicate
variations of even one singer cannot be reproduced on paper.
And I despair of conveying any notion of the effect of a
number singing together, especially in a complicated
shout.... There is no singing in _parts_, as we understand
it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing--the
leading singer starts the words of each v