around to have
a good one. But I seen lots of big ones. Ones whar dey had all de
different kinds of "banga." Dey call all de dances some kind of banga.
De chicken dance is de "Tolosabanga", and de "Istifanibanga" is de one
whar dey make lak dey is skeletons and raw heads coming to git you.

De "Hadjobanga" is de crazy dance, and dat is a funny one. Dey all
dance crazy and make up funny songs to go wid de dance. Everybody
think up funny songs to sing and everybody whoop and laugh all de
time.

But de worse one was de drunk dance. Dey jest dance ever whichaway, de
men and de women together, and dey wrassle and hug and carry on awful!
De good people don't dance dat one. Everybody sing about going to
somebody elses house and sleeping wid dem, and shout, "We is all drunk
and we don't know what we doing and we ain't doing wrong 'cause we is
all drunk" and things like dat. Sometime de bad ones leave and go to
de woods, too!

Dat kind of doing make de good people mad, and sometime dey have
killings about it. When a man catch one his women--maybeso his wife or
one of his daughters--been to de woods he catch her and beat her and
cut off de rim of her ears!

People think maybeso dat ain't so, but I know it is!

I was combing somebody's hair one time--I ain't going tell who--and
when I lift it up off'n her ears I nearly drap dead! Dar de rims cut
right off'n 'em! But she was a married woman, and I think maybeso it
happen when she was a young gal and got into it at one of dem drunk
dances.

Dem Upper Creek took de marrying kind of light anyways. Iffen de
younguns wanted to be man and wife and de old ones didn't care dey
jest went ahead and dat was about all, 'cepting some presents maybe.
But de Baptists changed dat a lot amongst de young ones.

I never forgit de day dat battle of de Civil War happen at Honey
Springs! Old Master jest had de green corn all in, and us had been
having a time gitting it in, too. Jest de women was all dat was left,
'cause de men slaves had all slipped off and left out. My uncle Abe
done got up a bunch and gone to de North wid dem to fight, but I
didn't know den whar he went. He was in dat same battle, and after de
War dey called him Abe Colonel. Most all de slaves 'round dat place
done gone off a long time before dat wid dey masters when dey go wid
old man Gouge and a man named McDaniel.

We had a big tree in de yard, and a grape vine swing in it for de
little baby "Istidji", and I was swingin