# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 11/Issue 40/Work and Methods of the Hampton Folk-Lore Society

WORK AND METHODS OF THE HAMPTON FOLK- LORE SOCIETY.
Any one who has had much to do with the educated negroes of the present day knows that by them the old stories and superstitions and customs of their own race are only too apt to be looked down upon as all bad, and to be forgotten as quickly as possible. I have been told by colored teachers in the public schools of Washington that it was almost impossible for them to gather from their pupils any folk-lore at all, so certain are they, if they have any, that it is something only to be laughed at, and so difficult is it to induce them to reveal to teachers, even of their own race, the existence of any peculiar beliefs or habits. In the first opportunity that has come to the colored people of outgrowing their past of ignorance, slavery, and savagery, it is natural that a reaction should occur against even the history of the past; and it is more than possible that in a generation or two those bits of folk-lore peculiar to the negro may be lost entirely, unless caught now by those so situated as to be able to gather them up.
Folk-lore has no greater enemy than the common school, and more than one half of the negro children of the country are now enrolled in the public schools.
The Hampton Folk-Lore Society has for its object the education of the colored people to do their own observing and collecting; to watch the little things peculiar to their own race, and to record them and place them where they can be made of permanent value. It arose, to begin with, not in enthusiasm for the collection of folk-lore, but from a strong desire on the part of some of those connected with the Hampton work to bridge over, if possible, the great gulf fixed between the minds of the educated and the uneducated, the civilized and the uncivilized,—to enter more deeply into the daily life of the common people, and to understand more thoroughly their ideas and motives.
Our interest in folk-lore is used, not so much to help us in interpreting the past as it is to aid us in understanding present conditions, and to make it easier for us to push forward the philanthropic work that Hampton is doing.
Perhaps editorial zeal on my part may have had something to do with the starting of the movement. We publish at Hampton a monthly paper, the "Southern Workman," of which I have the honor to be one of the editors. This paper reaches not only the ​whites, but many of the better educated negroes. It occurred to some of us that, by starting in the paper a department of Folk-Lore and Ethnology, we might be able to collect through the educated colored people, who are teaching among their own color in the country districts, some material that had not been already gathered, and might so, while adding interest to our publication, preserve a record of customs and beliefs now happily passing away, but which connect the negro’s African and American past with his present.
Our first step was the organization of a folk-lore society, and the publication in the "Workman," and in circular form as well, of a letter to graduates of the Hampton school, explaining the desirability of collecting negro folk-lore and giving topics and suggestions. This letter was accompanied by an editorial giving extracts from letters received from prominent men and women, both white and colored, who had approved the plan as stated to them in private letters. Among those who so helped forward the work at the beginning were Professor Shaler, Mr. William Wells Newell, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Mr. George W. Cable, Rev. Alexander Crummell of Washington, and Mr. Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee.
The Folk-Lore Society existed for nearly a year without constitution or officers, meeting usually once a month in my parlor, and offering whatever contributions it had to offer, in the most informal way. Its membership now is about twenty, mostly made up of colored graduates of the school, resident either on the school grounds or at Hampton. It has now a constitution, a president, vice-president, treasurer, and two secretaries. Its monthly meetings, however, still retain their informal character, as it is our experience that we do better work without too much red tape.
As a rule, subjects are given out in advance, but no formal papers are required. Sometimes some member who seems to have an unusual fund of knowledge on some subject will prepare a paper and bring it in, and then the discussion that follows it will, in many cases, add much to the matter contained in the paper. Our methods as a society have been, as a rule, altogether lacking in originality. We have gathered in for our own use all things relating to negro folk-lore that we could find, with this single exception,—nothing must come in that we have ever seen in print. Those of us who are teachers may obtain from our students stories or signs, or anything else that we choose to call for, and bring them in as our contribution. Others whose work throws them in contact with the older men and women, who still retain the primitive ways and thoughts of the slave days, can contribute what they gather in their conversation with them. Many of the members can, by cudgelling their own ​brains, add to the general store old songs or stories or beliefs learned in childhood by the cabin fireside, and, though driven into the background by subsequent education, still to be recalled when really needed. Not long ago two members of the Society had the good fortune to obtain through some of the officers of the school a collection of about one hundred and fifty letters, written some twenty years ago for General Armstrong by the students, all on the subject of conjure doctors. After careful study and assortment, the material contained in them was embodied in two papers containing a considerable amount of novel and, we believe, authentic information about the methods of these practitioners, and their influence over their dupes.
Very early in the history of the Society we took up for careful study the "hag stories" that are found, vouched for with the most solemn asseverations, in every negro cabin. As story after story came in, the characteristics of this embodied nightmare came more clearly into view, until she stood out as an Afro-American vampire, a compound of European and African superstition, adding a new horror to existence by her stealthy fluid ways, the dire results of her nightly visits, and the terrible thought that she may be—indeed, in all probability is—your next-door neighbor.
On another occasion, a member of the Society who had in early childhood attended many night meetings in the little log meeting-houses in one of the most thickly-wooded counties of Virginia, was able to reproduce verbatim, from his own memory, several of the sermons and prayers of the night-hawks, as the night preachers were called. This report was rendered possible by the fact that the same sermons and prayers are used over and over by the same preacher, and that they are intoned in such a way as to remain in the memory like a song. Out of this recital grew up an interesting discussion of religious observances in general,—a discussion which brought out much that will surely help later in the understanding of the origin and place of the religious music of the negro.
In the study of the negro music, we have as yet done comparatively little. For this delay in beginning what we are convinced will prove one of the most interesting and valuable departments of our work, we have had two reasons. One of these reasons is, that until recently we have had no professional musician in our club, and another is the extreme difficulty of securing a negro song alive, as you may say. The Hampton School has already done much work in the line of collecting, arranging for our system of musical notation, and publishing, the negro spirituals, but that is not the kind of work that our Society wishes to do. Our desire is, not to obtain any song in a more or less changed or mangled condition, as you surely do ​when you take it out of its foreordained and appropriate setting in some part of the complicated negro religious ritual, and adapt it to be sung as a regular four-part song by a choir or congregation, either white or black. Each one of these songs has its place and its history, and the work of our Society must be to find the place and the history of each song that it adds to its collection. We hear again and again of some one who has recently come into the school with such beautiful new plantation songs; and then they are taken down by the music teacher, and the choir is drilled in the rendering of them, and the whole school in time follows the choir’s interpretation of them; and in a short time that song, with time and tune and spirit altered, becomes a totally different thing from the weird melody chanted at baptism, or "settin’ up," or revival meeting in the log cabins, or by the riverside, or in the meeting-house of some little negro settlement. It is my belief that the reason why there is so much doubt to-day in the minds of so many of the best authorities, as to whether the negro spirituals are the product of the negroes, is because they have been subjected to this process of civilizing into regular written forms. If we can only secure and preserve them by some other method than that of writing them down, and then in each case obtain at the same time the history and setting of the song, many of these doubts as to their origin will be set at rest.
If we can obtain a graphophone, and thus make records not only of songs, but of sermons, prayers, etc., and so gather, as we cannot now gather, some complete records of entire religious services, we are convinced that through this means we may add much to the common fund of knowledge of the negro music. The music cannot be studied apart from the rest of the religious service with any hope of understanding either its origin or its present status.
At each meeting of the Society the secretaries take notes of the discussions, and these notes are put to two uses. Much of what is gathered in one monthly meeting is often printed in the folk-lore column of the "Workman" following, with a request for further enlightenment on this subject. This request is often responded to by workers in the field, who are in constant contact with the masses of the colored people, and who have thus better opportunity for collection than those who live on the school grounds.
We may take as a good example of the way in which the Folk-Lore Society, the "Workman," and our graduates outside work together, the notes in our folk-lore record on courtship. I do not think it had occurred to the Society as a whole, certainly it had not occurred to its white members, that there was a whole body of folk-lore connected with courtship on the plantations, until, at a meeting of which the subject was "Rhymes and Jingles," one of our members bethought ​himself of certain rhymes used by the negro youth in courting. This led on to what are called “courtship questions,” and we found ourselves face to face with a curious set of riddles and dark sayings used by the young negro men as a test of the intelligence of the girls with whom they consort. This field seemed so fertile and interesting that the subject of "Courtship" was allotted for the next meeting, and the member who had suggested the topic agreed to bring in a paper. The paper proved to be very complete and suggestive. Some of the members of the American Folk-Lore Society may remember it, as it was printed in the Journal two or three years ago under the heading, "Plantation Courtship," by F. D. Banks. It was reprinted in the "Workman" soon after. From the publication of the paper in the "Workman," we received in time much additional matter from different parts of the South. To-day, when I open the Society's record at the subject "Courtship," I find seven pages of written and printed matter that has been gathered through that paper of Mr. Banks, and by the coöperation of the Society, the "Workman," and the school's graduates scattered through the South.
The final disposition of all matter collected by the Society, for the present at least, is its entry in the record books. These books are divided into topics suggested by Mrs. Bergen's and Mr. Newell's "Topics for the Collection of Folk-Lore," published some time ago in the Folk-Lore Journal. In this way we are slowly accumulating a collection which we hope may, in course of time, be worthy of publication in book form.
As you will have already discovered, our Society confines itself altogether to the collection, and does not undertake to make any study of comparative folk-lore. There is not in its membership a single scientific folk-lorist, although we hope that when our material is published it may serve as one additional stepping-stone for the advancement of the science of folk-lore. As a society, we are laboring simply for the accumulation of material, and, by means of that accumulation, for a better understanding of the beliefs and imaginings, the hopes and fears, the manners and customs, that form the background of the thought of nearly eight millons of our fellow countrymen,
Alice Mabel Bacon.
Hampton, Va.