The age-herald., 1900-08-07
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Julian Hawthorne Writes
 Of the Modern Cake-Walk

Of the Modern Cake-Walk
 Since the visit of MT Julian Hawthorne to Birmingham last spring. there are many who feel a personal interest in him and his newspaper work. while his contributions at that time to the Age-Herald have been frequently referred to by those who were charmed with the witchery of his words
 In view of the popularity of the cake walk and the fact that no special signifi- canoe has been attached to it, Mir. flaw thorne's views upon the subject, recently expressed in the North American, will place the modern cake walks among the subjects to be considered seriously. MT. Hawthorne declares that the prancing step of today is simply the rememberance of the Voodoo dance of ages past, and that the subject of descent would be an interesting one to professors of ethnology. At the negro cake walk at Atlantic City that was witnessed by the exclusive and fashionable element Mir. Hawthorne writes that the mystic power of heredity had awakened uncomprehended. memories of something which the participants had seen and taken part in hundreds of years ago in central African primeval forests, not that these dusky dancers were ever in Africa, but their ancestors had been. In stead of the conventional band of stringed instruments which was dscoursng jig music, their ears were filled with the mad dening tom-tom, the demonac yells, the frantic howings of savages, capering, leaping, tossing arms and legs, twisting and writhng in the wild red glimmer of the blazing faggots.'
 The modern so-called cake walk differs by reason of environment It is so masked as to excite thoughtless amusement in- stead of terror. It is no longer accom- panied by bloody rites and the mysterious powers of darkness are no longer invoked to work their ghastly spells; but the thing is at heart and in basic motive the same as it was in it's untrammelod freedom a thousand and ten thousand years ago. We fancy that we have the black race under our thumb, but as soon as we permit them 10 begin those rhythmic movements which have such strange power to awaken instincts which lie beneath all changes of time and place, forever embed ed in the Iggdrasil roots of race then we may discover how much and how little we nave civilized the African. MT. Haw- thorne continues this question of descent at some length, and in conclusion he says:
 UT course, the cakewalk last night on the steel Pier presented the very latest refine ments which our culture has imposed upon us native, naked orgies; and none was more convinced than the participants in 1t themselves that they were illustrating the most recent and orthodox attainments in- cu1caed by the white man. There were ballet steps such as you may see in the Italian opera; and the master of cere- monies, in his gold-braided coat and trous- CTS with the stripe down the sides was in- exhaustible in his formal posings, his right about-facings, his courteous bows and his military marchings to and fro. His suave authority continually checked the frenzy of the Voodoo serpent when it was on the brink of breaking forth, and when the fg- ure of the dance showed symptoms of transeending the snug bounds set down for it, he would shift it to another, and so avert the peril which he knew not of except beneath the surface of his consciousness.
 But look at those marvelously wriggling flexible limbs, those up-tossing arms, those writhing bodies, those heads nodding so grotesquely, those quick bounds and abrupt haltings, those toad-lke crouchings and hoppings, those jerky, staccato advancings and retreatings, those fantastic starings and grimacings into one anothers faces! The woman plies her fan, the man does queer tricks with his hat and his cane; the , woman has them now, and he yields her paraso; all the time the rhythmic beat keeps on, the evolutions become swifter, freer, suppler: Have a care MT. Master of , Ceremonies! That vision of the mid-forest , glade is coming back again, and in another moment we shall be beholding what none of , us has yet dreamed of. But it passes, and we have no misgivings; the pretty white girl in front of me giggles and her escort remarks hopefully, They'll have the real rag-time in minutei" And where did the rag-time come from?" l asked myself.