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American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1940
Item 5 of 114 [Coonjine in Manhattan] { page image }
Garnett Laidlaw Eskew
4700 Kenwood Avenue
Chicago, Illinois
{Begin handwritten}Coonjine{End handwritten} {Begin handwritten}[?]
3{End handwritten}
{Begin handwritten}[1939?]{End handwritten}
COONJINE IN MANHATTAN
On a bright October afternoon I walked along pier-lined West Street
that borders the Hudson shore in New York City. Near at hand the city
roared past; beyond, rose the Jersey cliffs. Here on West Street there
is always a crowding and pushing of ocean vessels--transatlantic and
coastwise ships; freighter and "luxury liners"--lying in at their
berths, thrusting sharp prows against the very city pavements, or
edging away from their wharves in the wake of straining tugboats.
Today {Begin deleted text},{End deleted text} there were, as always,
crowds of stevedores, longshoremen, and dock laborers on hand, busy
about the loading and unloading of cargoes arriving from, or destined
for, the ports of the seven seas. Stolidily these men went about their
work--Hungarians, Italians, Irishmen, Germans, Swedes, with a fair
scattering of the native born product. They seemed to toil with a grim
desperation as though the mark they did was distasteful but necessary.
Among the crowd of laborers on this particular day, however, was
one--a powerful, gray-haired old Negro--who alone seemed to be
enjoying his back-breaking duties. For he was singing at his work.
Singing:--chanting, in a rhythmical barbaric sort of regularity, a
kind of song that awoke vague nostalgia longings in my innards.
Coonjine! Was it possible, I asked myself, that here in New York there
was a steamboat roustabout--a "Coonjine Nigger"--from
Page 2 { page image }
the Mississippi country? A stray from my native Midlands and South?
Looking at him closely I could not doubt it. He wore the conventional
old battered hat turned up in front, the gunny sack fastened with
nails across his chest and shoulders.
Anyone reared along the Inland rivers would know that this was the
characteristic dress of the steamboat roustabout, from Cairo, Ill. to
St. Louis; from Cincinnati to New Orleans.
I listened carefully to his song as he laid down on the dock a large
box from his shoulder and turned back to the ship again.
Love her in de sunshine,
Love her in de rain!
Treats her like a white gal,
She give my neck a pain!
De mo' I does for Sadie Lee
De less dat woman thinks er me
!
...........I had never heard the words before but his manner of singing
them smacked undeniably of the river Negro. There was a guileless
naivete that I could not mistake.
...........Back in the days when the queenly white steamboats of the
Mississippi, the Ohio and Illinois Rivers, were busy carrying the
freight and passengers of the American Inland Empre, an army of
freight handlers was necessary to take care of the loading and
unloading. At one time in the middle of the nineteenth century before
the railroads had fully come, nearly two thousand steamboats steamed
gracefully along the rivers. One fairly good-sized boat carried fifty
roustabouts. Therefore, you can at once apprehend the great need, for
strong arms and backs to do the loading and unloading at the city
landings where the boats touched.
Page 3 { page image }
...........Along the rivers that border Southern Illinois, Kentucky and
the Southern States, Negroes gravitated instinctively to the river
life. Steamboating appealed to them because of its inherently nomadic
character, its constant change of scene, its hours of pleasant
idleness on deck, between landings, when a black boy could rest and
sleep and roll the spotted ivories with his buddies. The wages were
relatively good. Particularly, the food was plentiful and substantial.
And that was an important factor in any job!
...........And so from the beginning of steam transportation on the
Mississippi (1817) the Negro, as a freight handler--known locally as a
roustabout, or in the vernacular a "rouster"--became an important
figure in the mid-American scene. Especially after the long arm of
emancipation had freed the slaves and they sought out {Begin deleted
text}[?]{End deleted text} their own careers.
A roustabout's job while it lasted. . .rolling cotton bales over the
stageplanks, carrying tierces of lard and sides of bacon, swinging a
recalcitrant pig calf over the shoulder, carrying it squealing along,
working in all kinds of weather, and under the constant tongue
lashings of a profane and two-fisted steamboat mate. . .was about as
hard a job as could be found. Yet the Negroes loved it because there
was plenty of time between landings for "restin' up."
And there was another way to lighten the labor. If a boy put his mind
on his work and kept it there, he could not long stand up under the
strain. But if he sang while he worked, "{Begin deleted text}released
his spirit on the wings of song"{End deleted text} while his back bent
and the sweat trickled copiously from his pores, he would forget his
weariness.
Page 4 { page image }
There is in every rightly constructed Negro a profound sense of
rhythm, an inherent love for the beat and timing of music, running
back to African days. He sings as naturally as he eats. It was to
alleviate the weariness of carrying freight on and off the steamboats,
that the roustabouts sang. And the songs they sang and the shuffling,
loose kneed dance-job-trot to which they timed their movements, became
known among themselves as the Coonjine.
It was such a song that I heard this gray haired brawny Negro singing
on the West Street docks, a thousand miles away from the Mississippi
country, on this October afternoon.
(No one seems to know definitely where the name "coonjine" came from.
Harris Dickson, well known author of Vicksburg, Miss., and an
authority on Negro lore, says that the word is possibly of African
origin and points out the word "Coonjai" was the African term for a
tribal dance. But, Judge Dickson explains farther, roustabouts didn't
run much to "derivations" - to Greek or Latin roots. Whenever they
wanted a word they made it up offhand, and usually the word they
coined filled the bill so perfectly that it stuck. It may have been so
with Coonjine.)
Coonjine songs were not spirituals--neither the genuine nor the
"Broadway" variety. There was nothing spiritual about them that I have
been able to discover.
Into these songs the rousters put the problems and the incidents of
the day's labor, the characteristics of the people they met. The
Page 5 { page image }
peculiarities of a mate or captain or fellow rouster; the speed and
qualities of a particular boat; the charms or meanness of a
woman-friend; domestic matters--all these were subjects which the
steamboat roustabouts move into the texture of the Coonjine songs with
which they lightened the labor of steamboat work. Composed sometimes
on the spur of the moment, or garbled versions of songs previously
heard, often the words were ridiculous, sometimes senseless, but
nearly always ludicrous with occasionally a touch of pathos:
Old roustabout aint got no home,
Make his living on his shoulder bone!
* * *
There came a lull in the unloading of the ship. The Negro exhaled
gustily, mopped his brow and chancing to glance in my direction,
grinned and shook his head.
"Sho' is hot!" he announced, "and man is I tired!"
I beckoned him over to one side.
"What boats you work on?" I asked him. "Ever roust on the Kate Adams?"
At which his smile broadened and he broke out in a loud guffaw.
"Go 'long, Boss! You come frum down on the River? Lawd, Lawd! Yassur,
I sho'ly did wuk on de ole Lovin Kate. (Dat's whut we useter call de
Kate Adams ). I wuk on Cap'n Buck Layhe's Golden Eagle, too, an' on de
City er Louisville and City er Cincinnati, up on de Ohio River. One
time, 'bout fifteen years ago, I rousted fer Ole Cap'n. Cooley up de
Ouachita River. Yassuh!" He turned scornfully to the group of
Page 6 { page image }
laborers still carrying articles of freight, "Dese hyuh dagoes and
furriners--dey don't know nuthin' bout roustin'! Dey doan know nothin'
bout Coonjine, like us does out on de river."
"Do you remember any more of those Coonjine songs?" I asked him.
Whereupon he at once became a trifle reticent and embarrassed.
"Laway, hit wuz so long ago I mos' fergit 'em. I useter know a lot dem
songs when I wuz a young buck. But sense I done got ole, I got me a
wife and jined de chu'ch and fergit mos' all dem ole Coonjine songs."
"But you were singing just now," I told him.
"Wuz I?" he asked, his eyes wide. "Well, dat - dat wuz jes cause I wuz
workin', boss!" Presently he resumed: "I 'members one song we uster
sing on de Lizzie Bay, when she was runnin' from Ragtown ter Cairo."
"Ragtown? Where was that?"
"Aw - dat's jes' de name de rousters give her Cincinnati. So many rags
wuz sold and shipped out on de boats ter make paper outen.
"Dat song went dish here way:
De ole Lizzie Bay she comin' roun' de ben'
All she's a doin' is killin' up men.
De ole Lizzie Bay she's a mighty fine boat
But hit take nine syphon ter keep her afloat
..
..........."An' boss, you member dat song bout
Who been hyuh sints I bin gone?
Big ole rouster wid a derby on,
Layin' right dar in my bed
Wid his heels crack open like cracklin' bread.
I whoop my woman and I black her eye,
But I won't cut her th'oat kaze I skeered she
might die. . .
.."
Page 7 { page image }
...........I had heard garbled versions of this epic at various river
towns, even as I had heard variations of that well-nigh unprintable
song with the recurring refrain of "Rango - Rango" and the often
twisted, "Roll, Molly, Roll."
...........This seemed to please him mightily. Under pressure, and in
acknowledgement of some silver change, he recalled others of the songs
he had chanted years ago, in the days when the big steamboats
ran--recalled them slowly, one by one, each song suggesting another.
Standing there with him in the West Street pier shed, I gathered a
sizeable collection of Coonjine songs. Many, I have no doubt, bore
only a slight resemblance to the original wordings. For roustabouts
felt, so long as they preserved the thought and central idea and
rhythm of a song, they could change the words at will. Sometime they
abandoned the existing words and made up new words of their own. I
have heard different versions of barely recognizable Coonjine songs in
various towns from St. Louis to the Delta. Once, an antiquated porter
at the old Holliday House, fronting the river at Cairo, Ill., sang
this one for me:
"Whar wuz you las' night?
O tell me whar you wuz las' night?
Rattin' on de job
In Saint Chawles Hotel
.."
...........Which requires some explanation. "Ratting" in rouster lingo
for "loafing." The St. Charles Hotel referred, not to the historical
hostelry in New Orleans of that name, but to a warm cleared space
beneath the steamboat boilers on the lower deck on any boat where the
rousters, whenever they were able to dodge the vigilant eye of the
mate,
Page 8 { page image }
were wont to hide away and sleep.
...........Many a boat has been loaded, down in the cotton country, to
the tune of a two line doggerel:
I chaws my terbacker and I spits my juice,
Gwinter love my gal til hit ain't no use
!
...........Roustabouts were always hungry. Near the steamboat landing
in Vicksburg there stood, back in the eighties and nineties, an old
brick bakery which specialized in "nigger belly"--that is, long slabs
of ginger bread which sold at the rate of two for five cents. The
roustabouts called it "boozum bread."
Boozum bread, boozum bread,
I eats dat stuff till I dam near dead
!
--sang the roustabouts of the Belle of the Bends of the Senator
Cordell or the Belle Memphis, or any other of a dozen boats. Which
also requires some explanation. In carrying articles of freight up and
down the stageplank a roustabout had to use both hands to balance it
on his shoulder or head. Soe he would stuff a strip of ginger bread
under his shirt bosom next to his skin, the top extending up almost to
his collar. By ducking his chin he could bit out chunks of the stuff
(soon softened by sweat) without interference with his work. Hence the
name, Boozum (bosom) bread.
...........Vicksburg roustabouts were also partial to this song, which
had reference to a certain one-armed hard-fisted steamboat mate, named
Lew Brown.
Page 9 { page image }
Taint no use for dodgin' roun'
Dat ole mate jes' behine you.
Better cut dat step and coonjine out
Dat ole jes' behine you
!
...........But the songs eulogising the boats themselves stick longer
in my mind than any others. There was something intensely personal
about a steamboat. To the men who manned and owned and operated them,
steamboats had personality. Hence the qualities of certain boats live
today in Coonjine songs. . . .
...........The boats of the Lee Line, in the Memphis-New Orleans trade
until a few years ago, fed the passengers and crews well; but paid
notoriously low wages. Still the Negroes liked to work for the Lee
Line. The reason is to be found in this song:
Reason I likes de Lee Line trade,
Sleep all night wid de chambermaid.
She gimme some pie and she gimme some cake,
An' I gi' her all de money dat I ever make
!
...........The Anchor Line boats (running from 1869-1911) were each
named for a Mississippi River City, and fine St. Louis and New Orleans
packets, noted for speed, sumptious cabins and elaborate cuisine. I
once met, up on the Ohio River, an old roustabout who called himself
Ankline Bob--because, he said, he had worked for the Anchor Line. Bob
had the lowdown on the different Anchor Line boats:
Dey wuks you hawd but dey feeds you fine
On dem big boats er de Anchor Line
..
...........There was intense rivalry between the different boats of
this line. Notably that between the City of Cairo and the City of
Monroe. Both were fine and fast, but the Cairo was once said to have a
slight
Page 10 { page image }
edge for speed on the Monroe. Whereupon the roustabouts on the Monroe
would sing:
De City of Cairo's a mighty big gun,
But lemme tell you whut de Monroe done:
She lef' Baton Rouge at haff pass one
An' git ter Vicksburg at de settin' er de sun
..
...........Another Anchor Liner; the City of Providence, was nicknamed
by the roustabouts "The Trusty Trus'" for the reason that her mate was
always willing to trust a rouster with a dollar until pay day. They
would sing:
Me and muh woman done had a fus. . .
Gwinter take a little trip on de Trusty Trus.!
I owes de lanlady fifty cents,
Gwinter roust on de Providence
A song which was popular in America twenty years ago was "Alabama
Bound." An ex-roustabout on the St. Louis levee once explained to me
that this song was originally a Coonjine song. The steamboat Saltillo
was a doughy little sternwheeler which late in the evening used to
pull away periodically from the landing and turn her nose southward
down the Mississippi. At Cairo she would turn into the Ohio and up
that stream to the mouth of the Tennessee River, following the lovely
channel of that river back into the Muscle Shoals section of Alabama
which the great government dams are today being built to improve
navigation.
With their usual happy facility for conferring euphonious nicknames,
the Negroes called the Saltillo the Sal Teller.
Sal Teller leave St. Looey
Wid her lights tu'n down.
And you'll know by dat
She's Alabama bound.
Page 11 { page image }
Alabama bound!
She's Alabama bound!
You'll know by dat
She's Alabama bound!
Doan you leave me here!
Doan you leave me here!
Ef you's gwine away and ain comin' back
Leave a dime fer beer!
Leave a dime fer beer
Leave a dime fer beer!
Brother, if yu gwine away
Leave a dime fer beer!
I ask de mate
Ter sell me some gin;
Says, I pay you, mister
When de Stack comes in
When de Stack comes in
When de Stack comes in!
Says, I pay you mister,
When de Stack comes in
..
...........The name Stack, recurring several times in the song,
referred to one of the Lee Line boats, the Stacker Lee.
...........Mates and captain, far from objecting to coonjine,
encouraged their roustabouts to sing. There was a sound utilitarian
reason for this. Anyone who has worked with Negroes knows that they
will work better when they work to music, timing their movements to
the beat of the tune. A thousand tons of miscellaneous freight and a
few hundred bales of cotton could be loaded, to the beat and time of
Coonjine, in half the time that songless labor would demand.
...........Coming up the Mississippi on Captain Cooley's little
sternwheeler Ouachita in company with Roark Bradford, one early
spring, I learned this song from that skillful portrayer of the Negro
character:
Page 12 { page image }
...........(This was a cotton-loading song heard frequently on the
docks at New Orleans).
Catfish swimmin' in de river
Nigger wid a hook and line
Says de catfish, Lookyere, Nigger,
You ain' got me dis time.
..........Come on, bale (spoken) - got yuh!
And there was another value to Coonjine. Moving in perfect time meant
that the rousters' feet hit the stageplank with uniform precision. A
wise thing, too! For if a rouster should step upon the vibrating
boards out of time, and thus catch the rebound of the stage-plank, he
was very likely to be catapulted with his load over into that muddy
bourne from which no roustabout returns--or rarely so.
A general opinion prevails throughout the River Southland that nobody
but the Negroes can sing Coonjine. This may be true, for if you have
ever tried to capture a Coonjine tune from hearing a Negro sing it,
you must have realized how utterly futile it is to put down in cold
black and white on paper the color and barbaric beauty of the tones.
However, an attempt is being made--as this is written--by an
accomplished musical composer in Paducah, Kentucky, to bring out a
book of Coonjine songs with music. Such a collection would be an
invaluable addition to our vanishing Americana.
For this phase of American life is fast vanishing. With the coming of
the railroads, the steamboats (as we knew them once) have gone. So
have the black freight handlers who by their songs and ever-rebounding
good nature, added much to the pleasure of steamboat travel. Many of
the old roustabouts have died. More have left their native South and
come to the north to live with grown-up "chillens." You will find
them, not only
Page 13 { page image }
on the West Street docks in New York, but in Cleveland, Chicago,
Cincinnati and other cities.
And to those black "creators of American folklore" the writer ascribes
this brief tribute.
* * *
--
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