Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

TO H E KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1885

DEAR K,--Just got a letter froestion was received I fear I write too often; but I can only write in snatches Were I to wait for ti letter, the result would be either 0 or so worse

I have already inpreface, and occasional picturesque notes to your learning and facts For exaro's e history of the Griots, who furnish so singular an exah honoured and petted in one way, are otherwise despised by their own people and refused the rites of burial Then I would relate soh the yellow desert northward into the Moghreb country--often a solitary wandering; their perfor journey, when the black slaves co to Constantinople, where they play old Congo airs for the great black population of Stamboul, whom no laws or force can keep within doors when the sound of Griot music is heard in the street Then I would speak of how the blacks carry their music with them to Persia and even to h esteem by Arab ro est black flowers are gathered by the alchemists of icians like Gottschalk (How is that for a beginning?)

I would divide es each--every division separated by Roroup of facts

I would also try to show a relation between negro _physiology_ and negro hest huh it loses that fire in Aro's vocal cords are not differently forer_ vibration than ours Soret to say the latest London works do not touch upon the negro vocal cords, although they do show other remarkable anato I knoith an African refrain _that is still sung_:--don't show it to C, it is one of _our_ treasures

(pronounce ”Wenday,” ”makkiyah”)

_Ouende, ouende, macaya!_ Mo pas barasse, _macaya_!

_Ouende, ouende, macaya!_ Mo bois bon divin, _e bon poulet, _macaya_!

_Ouende, ouende, macaya!_ Mo pas barasse, _macaya_!

_Ouende, ouende, macaya!_-- _Macaya!_

I wrote fro of the refrain--her ht her, and the rand, and asked her if she _now_ remembered She leaped in the air for joy--apparently

_Ouendai_ or _ouende_ has a different o or Fiot dialect it o on” I found the word in Jeannest's vocabulary Then _e Creole de la Martinique:” ca veut dire ”er tout le temps”--”excessiveo on! _eat enoreously_!

_Go on! go on! eat prodigiously_!

_I_ drink good wine,--_eat ferociously_!-- Go on! go on!--_eat unceasingly_!-- I eat good chicken--gorging uistic discovery? The music is almost precisely like the American river-music,--a chant, almost a recitative until the end of the line is reached; then for your --bird more wonderful than ours--with a voice so sonorous and soleroes ell in the great aisles of the forest call it _zozo mon-pe_ (l'oiseau nifieth a spiritual father--a _ghostly_ father--the ”Priest-bird”!

Now dreahts are the stars of heaven!

L H

TO H E KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1885

DEAR KREHBIEL,--You are a terribly neglectful correspondent: I have asked you nearly one hundred questions, not a single one of which you have ever deemed it worth while to answer However, that makes no matter now,--as none of the questions were very important, certainly not in your estiro-American music, and that a Southern trip will be absolutely essential,--because I have never yet met a person here able to reproduce on paper those fractional tones we used to talk about, which lend such weirdness to those songs

The naked melody robbed of these has absolutely no national characteristic The other day a couple of darkeys fro, but a plain negro ditty--with a recurrent burthen consisting of the cry:--

_Oh! Jee-roo-sa-le-e-em!_

I can't describe to you the manner in which the syllable _lem_ was broken up into four tiny notes, the utterance of which did not occupy one second,--all in a very low but very powerful key The rest of the song was in a regular descending scale: the _oh_ being very ed and the other notes very quick and sudden Wish I could write it; but I can't I think all the original negro-Creole songs were characterized by similar eccentricities If you could visit a Creole plantation,--and I know Cable could arrange that for you,--you would be able to make some excellent studies

Cable told s musically I a--as regards rhyth of notes into musical splinters which I can't describe I have never told hiest the ood idea to have a chat with him about a Southern trip in the interest of these Creole studies I ainal Creole-ditty a blacks of the country,--not aers, who are too inality When the bao” one God knohere The results of your Southern trip e in Europe forwhat Gottschalk did with Creolemore attention has not been paid to the ditties of the Antilles, etc I a treasures of such curiosities in Cuba, Martinique,--all the Spanish and French possessions, but especially the forhtful; but I think with you that it were best to rely chiefly upon _personal_ study It strikes ht to be scientifically undertaken,--so as to leave as little as possible for others to ilean If you care for names of French writers on African music, I can send