David G. Hyatt - Gourd Banjos

The gourd banjo was one of several contributions African Americans made to mountain folk life. Among these are the songbow, gourd fiddles and early fiddle music, dance, patting for dance and possibly puzzles. There is a need for a study that analyzes all African American contributions as a whole - doing so would provide a much better perspective on the uniquely American amalgamation of African and European folkways and music.

The gourd banjo came to the mountains with dance and banjo songs. Because the gourd banjo was so intimately associated with dance and song - most early observations confirm this - I feel some discussion of this is necessary.

Cecil Sharp observed the Running Set in Kentucky in three different locations: Hindman, Hyden and the Pine Mountain Settlement School. He published his description of this dance in The Country Dance Book, Part V, 1918. After analyzing the Running Set Sharp concluded: "… the Kentucky dance belongs to a stage in the development of the Country-dance earlier than that of any dance known to us." Following are Sharp's observation of a dance at Hindman, Kentucky, where the music was supplied by fiddle and banjo:

"The fiddler and banjo-player each have an assistant, a 'beater,' who, sitting at right angles to the instrumentalist, 'beats' the strings between the bridge and the player's left hand with two pencil-like, wooden sticks. These sticks being flexible, strike all the strings simultaneously and this produces a rhythmical, drone effect which if the 'beater' is deft in his movements and skillfully varies his rhythms, adds depth to the tune and gives material aid to the dancers."

Dancing in east Kentucky was associated with the banjo - most dances in the Knott County area featured a lone banjo player with observers patting to help keep time. I have had two old timers describe for me the practice of "beating" on the banjo strings with objects similar to knitting needles. The description of the fiddling at Hindman is not very different from that described by W. C. Handy in Father of the Blues: "A boy would stand behind the fiddler with a pair of knitting needles in his hands. From this position the youngster would reach around the fiddler's left shoulder and beat on the strings in the manner of a snare drummer."

Following is Sharp's description of the dance at the Pine Mountain Settlement School:

"Throughout the dance the onlookers and the performers also, when not actually dancing, should enforce the rhythm of the music by 'patting,' i.e., alternately stamping and clapping. 'Patting' is done in various ways, but the usual method is to stamp with the right foot on the strong accent and clap the hands on the weak one, the executant throwing his head back, inclining his body to the left and emphasizing the movement of feet and hands so that the rhythm may be seen as well as heard. In 6/8 time the hands are usually clapped on the third and sixth quavers, but the "patter" will often strike his thighs, right hand on right thigh on the second and fifth quavers, and left hand on left thigh on the third and sixth, stamping, of course, on the first and fourth quavers. As an accompaniment to the dance, the 'patting' is almost as effective as music; so effective, indeed, that at Pine Mountain, where the dancers were wholly dependent on it, the absence of instrumental music was scarcely felt."

The patting observed by Mr. Sharp is very similar to an African American rhythmic sequence, "patting juba," which is described in some detail in the books referenced above by Dena Epstein and Eileen Southern. A good description is given by the editors of John Jay Janney's Virginia - An American Farm Lad's Life in the Early 19th Century:

" 'Juba' is dancing to rhythmic patting. The name had died out - and the practice almost so - in the editor's youth, but at least we learned the rudiments of the fast patting of hands on thighs and chest. Harold Bell, stopping at our father's store, would pat time for his own buck-and-wing dancing."

"Patting juba" is called the "hambone" in Kentucky. Ed Haggard, from Winchester, Kentucky, learned an elaborate version from an elderly African American in the 1950s. Losses Slone, a bluegrass banjo player in Knott County, Kentucky, saw a customer at his Caney Creek store perform an elaborate hambone. Losses also described a neighbor, Dixon Johnson, performing a version of the hambone while singing African American blues.

Sharp described the Kentucky dance as "unlike any other folk dance," and commented on unusual moves made by the dancers:

"There are no skipping or slipping-steps although, especially in the Promenades, the dancers often improvise step-variations of their own, e. g. kick up their heels, drag their feet lazily on the floor, or do a hoe-down step or two, i. e., a heel-and-toe, shuffle, or a clog-dance step."

Sharp defined the unusual dance steps he observed as "a species of step- or clog-dance, locally known as the hoe-down." The dance steps he observed were clearly influenced by African American dancing. Daniel Jatta and Ulf Jagfors have a video of members of the Jola tribe dancing to the music of the Akonting. The dance steps used by the Jolas looked remarkably similar to the mountain "hoe-down."

Dr. Josiah Combs was from Hindman, Kentucky. He collected songs from an African American banjo player near Hindman in 1902. He did his doctorial dissertation, Folk-Songs du Midi des Etats-Unis, at the University of Paris in 1925. D. K. Wilgus used Comb's English draft and the French text to edit in 1967 an English version, Folk-Songs of the Southern United States. Dr. Combs has this to say about mountain banjo songs:

"The Highlander has adopted many banjo airs from the Negroes, although the Negro population of the Highlands has never been extensive. Such airs came into the Highlands prior to the Civil War … The tunes of Lynchburg Town, Shortnin' Bread, Raccoon, Shady Grove, Hook and Line, Houn' Dog, Ida Red, Little Grey Mule, Big Stone Gap, and numerous others are from the Negroes."

The "banjo airs," according to Dr. Combs, "came into the Highlands prior to the Civil War." The banjo, of course, accompanied these banjo songs. Dr. Combs does not mention East Virginia, a banjo song common throughout the mountains, possibly because he thought it did not have a Negro origin. A common refrain in the song is, "I am from old East Virginia, To North Carolina I did go…" Most of the other verses in the song vary considerably. They are what Buell Kazee calls "vagrant" verses. Monroe County Folklife, edited by Lynwood Montell, contains a version of East Virginia with the following verse:

Captain, Captain, I am dying,
Won't you take these words for me,
Take them back to east Virginia,
Tell my darling she is free.

I believe East Virginia was written by some of the first Virginia pioneers in North Carolina.

The favored tune for square dancing in the Knott County area was Hook and Line. This tune, according Cecilia Conway in African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia, was common among the blacks she recorded in North Carolina. Lee Sexton (b. 1928), from Letcher County, Kentucky, states in the liner notes to his CD, Whoa Mule:

"We'd go to square dances and bean stringings, corn shuckings, just things like that … We'd hoedown then, the old hoedown dance, just flatfoot you know. And it started from that to square dancing … They didn't have no guitar or fiddle. I'd sit right there and play the banjo all night 'til the blood would run from my fingers. Hook and Line was the tune I played all the time."

Hook and Line has a hypnotic and repetitious rhythm that seems close to some of the early descriptions of African dance music. Also, it is played on the first three strings of the banjo. I believe it may be the oldest tune that came with early settlers into east Kentucky.

Blacks in North Carolina referred to square dances as "frolics." Cecil Sharp notes this was the usual term for dances in east Kentucky. The Oven Fork Baptist Church, established in 1820 in Letcher County, Kentucky, had ten "Rules and Regulations." The ninth was, "Frolics not permitted in the home of church members." Families often referred to the frolics as "playing." This allowed young people to attend "play parties" without the stigma of dancing.