Part 17: Mummers' Day -- A Whitewash?

As outrageous as those lyrics seem now, the reality wasn't so black and white in Foster's day.

The famous African American abolitionist (and former slave), Frederick Douglass, cited songs like "Uncle Ned" and "My Old Kentucky Home" as "allies" in the fight against slavery: "They awaken the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root and flourish."

In Britain, "Uncle Ned" was a standard in school songbooks well into the 20th century. One Padstonian told me that the Darkie Day songs were taught at the local primary school in the Seventies, and possibly even as late as the Eighties, including a tune called "Little Nigger."

Seeing that I wasn't familiar with the song, he recited the words, penned by an anonymous author:

I 'ad a little nigger
He wouldn't grow no bigger
So I put 'im in the wilebeest show.

What? Surely I'd misheard him. "Wilebeest? Like 'wild beast'?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "Of course, there's all different verses. We don't sing the whole song. 'Cause ya know we 'ad problems. So wherever we've got the word 'nigger' we now change it to 'mummer'." He grinned. "So then we're politically correct."

"So what do you make of that?"

"Welllll… when you're drunk, who can tell what you're singing?"

* * *

©J.R. Daeschner

Like what you've read?

You can buy True Brits here.

Part 16: Eminem and the Coon Carnival

In hindsight, it's clear that all minstrelsy played on and perpetuated outdated and even repugnant stereotypes about blacks.

As in the early days of the genre, though, I think that Darkie Day in Padstow was literally a way of adding some colour to people's plain-vanilla lives.

The burnt cork on their faces acted as a mask that freed them from their daily routine, allowing them to sing, dance and cavort during the holidays without any malice intended toward blacks.

And before rushing to judge Darkie Day or indeed blackface performers of the past, it's worth keeping in mind that future generations may look back on our era and view white stars ranging from Elvis and the Beatles to "blue-eyed soul" singers, white rappers and any number of boy bands as little more than minstrels without the makeup: singers and songwriters who have copied black American slang, diction, dress and singing styles to produce the most commercial music of our time.

Eminem boasted as much in his #1 single, "Without Me" (from The Eminem Show, 2002), bragging that he and Elvis had enriched themselves by exploiting black music.

But if a black man also profits from the exploitation, that makes it okay, right?
Right?

Although modern pop may not mock blacks in the same way as the old minstrel shows, the deeper issue of exploitation remains.

In its own unique way, Darkie Day represents a variety of traditions come full circle: Old World customs were exported to the New World and mixed with plantation-style music to create blackface minstrelsy, which was then exported to Britain at the same time as blacks developed white-face counterparts in the British West Indies.

A similar phenomenon occurred in South Africa, where to this day "Coloureds" imitate old-time American minstrel performers during their annual New Year's celebrations in Cape Town.

The mixed-race revellers, many wearing black-and-white minstrel makeup, have stubbornly resisted attempts to rebrand their hootenanny as the Cape Minstrels Carnival. Instead, they call it by its old-fashioned name—the Coon Carnival.

Likewise, Darkie Day clings to its controversial roots.

The soundtrack for the day kicks off with the lyrics "Oh, I just come out before you / To sing you a Darkie song", then samples snippets of half a dozen ditties, such as "Polly Wolly Doodle".

One of the most contentious verses comes from an international hit by Stephen Foster, "Uncle Ned":

On a cold and frosty morning my Uncle Neddy died,
And he died many years ago.
He had no woolly on the toppy of his head
In the place where the woolly ought to go.
Up with the shovel and a ee-aye-oh
And down with the shovel and the hoe.
There's no more work for the poor old man
He's gone where the good niggerrrs go, aye oh
He's gone where the good niggerrrs go.

©J.R. Daeschner

Like what you've read?

You can buy True Brits here.