ABOUT GULLAH/GEECHEE SEA ISLAND CULTURE
DEFINITION
NOUN: Coastal South Carolina and Georgia
1a. The Gullah creole. b. A speaker of Gullah.
2. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a person who speaks a nonstandard local dialect, as in Savannah, Georgia, or Charleston, South Carolina.
ETYMOLOGY: Ultimately after the Ogeechee River, Georgia, along which distinctive varieties of Black English were spoken.
The American Heritage AE Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary the word Geechee derives from the Ogeechee River. Map
It is believed the name Ogeechee comes from the Muskogean Indian Tribe meaning "River of the Yuchis"
Gullah Music fun for kids to play and here
INDEPENDENT SCHOLARS
J. Herman Blake
J. Herman Blake
Sociologist:
Scholar in Residence
University of South Carolina Beaufort
Johns Island, SC 29457-0846
[p ]843-521-3138
[e]
blakej at gwm.sc.edu
Founder The Sea Islands Institute at The University of South Carolina Beaufort honoring people of the Gullah/Geechee culture. "Primary focus is the study and preservation of Gullah culture through a program of scholarship, curriculum development, and community development."
Also see: 1963 Malcolm X interview of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz University of California Berkeley
Read "GULLAH CULTURE" by Cecile McHardy Independent Scholar
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas [is/was] a Gullah speaker.
12/14/00 In Thomas's Own Words NYT
"When I was 16, I was sitting as the only black kid in my class, and I had grown up speaking a kind of a dialect. It's called Geechee. Some people call it Gullah now, and people praise it now. But they used to make fun of us back then. It's not standard English. When I transferred to an all-white school at your age, I was self-conscious, like we all are. It's like if we get pimples at 16, or we grow six inches and we're taller than everybody else, or our feet grow or something; we get self-conscious. And the problem was that I would correct myself midsentence. I was trying to speak standard English. I was thinking in standard English but speaking another language. So I learned that --- I just started developing the habit of listening. And it just got to be --- I didn't ask questions in college or law school. And I found that I could learn better just listening. And if I have a question I could ask it later. For all those reasons, and a few others, I just think that it's more in my nature to listen rather than to ask a bunch of questions. And they get asked anyway. The only reason I could see for asking the questions is to let people know I've got something to ask. That's not a legitimate reason in the Supreme Court of the United States."
Virginia Mixson Geraty: "Along the southeastern coast of the United States there is a narrow strip of land which is known to linguists and dialect geographers as the Gullah Area. This region, which includes the sea islands along the coast, extends roughly from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida, and inland for about one hundred miles. Living in this area are African-American people who are descendants of the tribesmen brought to the New World during the time of the Slave Trade. These people still speak variations of the original creole language known as Gullah."
Sound
Structure in Gullah:
The Narratives in Turner’s 'Africanisms' as a Linguistic Resource
By Thomas B. Klein & Meta Y. Harris 1/2001
To date, the narratives in 'Africanisms' have had a relatively minor influence
on Gullah language studies. In contrast, this paper demonstrates that
close study of these narratives contributes significantly to the understanding
of phonological patterns and phonological variation in Gullah.
First, it is shown that there are mismatches between the description of
Gullah phonology in the body of 'Africanisms' and the phonology of the
narratives. Thus, a number of patterns described in the main text are
not represented in the transcription conventions of the narratives. On
the other hand, close study of the narratives reveals patterns that are
not described in the text, such as Nasal Velarization (NV) and the deletion
of unstressed syllables in pre-stress position (PSD) in English cognates.
In addition, the transcription of the narratives often provides phonological
variants, thus enabling the study of phonological variation in Gullah.
As shown in this paper, NV in the narratives in 'Africanisms' transforms
an etymological alveolar nasal into a velar nasal after the diphthong
/aw/. Similar patterns are found in related Creoles such as Jamaican,
Guyanese and Trinidadian/Tobagonian Creole English.
However, Gullah shows a dissimilatory effect in that NV does not occur
if there is a velar consonant elsewhere in the word, whereas NV applies
across the board in other creoles.
This paper also shows that the narratives in 'Africanisms' provide evidence
for variable PSD. The overall rate of deletion is high. It is also shown
that PSD differs by location and is heavily gender-graded.
In sum, this paper demonstrates that the close study of the narratives
in 'Africanisms' can make a number of significant contributions to Gullah
language studies. First, the uncovering of previously undescribed phonological
patterns is enlightening for the linguistics of Gullah. Secondly, the
demonstrated difference between different locations and men’s and
women’s speech has significant implications for the dialectology
and sociolinguistics of Gullah. Thirdly, the understanding of the connection
between Gullah and other Creoles is enhanced by the similarities and subtle
distinctions found in patterns such as NV. The match in the highly frequent
and socially graded occurrence of PSD in African American Vernacular English
(AAVE) and Gullah versus the absence of NV in AAVE provides evidence which
future discussions of the connection between AAVE and Atlantic Creole
languages should take into account.
Gullah
and Geechee Traditions
The first Gullah residents were brought to the United States and enslaved
from many African nations, including Angola. Another myth the Queen Quet
dismantled pertains to the way Gullah people speak. Gullah is an authentic
language, not merely a dialect as some self-proclaimed experts claim,
she said.
Gullah Tales - folktales, listen to the words.
Krio
proverbs by Peter C. Andersen
Gullah People of the Sea Islands
4th - 5th grade classroom project by Lea Blumenfeld The purpose of this unit is to explore with the children the topic of the Gullah people of the Sea Islands off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. This unit will examine the history and the culture, particularly the stories and folk arts of the Gullah people, the African origin of these coastal inhabitants, and the connection between the Sea Island people and Pennsylvania. Additionally, it will include the geography, the Gullahs’ knowledge of herb and root medicine, the impact of industrialization on the Gullah economy, and the effect of tourism development on the lives of the people. A continuing theme of the unit will demonstrate that even though the Gullahs had been separated from Africa for hundreds of years, there are many examples of African retentions in the culture. The targeted participants will be fourth and fifth graders, but for some of the activities, such as the chants, songs, and stories, the kindergartners through third graders will also be involved.
Geechee culture and language captured in 70-year-old recordings: For more information, contact: Michael Sullivan (912) 681-0336 mikesull@GeorgiaSouthern.edu
June 2, 2005 #05-473
On a warm spring morning on Sapelo Island, Ga., Cornelia Bailey and Benjamin Hall sit on the veranda of the senior center and listen to a recording of the Rev. John Dunham reciting a Brer Rabbit story. The recording is more than 70 years old. Bailey and Hall are helping Georgia Southern University professor Thomas Klein translate and transcribe the recording from the Gullah-Geechee dialect to modern English.
The recording is one of many made in the early 1930s by the first African American linguist, Lorenzo Dow Turner. He traveled the Georgia and South Carolina sea islands and recorded the island residents talking about their families, their traditions and their daily lives. Now Klein is working to bring the recordings up to date and share them with the present-day islanders.
We are finding out about a group of people who have traditionally been under-represented and misrepresented, said Klein. We are learning about the diaspora of the African people on the American continent; we learn about the survival and adaptation skills that people have.
Bailey is a life-long resident of Sapelo Island and a leader in the small Hog Hammock community. I thought it was a great project; no one had done this before, she said. I read Turners book and stopped there. Thomas went beyond that and found out about these audio manuscripts, and no one had done that before.
Occasionally the project will become more than just academic research and hit home with the islanders. One day Bailey found herself listening to her great-great uncle, Shadrack Hall.
I remember him, and to hear his voice describing everything in minute detail, I said, You have to be kidding! Anyone who came to the house, I said, You have to listen to this, she said. I was dragging people in and saying, You have got to listen to this!
Called Gullah in South Carolina and Geechee in Georgia, the culture and language of the sea island residents has been preserved in small communities like Hog Hammock. The residents are the descendents of slaves who worked the island plantations before the Civil War. During the years of slavery, they developed Gullah-Geechee as a Creole language.
A Creole language arises out of the context of speakers of otherwise unintelligible languages in this case, English and African languages, said Klein. Eventually the Creole language replaces the original languages.
Klein discovered the Turner recordings at the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music.
Many of the people Turner interviewed had been born into slavery. While the recordings may be useful to a historian or a folklorist, they are also a gold mine to a linguist like Klein.
For me they are essential, because I can hear the original Gullah-Geechee speech as it was happening in 1932 and 1933, he said. This is absolutely unique. It is the only source of its kind to the best of my knowledge.
Translating and transcribing the Turner recordings may be a labor of love, but it isnt easy. It can take as much as an hour to translate just a minute or two of tape. One problem is the quality of the recordings. Klein is playing CDs, but the original equipment Turner used in the 1930s wasnt as good as modern recording tools. Another issue is the cultural difference between todays island residents and their ancestors.
The Geechee people of Sapelo don't understand Gullah-Geechee that well themselves anymore, and its a different kind of speech, said Klein. So this is the first time they are hearing Gullah-Geechee spoken the way it was 70 years ago. So its a matter of tuning your ear to the older stage of the language.
The differences between life on the island in the 1930s and today also present difficulties. They are talking about their daily lives 70 years ago and their lives were much different than what they are today, Klein said. The words they used are quite different.
Some linguists believe Gullah-Geechee is endangered because of the dominating influence of English. However, Klein says that may not be the case. It turns out the evidence you find is that Geechee is holding its own. Its not laying down to die. The structure of the language is still very much alive, he said.
A good percentage of the Gullah-Geechee community give up speaking the language, especially those who move off the islands. Klein found a core of island residents who are bilingual, switching back and forth from Gullah-Geechee to English as the circumstances dictate. For the people who are still here, who still speak Gullah-Geechee, the language is holding its own and is distinct from English, he said.
Klein is the latest in a long line of linguists, historians, anthropologists and other researchers who have studied the sea island people and culture. Islanders have developed a degree of skepticism of scholars who visit the island to pursue their work and then move on without leaving anything behind. Klein has a different approach. Every time he visits Sapelo with his recordings, he is bringing something into the community a contact with the islands past.
I don't want to work on the community; I want to work with the community. There is a huge difference, he said.
Bailey has opened her home to Klein to conduct his listening sessions. She says Kleins work is filling missing links in the communitys history. You know that black history has always been a bit sketchy, hit and miss, she said. Some we thought was ours was European or Native American. To find that this was something that was all ours; it was great. We are getting something great out of this.
In addition, the island residents hear about life on the island told by people 70 years ago. It is a time line of people talking about their lives back to the 1850s.
Its like hearing an audio history of your own family and your own history that you didnt know existed before, said Klein. You cant buy this. Its been wonderful for both parties.
Bailey shares Kleins enthusiasm and believes the community is getting more out of this project than Klein. It benefits him and his teaching and so forth, but I think it benefits us as much as it benefits him, she said. It is our history and culture. Its ours.
--
Talk of the Gullah tradition Sea Islanders help translate rare, 1930s-era recordings
http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/4944511p-4523998c.html
BY MONIQUE GREEN, The Island Packet
Published Tuesday, June 14th, 2005
Emory Campbell tunes his ears to the sounds of his ancestors -- listening intently to learn more and help preserve a language he sees as a fragile specimen.
Campbell is the main source representing the 25 native islanders whom a Georgia Southern University linguistics professor is working with to unlock some 70-year-old recordings of the Gullah-Geechee language. But the process is difficult, partly because even Gullah people don't understand the language that well anymore.
Professor Thomas Klein is translating the 1930s-era recordings that are "the only source of its kind" with present-day Sapelo and Hilton Head islanders, at the same time teaching islanders that Gullah is not broken English and is a language of its own.
Hilton Head and Sapelo Island, Ga., are among the once-isolated Sea Islands where Gullah-Geechee speech developed.
That's why Lorenzo Dow Turner, the first African-American linguist and creator of the recordings, traveled the Georgia and South Carolina Sea Islands in the early 1930s. He made the recordings of Gullah, a Creole language derived from English and West African languages, to capture the voices of islanders born into slavery, discussing their families, traditions and daily lives.
Klein said he received the recordings from the Indiana University archives of traditional music.
It can take as long as an hour to translate just a minute or two of the tape partly because of the poor quality of the old recordings, Klein said.
While Campbell, a Gullah preservationist and author, said he understood a lot of the words in the recordings, he realizes many native islanders would not because they have chosen not to speak Gullah anymore.
Even before the island was connected to the mainland by a bridge in the 1950s, children were discouraged from speaking Gullah in school.
"Some of us got Gullah beaten out of us," Campbell said.
Gullah has not been widely accepted because it is not a written language and often is mistaken as broken English, Campbell said. Some Gullah people are trying to preserve Gullah by putting it into a written form, while some scholars don't believe this is the best method.
"If you put it in a written form, like a Webster's Dictionary, it tends to stabilize it," said Ray Crook, an anthropology professor at the University of West Georgia, who studies Gullah. "It's a unique oral language that's dynamic and ever-changing."
But Louise Miller Cohen, a Gullah storyteller from Hilton Head, sees writing down the language as a way to pass it on to future generations. Cohen is putting together a book to translate Gullah.
"This is my language, and I'm making a Gullah book because I don't want to lose the words I grew up with," she said.
The Sea Island Translation Team is translating the New Testament of the Bible and already has completed the Gospel of John. Some scholars also are working on types of dictionaries.
With young people more influenced by popular culture and moving to seek economic and educational opportunities away from the Sea Islands, the language is disappearing.
Campbell said he would like to see Gullah flourish and continue to be passed on through the generations, but realistically he knows this will be difficult.
"It is my wish, but not my hope (to preserve Gullah)," Campbell said. "But we don't have a textbook to teach Gullah -- it won't be easy."
After quarter century, Bible in Gullah finished
Fo God mek de wol, de Wod been dey. De Wod been dey wid God, an de Wod been God. - De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. - John 1:1.
ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. (AP) - More than a quarter century after the laborious work began, the New Testament has finally been translated into Gullah, the creole language spoken by slaves and their descendants for generations along the sea islands of the Southeast coast.
"I think this makes the language universal," said Ervena Faulkner, the co-manager of history and culture at the Penn Center nestled amid spreading oaks dripping Spanish moss on this island just east of Beaufort.
"People have done Gullah cookbooks, they have done African-American sayings, they have done proverbs," she said. "But for the Bible to go out with the Gullah sends a message. It means we can speak the Word."
The Penn Center, dedicated to preserving the threatened sea island culture, is located on the site of the Penn School founded in 1862 to educate slaves newly freed by advancing Union troops.
Psalm 23 led translators to Gullah's riches January 12, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601120173jan12,1,6840972.story?page=1&cset=true&ctrack=1
Descendants of slaves help transcribe the Bible into the language of their ancestors
ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. --
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."
No matter how often he read Psalm 23, Emory Campbell never could understand that line. "I shall not want: What does that mean?" he'd ask himself.
Then he joined a project to translate the Bible into the language of his ancestors, the language of slaves who toiled for centuries in rice paddies off the Carolina coast.
That first line became: "De Lawd me shephud. A hab ebryting wa A need." I have everything I need.
It reminded Campbell, 64, of his grandmother's way of talking, earthy and frank and deep-down resonant. "Yes, indeed," Campbell said. "`I have everything I need.' That made sense to me."
Campbell had always considered himself above the slave language, known as Gullah. As a boy, he giggled at his grandma's speech. In college, he considered her "dem" and "dat" and "dey" a brand of ignorance. Psalm 23 opened his eyes to Gullah's riches.
He would spend the next two decades struggling to make the Word of God sound like his grandmother.
The result--De Nyew Testament--was unveiled here in November at an annual festival to celebrate Gullah culture. Twenty-six years in the making, the Gullah gospel was written by descendants of slaves under the direction of traveling missionaries.
No more than 10,000 people speak Gullah as their primary language; most are elderly and isolated on the Sea Islands, a chain off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Perhaps another 250,000 coastal residents lapse into Gullah now and then among friends.
The small market doesn't trouble the missionaries who devote their lives to such projects. They consider it their calling to bring the Scripture to every tongue around the globe: to the 4,000 Africans who speak Igo, to the 3,000 South Americans who speak Chachi, to the 1,200 Pacific Islanders who speak Angaatiya."It's my vocation. It's my passion," said David Frank, a linguist who helped finish the Gullah project.
The Gullah project started inauspiciously.
Veteran Bible translators Pat and Claude Sharpe arrived in the Sea Islands in 1979. After years abroad, their health had forced them home, but they weren't ready to retire. They were fascinated with Gullah culture, which is rooted in the fishing and farming communities of 17th Century West Africa.
Language never evolved
Plantation owners began importing slaves about 400 years ago. Because they arrived speaking many different African languages, the slaves had to develop a way of communicating with one another. The islands were so isolated that Gullah never evolved toward standard English.
By the time the Sharpes arrived, Gullah speakers had learned to be ashamed of their native tongue. Locals tried to persuade the Sharpes to drop the translation. "We told them we would not do it," said Ardell Greene, 54, a retired executive secretary.
The couple refused to give up. They explained that Gullah had influenced English through words such as "tote" (to carry), "chigger" (flea) and "biddy" (chicken), and through songs such as the campfire staple "Kumbaya" (sang in Gullah as "come by yah, my Lawd").
In 1980, a year after the Sharpes arrived, Campbell took over as director of the non-profit Penn Center, a community organization for the Gullah people on St. Helena Island.
He found himself as a host not only to the Sharpes but other linguists, historians and tourists from the world over. All had come hoping to learn more about Gullah culture.
Through their eyes, Campbell began to see the importance of preserving Gullah craft, superstitions, song and even the language he had once been ashamed to call his own. Within a few years, he had signed on to help with the Bible translation, along with about a dozen other volunteers.
No dictionaries, No books
Gullah is an oral language; there's no dictionary, no grammar book. So the islanders had to rely on memory and instinct.
To check their work, the translators read verses aloud at senior centers. They'd ask elders to listen for jarring rhythms or phrases that didn't make sense. Then it would be back to the Sharpes' house for another round of revisions.
"Oh, my God, it was hard," said Vernetta Canteen, 61, a hotel telephone operator who worked on the project. "It was so mentally draining; I don't think physical work could have been any harder."
The 900-page volume, available online for $10, was published by the American Bible Society, a donor-supported, non-profit publisher based in New York. It includes an English translation of each verse next to the Gullah text.
From English to Gullah
anoint: pit oll pon (put oil upon)
blaspheme: shrow slam pon (throw slander upon)
fast: ain nyam nottin (don't eat anything)
fellowship: one wid (one with)
grace: blessin (blessing)
kingdom: dey weh God da rule (there where God rules)
reconcile: mek all ting right twix (make everything right between)
sanctify: mek um God own (make them God's own)
Source: De Nyew Testament
W.A. Stewart, Linguist Who Studied Ebonics, Dies at 71 April 10, 2002 by
Wolfgang Saxon
Article
Summary: William Alexander Stewart
-
Born in Honolulu to Scottish immigrants grew up in California died 3/25/02 in Manhattan. He spoke four languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hawaiian. He was an Army translator in Frankfurt and Paris in 1952 and graduated in 1955 from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also received a master's degree in 1958. After study as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Pernambuco, Brazil, he was recruited as a staff linguist by the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington in 1960, a job entailing much travel in the Caribbean and Africa.
-
Lectured on Portuguese and Spanish at Georgetown University, taught at Johns Hopkins University and joined the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1968. City University of New York Graduate Center faculty since 1973, named him a full professor in 1984. At CUNY he taught pidgins and creoles, phonetics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and forensic linguistics.
-
Professor of linguistics, an early scholar of what has come to be known as ebonics. He explored its grammatical differences and how these can lead to misunderstandings in the classroom. He examined and wrote widely about how this creates testing problems for such children. He argued that certain grammatical peculiarities of the dialect, like "he busy," meaning he's busy right now, and "he be busy," meaning he's always busy, make nonstandard English into a separate language. He demonstrated that speakers of nonstandard English were, in fact, speaking the remnants of a creole, melding languages of African slaves and the English of American settlers.
-
Fluent in German, French, Dutch, Wolof, Haitian, Papiamento and Gullah, a dialect born in 16th-century Barbados.
-
Authority on creole languages, in particular Gullah, the West African-flavored speech of of the Sea Islands off South Carolina and Georgia,
-
In 1965 he proposed that it was not the vocabulary or pronunciation of the African-American vernacular but its grammar that stumped some children with reading problems. Three years later, he became co-director of the Education Study Center in Washington, which helped ghetto children with their reading.
-
Creoles are languages resulting from contact between two different tongues, one of them usually being English, French, Spanish, Dutch or Portuguese. Professor Stewart's particular fascination lay with Gullah, the speech of a dwindling number of rural African-Americans along the Carolina coastal delta, down to the Florida border. The Gullah "I en bin dey, yall know," for example, translates to "I have not been there, you know." Gullah, a word derived perhaps from Angola, draws to some degree on amix of West African languages like Ewe, Ibo and Yoruba.
Bill Stewart's Obituary re: William Alexander Stewart Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/10/obituaries/10STEW.html?ex=1019417440&ei=1&en=8a0609fbbc2760c8
Salikoko
S. Mufwene
Remarks re: Bill Stewart's research
University of Chicago
Department of Linguistics
Etymology is not one of my strengths. Stewart is not the author of the
etymology relating "Gullah" to "Angola". The author
of his obituary certainly had to deal with what many of us have faced
right after a colleague has passed away, viz., you need information very
quickly and cannot verify everything you are told. I am sure anybody doing
research on Gullah will know better than to rely on that particular obituary
for a newspaper about the etymology of "Gullah." It was proposed
in the 1920's, I think, and has been repeated in various publications.
It has also been related to "Gola" (in Sierra Leone). Based
on the forms, neither etymology is implausible, though I think demographic
history may be in favor of "Angola"-- yet congruence of forms
may not rule out the second etymology. A key factor is when, in the first
place, people started using the word "Gullah." That would help
us address the issue. I have no clue and therefore would not even consider
writing the NYT if I have no better explanation to offer..
Sali.
-------------
Bob-A-Needle
"Bob-a-needle" is a traditional African American game that children play while singing.
Example #1
Georgia Gullah culture traditional African American children's game song; from Bessie Jones & Bess Lomax Hawes's book Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs & Stories from the Afro-American Heritage {University of Georgia Press, 1972, pps. 163-164}
Note: parenthesis represent lines sung by group
Bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Better run, bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Better hustle, bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
I want bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Want to find bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Going to catch bob-a-needl
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Turn around, bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Oh bob, bob-a-needle
{Bob-a-needle is a running,}
Step It Down Commentary:
"Bob-A-Needle" {bobbin needle?} is for purposes of this game, a pen, a jackknife, or a small stick of wood that can be passed rapidly from hand to hand. All the players but one stand in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, holding their hands behind their backs. The extra player stands in the center of the ring [circle]; she closes her eyes and hold the bob-a-needle high over her head in one hand. One of the ring players silently creeps up and takes the bob-a-needle from her hand and puts it behind his own back. The center player then opens her eyes and begins to sing the lead line of the song; the players in the circle sing the refrain...
The lead singer's lines are extemporaneous and can be sung in any order...During the singing, the players in the ring [forming the circle] from hand to hand, trying to move as little as possible in order not to make its location obvious. Bob-a-needle may travel clockwise or counterclockwise, and the players may reverse directions at will. The center player meanwhile reaches around the waist and feels the hands of each ring player in turn; she too may go in either direction, but she may not skip players nor run back and forth across the ring. When the center player reverses the direction of her search, she must signal this with the lead line, "Turn, bob-a-needle!"
This game does not end when someone is caught holding the elusive bob-a-needle. Like most of Mrs [Bessie] Jones' games [from the Georgia Sea Isle Gullah tradition] that involve 'losing', the person simply pays a forfeit and/or takes over the center role so that can begin again. When the players tire, the accumulated forfeits are redeemed by the owners in a new sequence of play."
1964 Chubby Checker, who is best known for his Twist songs, recorded a R&B version of the African American children's game "bob-a-needle". Performer Chubby Checker
Title Hey Bobba Needle
Lyric text This is a sad story about a girl named Mary Mac
And her wondering lover Bob Needle
Oh! Softly
I can hear her callin'
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bob
Hey Bob
Mary Mac Mac Mac
All dressed in black black black
Don't cha know I'm tryin' tryin' tryin'
Just to come on back back back
'Cause I took a plane plane plane
But there was some rain rain rain
And there was no flyin' flyin' flyin'
So I took a train train train
Oh Mary Mac Mac Mac
It went off the track track track
Can't you see I'm dyin' dyin' dyin'
Just to come on back back back
Oh! Softly
I can hear you callin'
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bob
Hey Bob
Well I took a boat boat boat
But it wouldn't float float float
So I kept on a puffin puffin puffin
That was all she wrote wrote wrote
So I must wear my cross cross cross
And I bought a horse horse horse
But it just keeps runnin' runnin' runnin'
All around the track track track
Baby I ain't lyin' lyin' lyin'
Can't you see that I'm tryin' tryin' tryin'
Don't cha know I'm tryin' tryin' tryin'
Just to come on back
To Mary Mac
Oh! Softly
I can hear her holler
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle - Bobba Needle
Hey Bob
Hey Bob
Oh Yeah
Hey Bob
