The following Folk Rhymes found in our collection might also pass for
connecting links: "Jawbone," "Outrunning the Devil," "How to Get to
Glory Land," "The Ark," "Destinies of Good and Bad Children," "How to
Keep or Kill the Devil," "Ration Day," and "When My Wife Dies." The
superstitions of the Negro Rhymes are possibly only fossils left in one
way or another by ancient native African worship.

In a few Rhymes the vice of stealing is either laughed at, or
apparently laughed at. Such Rhymes carry on their face a strictly
American slave origin. An example is found in "Christmas Turkey." If one
asks how I know its origin to be American, the answer is that the native
African had no such thing as Christmas and turkeys are indigenous to
America. In explanation of the origin of these "stealing" Rhymes I would
say that it was never the Negro slave's viewpoint that his hard-earned
productions righteously belonged to another. His whole viewpoint in all
such cases, where he sang in this kind of verse, is well summed up in
the last two lines of this little Rhyme itself:

"I tuck mysef to my tucky roos',
An' I brung _my_ tucky home."

To the Negro it was his turkey. This was the Negro slave view and
accounts for the origin and evolution of such verse. We leave to others
a fair discussion of the ethics and a righteous conclusion; only asking
them in fairness to conduct the discussion in the light of slave
conditions and slave surroundings.

In a few of the Folk Rhymes one stanza will be found to be longer than
any of the others. Now as to the origin of this, in the case of those
sung whose tunes I happen to know, the long stanza was used as a kind
of chorus, while the other stanzas were used as song "verses." I
therefore think this is probably true in all cases. The reader will note
that the long stanza is written first in many cases. This is because the
Negro habitually begins his song with the Chorus, which is just the
opposite to the custom of the Caucasian who begins his ordinary songs
with the verse. This appears then to be the possible genesis of stanzas
of unequal length.

I have written this little treatise on the use, origin, and evolution of
the Negro Rhyme with much hesitation. I finally decided to do it only
because I thought a truthful statement of fact concerning Negro Folk
Rhymes might prove a help to those who are expert investigators in the
field of literature and who are in search of the origin of al