The Poor Buckra Songs

PECULIAR interest is attached to certain songs sung by the poorest whites in the Southern states. These people are commonly known as the “poor buckra.” They constitute a class by themselves; among them are found English names pure and simple, such as John, not Jack or Johnnie; Elizabeth is a favorite; it may be called ’Liz’beth, but it is not deliberately degraded into Bessie, or Lizzy. These people seem to have small sense of humor, for you seldom see them have a hearty fit of laughter, yet a habitual reserve noticeable among them causes one to be chary in making such a declaration. Buckra is an African word introduced to America by the negroes. Its real meaning is, a demon, “a powerful and superior being.” It was used by the black people instead of white man, as the Indians said paleface. To the Africans all white people were buckra, but “poor buckra” was the greatest term of opprobrium known to their vocabulary.

In the hill countries of the Southern states are a set of white people, who, from generation to generation, have been idle, thriftless, ungrateful, illiterate, utterly without desire to improve their condition, apparently without aim or purpose. Such are the poor buckra proper of the African nomenclature. For a century philanthropists have tried to elevate them; industrial schools were founded for their good, individuals took them into their homes, but almost without exception, at manhood and womanhood the “poor buckra” went back to his and her kind. The poor buckra are not often found among the criminal class; they seem to be without the strong passions which hurry men to action regardless of results. At times they get drunk, notably at Christmas. They are not brutal to women or children, as a rule, but, as one of the women expressed it, “men ain’t much to living;” they are not noticeably untrue in the marriage relation. Their sins are those incident to incorrigible idleness : petty pilfering, the outcome of poverty; continual asking of favors, squatting on landholders of large estates; these things have become so habitual to the poor buckra that they have become his characteristics.

These people use words and terms that twentieth - century folk would call old English and obsolete; their favorite songs are ballads closely related to those found in the collections of Percy and Child. Last summer, in a secluded section of North Carolina, a girl sang a song that she called