If there's anybody here like praying Samuel,
Call upon Jesus, etc.
If there's anybody here like doubting Thomas,
Call upon Jesus, etc.
This song is thought by Mr. H. E. Krehbiel to be an original Afro-American song, and he printed it as such.[1] He limits his claim for the originality of negro songs to their religious songs, their "shouts" and "spirituals." But Weeping Mary can be traced to the singing of a white woman who had learned it at a Methodist protracted meeting somewhere between 1826 and 1830, long antedating its appearance among the negroes.[2] There were many stanzas of repetitional pattern and the whole might be continued indefinitely.[3] A similar history may be noted for a song included among T. P. Fenner's collection of Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as sung on plantations:[4]
Wonder where is good old Daniel,
Way over in the Promise Lan', etc.
Wonder where's dem Hebrew children, etc.
Wonder where is doubtin' Thomas, etc.
Wonder where is sinkin' Peter, etc.
Compare with this the old revival hymn—[5]
- ↑ Afro-American Folk-Song, 1914.
- ↑ See Modern Language Notes, vol. 33, p. 442, 1918.
- ↑ See note 57, p. 158.
- ↑ New Ed. 1909, p. 107.
- ↑ See "Old Revival Hymns" in The Story of Hymns and Tunes by Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth, 1896.
