The Songs of Souls

slavery;United States of America;music;work song;spiritual;Liberal Studies

Whitney, Mary EllenFlint ;

University of Michigan

关键词: slavery;    United States of America;    music;    work song;    spiritual;    Liberal Studies;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/143402/WhitneyM.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

What could not be taken away from these men, women and children were the memories, souls, cultural traditions, and music of the ;; Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, and the Slave Coast” of West Africa. Therefore, music became a means for their communication. Theirs was the music of tradition: music to that accompany the hunt, religious ceremonies, death, and war; music to make work easier and to celebrate the small things in life, such as a first tooth of an infant. Their music was ;;woven in to the culture, forming a part of ordinary living almost as ubiquitous as speech.” This musical tradition allowed them to survive the initial in dignity of slavery, and is through this music that slaves documented their culture and consciousness. For a time, once settled in the New World, slaves were permitted, or even encouraged, to keep their music alive. The premise was that it ;;kept them happy and docile.”