My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the YoungCox, James
History
My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the Young
Cox, James
Indians of North America; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
It is doubtless a libel on the colored race to state that even the
majority of its members are chicken thieves by descent rather than
inclination, just as it is a libel on their religion to insinuate that a
colored camp meeting is almost certain to involve severe inroads into
the chicken coops and roosts of the neighboring farmers. Certain it is,
however, that chicken stealing is one of the most dangerous causes of
backsliding on the part of colored converts and enthusiastic singers of
hymns in negro churches. The case of the convert who was asked by his
pastor, a week after his admission to the church, if he had stolen a
chicken since his conversion, and who carefully concealed a stolen duck
under his coat while he assured the good man that he had not, is an
exaggerated one of course, but it is quoted as a good story in almost
every State and city in the Union.
Mr. Sala objects very much to judging a whole class of people by a few
street-corner or cross-road loungers. The negro he found to be
superstitious, just as we find them to-day. Even educated negroes are
apt to give credence to many stories which, on the face of them, appear
ridiculous. The words "Hoodoo" and "Mascot" have a meaning among these
people of which we have only a dim conception, and when sickness enters
a family the aid of an alleged doctor, who is often a charlatan of the
worst character, is apt to be sought. It will take several generations
to work out this characteristic, and perhaps the greatest complaint the
colored race has against those who formerly held them in subjection, is
the way in which voodoo and supernatural stories were told ignorant
slaves with a view to frightening them into obedience, and inciting them
to extra exertions.
For absolute ignorance and apparent lack of human understanding, the
negro loafer to be found around some of our Southern towns and depots
may be quoted as a signal and quite amusing example. The hat, as Mr.
Sala humorously puts it, resembles an inverted coal scuttle or bucket
without handles, and pierced by many holes. It is something like the
bonnet of a Brobdingnagian Quakeress, huge and flapped and battered, and
fearful to look upon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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