Kaleea,

Thanks for that interesting information.

I agee that the origin of the term "buffalo gal" was as you wrote, and that term later became most closely associated with the city Buffalo, New York though the song's title could be changed to feature another city.

Changing a geographical name is a common occurance in folk music, including children's rhymes.

This is a bit of a tangent, but....

In the late 1980s my daughter was a camp counselor at Lillian Taylor Camp in Pittsburgh. This camp drew its African American attendees from various Pittsburgh, Pa neighborhoods. Every other week the camp would have a talent show featuring the different groups of campers. Invariably the girl groups would do a foot stomping cheer for their part of the show.

One of the cheers that they performed was called "Chocolate City".
"Chocolate City" is an African American nickname for Washington, D.C. [so named because so many Black people live there]. "Chocolate City" is less often used as a nickname for other American cities that have large Black populations.

"Chocolate City" was pronounced like Chock-let City". Probably because they weren't familiar with the term "Chocolate City" my duaghter told me that sometimes the girls would say "Chop the city". Other groups of girls changed the name altogether to "Pittsburgh City".


For the historical record, here's the words to that cheer:
All                Chock-let City
                Chock chock-let City
                Chock-let City
                Chock Chock-let City
Soloist #1        My name is Ralene [use soloist's name]
                And I'm walkin
Group                She's walkin
Soloist #1        I'm talkin
Group                She's talkin
Soloist #1        I'M TALKIN TO [girls stop using first step beat]
                All the boys in Chock-let City [begin new step beat]
                Get down to the nitty gritty
                Long time no see
                Sexy as I wanna be.
                Some hittin me high
                Some hittin me low
                Some hittin me on my
                Don't ask what
Group                What?
Soloist #1        My b-u-tt butt
                That's what.

{repeat from the beginning with the next soloist who says her name or nickname. Continue this pattern until every girl in the group has had one chance as the soloist with this cheer}.

BTW #1: "Chocolate City" used two step beats. Initially the girls used the second most widely used step beat "Stomp Clap. Stomp Stomp Clap" . They then slowed down the tempo a bit and used the most widely "used step beat "Stomp Stomp Clap. Stomp Stomp Clap".

{"clap" means clap your own hands. There are no partner handclaps in the performance of foot stomping cheers}.

BTW #2 , I collected the exact same words to "Chocolate City" in 1999 from two pre-teen African American girls from Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, it appears that this cheer may have disappeared {at least in the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh where I live and work with children}.

"Long time no see" until the end of the cheer is a floating verse that was used in other foot stomping cheers and shows up at the end of a foot stomping rhyme from the 1980s "Hollywood Goes Swingin". that appears to have survived because it morphed into a partner handclap rhyme.


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Azizi