The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76631   Message #3160138
Posted By: Azizi
25-May-11 - 02:31 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Cudelia Brown / Cordelia Brown
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cudelia Brown / Cordelia Brown
[Moderators, thanks for correcting my font error.]

Yes, I believe that Cudelia is a variant form of the name Cordelia.

Here's some other information I'd like to share:

Every culture doesn't view red hair as being symbolical of evil (the devil). Nor does every culture view people with red hair as being more hot tempered (quick to anger) than other people. I don't think this is the view that was/is held in Jamaica, and it's not a view that was/is held among African Americans about Black people with reddish tinged hair (or reddish tinged skin)*.

In the song "Cudelia Brown"/"Cordelia Brown", the fictitous character Cordelia is being teased because she is different (her hair is a different color) than others, and not necessarily because she was (probably) born outside of marriage. Every culture (and every person within a particular culture) doesn't have a negative opinion or the same degree of negative opinions about children being born outside of marriage.

-snip-

* One famous Black person with reddish tinged hair and reddish tinged skin was Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)

[Malcolm X's father] Earl Little, who was dark-skinned, was born in Reynolds, Georgia.[20] ...[Malcolm X's mother] Louise Norton Little was born in Grenada. Because her father was Scottish, she was so light-skinned that she could have passed for white. Malcolm inherited his light complexion from his mother and maternal grandfather.[22] Initially he felt his light skin was a status symbol, but he later said he "hated every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in me."[23] Malcolm X later remembered feeling that his father favored him because he was the lightest-skinned child in the family; however, he thought his mother treated him harshly for the same reason.[24] One of Malcolm's nicknames, "Red", derived from the tinge of his hair. According to one biographer, at birth he had "ash-blonde hair ... tinged with cinnamon", and at age four, "reddish-blonde hair".[25] His hair darkened as he aged, yet he also resembled his paternal grandmother, whose hair "turned reddish in the summer sun."[15] The issue of skin and hair color took on very significant implications later in Malcolm's life.[2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X


The term "redbone" (sometimes shortened to "red*) has been informally used as a referent for Black people with reddish tinged skin. This term may or may not be a pejorative. The referent "Redbones" also specifically refers to populations of people in the United States that historically were considered to be non-White.
http://www.murrah.com/gen/redbones.htm

-snip-

Also, here's a link to what I found to be a very interesting and informative page on mento music:

http://www.mentomusic.com/edricConner.htm

Here's a link to a sound file of the earlier version of Cudelia Brown as performed by the beloved Jamaican poet/folklorist Louise Bennett
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcUNWfxCfko

And finally, here's a sound file of Harry Belafonte singing "Cordelia Brown"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LbItHx5cIY