Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
From:
Gibb Sahib
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 07:44 PM
To finish out what I have for the 1830s, there is the best known source of all, RH Dana's TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST.
Dana shipped as a common sailor in the brig PILGRIM, Aug 1834-Sept1836.
In the various editions of his text, 1840, he mentioned "sailor's songs."
There is a lengthy thread dedicated to Dana's songs HERE
Dana mentioned several songs by name, and also made reference to work-singing generally.
Here are passages.
First is to the elementary "sing-outs:
The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains.
The following is frustrating because it does not clearly distinguish (for my taste, at least) the songs for capstan versus the ones for hoisting yards. The reference to "falls," one would assume, is to halyards and not just lighter lines that could be handled with "sing outs." This is important because, up to this point, there are actually few references to singing songs at halliards. Dana groups all the songs (without specifying use) under a certain form, a sort of call and response. This is vague because capstan chanties as we know them today do often have that quality, though they are then followed by a grand chorus (not mentioned by Dana). Because he does not mention it does not mean it was not there and, indeed, the "old ditties" from the THE QUID (thanks, Steve) and earlier are not what one would usually call a call and response type song (i.e. though they may have a soloist followed by chorus). Also, the short "sweating up" chants could also fall under Dana's description, and they are different from later halliard chanties. My opinion is that, given what else we know from the time period, the halliard songs he would have been describing were like "Cheerly Man". A single pull coincides with the chorus' "response," and the form of the "verses" does not have the sane verse form that most halliard chanties have. It sounds to me like Dana is still describing the old-style capstan songs and an old-ER kind of song for halliards, however, that is my interpretation only. Again, it is frustrating because, for example, he names a song with "heave" in the title, but he refers to pulling. Perhaps this is not just negligence; maybe the functions of the songs did not become so clearly demarcated yet. Here's the passage:
The sailor's songs for capstans and falls are of a peculiar kind, having a chorus at the end of each line. The burden is usually sung, by one alone, and, at the chorus, all hands join in,—and the louder the noise, the better. With us, the chorus seemed almost to raise the decks of the ship, and might be heard at a great distance, ashore. A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and fife to a soldier. They can't pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like "Heave, to the girls!" "Nancy oh!" "Jack Cross-tree," etc., has put life and strength into every arm. We often found a great difference in the effect of the different songs in driving in the hides. Two or three songs would be tried, one after the other; with no effect;—not an inch could be got upon the tackles—when a new song, struck up, seemed to hit the humor of the moment, and drove the tackles "two blocks" at once. "Heave round hearty!" "Captain gone ashore!" and the like, might do for common pulls, but in an emergency, when we wanted a heavy, "raise-the-dead" pull, which should start the beams of the ship, there was nothing like "Time for us to go!" "Round the corner," or "Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"
Significantly, Dana talks about how important all this singing and chanting was by that time.
The next passage makes clear that they were using the spoke windlass (cf. the pump windlass that, a couple years later, came into use of Marryat's vessel). It doesn't sound like they were using songs, just shouts of encouragement there. If they had a windlass for the anchor. And with "Cheerly Men" being used to cat anchor, it confirms the sense of its form that we have today: a sort of jazzed up equivalent to what was basically "one, two, three, PULL!" (i.e. not the same as later halyard chanteys).
Where things are "done with a will," every one is like a cat aloft: sails are loosed in an instant; each one lays out his strength on his handspike, and the windlass goes briskly round with the loud cry of "Yo heave ho! Heave and pawl! Heave hearty ho!" But with us, at this time, it was all dragging work. No one went aloft beyond his ordinary gait, and the chain came slowly in over the windlass. The mate, between the knight-heads, exhausted all his official rhetoric, in calls of "Heave with a will!"—"Heave hearty, men!—heave hearty!"—"Heave and raise the dead!"—"Heave, and away!" etc., etc.; but it would not do. Nobody broke his back or his hand-spike by his efforts. And when the cat-tackle-fall was strung along, and all hands—cook, steward, and all—laid hold, to cat the anchor, instead of the lively song of "Cheerily, men!" in which all hands join in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy, silent pull, and—as sailors say a song is as good as ten men—the anchor came to the cat-head pretty slowly. "Give us 'Cheerily!'" said the mate; but there was no "cheerily" for us, and we did without it. The captain walked the quarterdeck, and said not a word. He must have seen the change, but there was nothing which he could notice officially.
Work songs of Hawai'ians are there, too. It seems as though the singing of "Mahannah" was a novel scenario that juxtaposed two cultures' practices. In any case, the reference is to singing-out at the windlass, not to songs, per se.
At twelve o'clock the Ayacucho dropped her fore topsail, which was a signal for her sailing. She unmoored and warped down into the bight, from which she got under way. During this operation, her crew were a long time heaving at the windlass, and I listened for nearly an hour to the musical notes of a Sandwich Islander, called Mahannah, who "sang out" for them. Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always have one to sing out; which is done in a peculiar, high and long-drawn note, varying with the motion of the windlass. This requires a high voice, strong lungs, and much practice, to be done well. This fellow had a very peculiar, wild sort of note, breaking occasionally into a falsetto. The sailors thought it was too high, and not enough of the boatswain hoarseness about it; but to me it had a great charm. The harbor was perfectly still, and his voice rang among the hills, as though it could have been heard for miles.
In lieu of Dana's early characterization of singing as fairly ubiquitous, this next passage is puzzling. If, as we have seen, African-Americans just did not row without a song...and if he is claiming that "Americans" rarely did so...is it possible to infer that the hypothetical African-American influence on shipboard worksongs had not yet occurred? I think this passage is particularly significant.
The Italian ship had a crew of thirty men; nearly three times as many as the Alert, which was afterwards on the coast, and was of the same size; yet the Alert would get under weigh and come-to in half the time, and get two anchors, while they were all talking at once—jabbering like a parcel of "Yahoos," and running about decks to find their cat-block.
There was only one point in which they had the advantage over us, and that was in lightening their labors in the boats by their songs. The Americans are a time and money saving people, but have not yet, as a nation, learned that music may be "turned to account." We pulled the long distances to and from the shore, with our loaded boats, without a word spoken, and with discontented looks, while they not only lightened the labor of rowing, but actually made it pleasant and cheerful, by their music.
I think this final passage is significant for its *lack* of mention of any chanteying besides the old standard "Cheerly men". What's more, at the time, Dana is on a larger brig the CATALINA, which one would think "needed" shanties more -- that is, if they were available.
and, this morning, preparations were made for getting under weigh. We paid out on the chain by which we swung; hove in on the other; catted the anchor; and hove short on the first. This work was done in shorter time than was usual on board the brig; for though everything was more than twice as large and heavy, the cat-block being as much as a man could lift, and the chain as large as three of the Pilgrim's, yet there was a plenty of room to move about in, more discipline and system, more men, and more good will. Every one seemed ambitious to do his best: officers and men knew their duty, and all went well. As soon as she was hove short, the mate, on the forecastle, gave the order to loose the sails, and, in an instant, every one sprung into the rigging, up the shrouds, and out on the yards, scrambling by one another,—the first up the best fellow,—cast off the yard-arm gaskets and bunt gaskets, and one man remained on each yard, holding the bunt jigger with a turn round the tye, all ready to let go, while the rest laid down to man the sheets and halyards. The mate then hailed the yards—"All ready forward?"—"All ready the cross-jack yards?" etc., etc., and "Aye, aye, sir!" being returned from each, the word was given to let go; and in the twinkling of an eye, the ship, which had shown nothing but her bare yards, was covered with her loose canvas, from the royal-mast-heads to the decks. Every one then laid down, except one man in each top, to overhaul the rigging, and the topsails were hoisted and sheeted home; all three yards going to the mast-head at once, the larboard watch hoisting the fore, the starboard watch the main, and five light hands, (of whom I was one,) picked from the two watches, the mizen. The yards were then trimmed, the anchor weighed, the cat-block hooked on, the fall stretched out, manned by "all hands and the cook," and the anchor brought to the head with "cheerily men!" in full chorus.
I'm of the present opinion that the chanteying in Dana's experience was yet of the older sort. I think "Cheerly Man" belonged to that world, and was probably not cut from the cloth of African-American work-songs. With Marryat a few years later --and the pump windlass-- there is possibly a newer kind of chantey. On the other hand, the form of that particular version of a "Sally Brown" is not far from Cheerly Man.
Whereas my hypothesis is that a new paradigm for work-singing -- roughly corresponding to halyard songs, or "chanties," as they came to be known -- was borrowed from African-American practices, I don't feel confident, from these 1830s references, that that borrowing had yet occurred on a large scale. That is, the Afr-American forms existed (rowing, cotton stowing, and fireman's songs), but had yet to be widely incorporated on large sailing vessels.
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