ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
A Collection Of Negro Traditional & Folk Songs with Sheet Music Lyrics & Commentaries - online book
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LULLABIES |
155 |
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FAIS DO DO, MINETTE |
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M'o pa - le ma-ri-e vous a - vec mon-sieur le .. mar - ti - ne.
I neglected to get the translations of these songs from the ladies who gave them, but Julian E. Harris, of the French Department of Columbia, assisted me in putting them into English. Fais Do Do, Minette means:
Go to sleep, Minette,
Dear little baby,
Go to sleep, my dear little baby,
Till you are fifteen years old.
When you have got to be fifteen years old,
You shall have the martine for a husband.
Minette was obviously a girl baby, but the infant addressed in the other Creole lullaby given by the same ladies is as unmistakably a boy.
Fais Do Do, Coias
Fais do do, Colas, mon petit frere,
Fais do do, t'auras du gateau.
Papa e aura,
Et moi j'un aurai,
Tout un plein panier.
Here some "little mother" is singing to her small brother, promising him reward if he will go to sleep. Perhaps she would like to dispose of him promptly, so that she could escape to her play, unhampered by vicarious maternal duties.
In English this would be somewhat as follows. The Creole patois with its cryptic pecuHarities of speech is difficult to translate — as it |
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