"All the Pretty Little Horsis” by Carol Canterbury

Carol Canterbury (1944), she was born in rural area, as a child she listened a lot of classic music. Natalie Curtis names this lullaby “Go ter Sleep.” Version of Carol:

Hush a bye, don’t cry

Go to sleepy little baby,

When you wake                                     

You shall have

All the pretty little horsis,

Black, Bay, Dapple and Grey,

So hush a bye

Don’t you cry

Go to sleepy little baby.

Natalie Curtis’s version:

Go ter sleep

Go ter sleep, baby chil’

Go ter sleep, ma baby.

Hush-a bye, don’t you cry,

Go ter sleep, my lit’l’ baby.

When you wake you will have

All de pretty lit’l’ horsis.

Black an’ blue, sorrel too,

All de pretty lit’l’ horsis.

Black an’ blue an’ sorrel too,

All de pretty lit’l’ horsis.

Hush-a bye, don’t you cry,

Go ter sleep, my lit’l’ baby.

Natalie Curtis: This little lullaby is sung with a crooning softness. It is the song with which the devoted slave-nurse lulled to sleep the children of her master. Though the lullaby is indeed “Mammy’s” own song, the colored boys at Hampton delight to sing it, and the mellow sweetness of their voices softens the incongruity of a lullaby sung men. In fact, as they sing, I dream again of my Negro “Uncle,” my grandmother’s cook, who used to carry me high on his shoulder. My childhood held no gentler luxury than when tired out of play, I was sung to sleep by the tender, wistful voice of “Uncle Hen’y.”

The pentatonic variant of this lullaby was given me by Mrs. Paul Phipps (Nora Langhorne, of Virginia), who heard it from her Negro “Mammy.”

The following quotation from booker T.Washington describes the affectionate relation between the Negro slave and the children of the master. “The Negro in exile neither pined away nor grew bitter. On the contrary, as soon as he was able to adjust himself to the conditions of his new life, his naturally cheerful and affectionate disposition began to assert itself. Gradually the natural human sympathies of African began to take root in the soil of the New World and, growing up spontaneously, twine about the life of the white man by whose side the black man now found himself. The slave soon learned to love the children of his master and they loved him in return.”

Dorothy Berliner Commins: There are many variants and versions of this little “go ter sleep” song, not only in the south but throughout   the United States. It is widely popular with both white and Negro families, and Natalie Curtis, who recorded this version, calls it “the song with which the devoted slave-nurse lulled to sleep the children of her master”  as well as her own, again indicating the powerful influence of the African mother or mamme (“mammy” being a variation of the original African word) and coming  from a culture which essentially matriarchal and in which the deity, “Ohemmaa”, is the female creator and mother of the Universe. Many songs of the Negro reflect his joys and sorrows and his religious zeal, especially those known as “spirituals” which express deliverance from bondage. There are songs, too, like this one, with spirit of gentleness that lingers on and on.

What I learned from this Lullaby:

Mamma, a Sumerian earth goddess (Wikipedia).

African mother or mamme (“mammy” being a variation of the original African word) and coming from a culture which essentially matriarchal and in which the deity, “Ohemmaa”, is the female creator and mother of the Universe (I could not find a source).