11/21/2023 0 Comments Vintage christmas memories![]() ![]() While the singing was going on, hundreds of hands were busily engaged in shucking corn. There was something wild and weird about that music, such as will never again be hear in America. ![]() Such singing I have never heard on any other occasion. The words, which were largely improvised, were very simple and suited to the occasion, and more often than not they had the flavor of the camp-meeting rather than any more secular proceeding. After leading off in this way, in clear, distinct tones, the chorus at the base of the mound would join in, some hundred voices strong. When all were assembled around the pile of corn, some one individual, who had already gained a reputation as a leader in singing, would climb on top of the mound and begin at once, in clear, loud tones, a solo – a song of the corn-shucking season – a kind of singing which I am sorry to say has very largely passed from memory and practice. In response to these invitations as many as one or two hundred men, women and children would come together. Invitations would be sent around by the master himself to the neighboring planters, inviting their slaves on a certain night to attend the corn-shucking. After all the corn had been gathered, thousands of bushels sometimes, it would be piled up in the shape of a mound, often to the height of fifty or sixty feet. Usually they were held upon one of the larger and wealthier plantations in the neighborhood. As I have said, they were a prelude to the festivities of the Christmas season. These corn-shucking bees, or whatever the may be called, took place during the last of November, or the first half of December. ![]() No one who has not actually experienced an old-fashioned corn-shucking in Virginia can understand exactly what I mean. There were a number of festivities which led up to Christmas and prepared for it. It was an important period to the slaves in many ways, but the feelings of joy at the reunion of the family prevailed above all others. It was made known during these holidays which slaves were to remain on the home plantation, which ones were to be hired out to the neighboring farmers, and which ones were to be sold. Perhaps children had been hired out in another part of the state, or another part of the country, away from their mothers for six to twelve months they were permitted to come home at Christmas. Perhaps the husband had been away from his wife for twelve months he was permitted on Christmas to come home. It was the season when, in many cases, the slaves who had been hired out to other masters came home to visit their families. There is nothing in a crowded life that can approach the happiness and general good feeling which one may have in the country, especially when the snow is upon the ground, the trees are glittering with icicles, and the Christmas odors are in the air.Ĭhristmas was the great event of the whole year to the slaves throughout the south, and in Virginia, during the days of slavery, the colored people used to begin getting ready for Christmas weeks beforehand. Furthermore, at the time to which I refer, people lived more in the country than they do now and the country, rather than the city, is the place for one to get wholesome enjoyment out of the Christmas season. In the first place, more is made of the Christmas season in Virginia, or used to be, than in most other states. ![]() Looking back to those days, when Christmas, for me, was a much more momentous event than it is now, it seems to me that there was a certain charm about that Virginia Christmas time, a peculiar fragrance in the atmosphere, a something which I cannot define, and which does not exist elsewhere in the same degree, where it has been my privilege to spend the Christmas season. In Virginia, where I was born, Christmas lasts not one day but a week, sometimes longer - at least, that is the way it was in the old slave days. Washington wrote about his memories of Christmas in Franklin County in an article written for both Suburban Life and Tuskegee Student magazines. ![]()
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