Wyandot County 4-H Day Camp - Kumbaya

Topic: Movement - Lexical
I first saw hand gestures used with "Kumbaya" in Wyandot County, Ohio, in 1974 at a 4-H day camp for girls between the ages of ten and twelve. They were keyed to words in the text and repeated whenever the words were sung.

Only one was conventional, the one for "praying." The motion for crying took a little thought to create: one finger traced a tear down one cheek, either on the left or right side. No common kinesic vocabulary existed for "singing." The girls placed one of their hands near their mouths and moved them away to indicate the trajectory of sound.

The origins of the rest of the motions were not obvious. "My Lord" was denoted by diagonally moving a hand from one shoulder to the opposite wrist, while "someone" was represented by pointing at the sky. This confused the usual meaning of "someone" as an unnamed human being with other phrases like "someone up there likes me" that refer to God. [1]

The most interesting gestures were the ones for "kumbaya." Girls rolled their hands outward around each other on "kum ba" and spread them open, palms up on "ya." Since the motions had no inherent meaning, they implied the girls imputed no meaning to the phrase, and were treating it as so many sung syllables.

Such vocables [2] were common in the European songs that appeared in camp songbooks published by Cooperative Recreation Service in Delaware, Ohio. The best known to outsiders was "The Happy Wanderer" with its "val di re, val di ra" chorus [3]. The most common one in the song sheet collection of the Wyandot County 4-H agent [4] was "Vive l’Amour," [5] but he also had learned the "oh lay ha ki ki" in "Cuckoo" [6] and "yo ho ho tra la la la" in "Vrenalie" [7] from CRS.

These syllables that carried the melody without any lexical meaning were popular in the Camp Fire Girls’ camps I attended in Michigan in the 1950s, [8] but had faded from the camp repertoire in the late 1960s when girls began singing material from the commercial folk music revival associated with Peter, Paul and Mary.

Before their demise, such passages in camp songs, or similar ones in church services like "alleluia," eroded cultural barriers against the extrarational in the 1950s. As a result of the permission granted older children to utter meaningless sounds, no fear inhibited memorizing a novel word like "kumbaya" when it appeared late in the decade. It could be accepted without an explanation.

One former Girl Scout from the Detroit area simply said she did not know its meaning, when asked by a friend. [9] Another in Ohio wrote, "I was told it means ‘Come by here’ in some long-forgotten language (but I never really believed that)." [10]

When I mailed a questionnaire asking about popular camp songs in 1976, I asked if people had sung "Kumbaya" with gestures. More than 60% of the 154 who responded said they had. [11] I did not ask for details, because of the difficulty describing movements.

However, when I had the opportunity to speak with individuals I did ask if they knew the origins of the movements. One woman told me they were Indian sign language. [12] Another was told, they were either deaf language, or Indian, or African. [13] A third resolved the conflicting stories. Following one pattern of variation in folklore, she found minute differences that could be rationalized. According to her, if one rolled one’s hands outward on "kumbaya," it was Indian. If the hands were rolled inward, it was deaf sign language. [14]

All these women were associated with Camp Fire Girls’ camps. [15] The organization was founded in 1910 by Luther Halsey Gulick as the parallel organization to the Boy Scouts. His wife, Charlotte Vetter Gulick, developed much of the program at their family camp in Maine. The Indian content was suggested by Ernest Thompson Seton a decade before his ideas were adopted by the American Camping Association. [16]

Indian imagery remained important in the CFG program in the middle-1950s when first-year members created Indian names and second-year ones turned the names in symbolgrams using dictionaries published by the organization. [17] Council fires were held every week in summer resident camps. Any song that made a reference to Native Americans was cherished.

Most of this lore was superficial. [18] Sign language was not part of the CFG program in the 1950s; any ideas about its form came from films and television programs. The interest usually was sincere even when the sources were bogus and it created a readiness to accept activities if they could be attributed to Native Americans. In 1976, 65% of the girls in the responding Camp Fire camps knew the gestures for "Kumbaya." [19]

Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: girls aged ten to twelve
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: not noted at the time
Verses: kumbaya, praying, crying, singing

Vocabulary:
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Format: 4 verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Length: 8 syllables
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
I made a cassette tape in 1974, and transcribed the words without comments on the music. I still have the tape, but have not tried to play it, because I do not how well it has aged. I would have made a note if the singing style differed from the song I knew. Based on that, the tune was the standard 1-3-5. Since the emphasis was on the gestures, the girls probably sang in unison. It was sung after lunch and, at that time, would not have had a slow tempo.

Notes on Performance
Occasion: Wyandot County, Ohio, 4-H day camp after-lunch sing, 12 July 1974

Location: Camp Trinity, Upper Sandusky, Ohio
Microphones: none

Notes on Movement
Kumba: roll hands around each other in outward direction

Ya: hands out flat, palms facing up

Lord: cross self diagonally, with hand, from one shoulder to opposite wrist

Oh: make circle with thumb and forefinger
Someone: point to sky
Praying: hands in prayer
Crying: trace tear down cheek with finger
Singing: move hand outward from mouth following a tune

Notes on Performers
The Wyandot county seat of Upper Sandusky first was settled by Northerners: Presbyterians and Methodists formed congregations in 1845. Then came families from Pennsylvania, followed by those from German-speaking states. The English-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church organized in 1849; the Church of God in 1851; Trinity Reformed Church of the Synod of the Reformed Church, which offered German and English Sabbath schools in 1852; the Roman Catholics, with a few Irish among the Germans in 1857; the United Brethren Church in 1858; Trinity Church of the Evangelical Association, with German and English Sunday schools in 1860; the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1868, and the Universalist Church in 1870. [20]

United Brethren were heirs to the Moravians who had contact with John Wesley and George Whitefield. Church of God was the formal name taken by followers of John Winebrenner, who broke with the German Reformed church in 1823. They had fled wars in the Palatinate in the 1730s. [21] One of his disciples, Jeremiah Tabler, led revivals in Upper in its early years. [22]

A constant influx of German-speaking immigrants meant new music traditions were mixed with existing ones. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi had encouraged the development of male singing groups to nurture the national spirit. [23] These liedertafel were suppressed after the 1848 revolution. Group singing turned to folk music in sängerbunds that implicitly denied any support for a supra-state identity. Würzburg organized the first festival in 1845. [24]

In 1849, male choruses from Louisville, Kentucky, and Madison, Indiana, both located on the Ohio river, joined in Cincinnati for a sängerfest. [25] Upper organized its first sängerbund in 1858 and began going to sängerfests in 1860. [26]

When I lived in Wyandot County between 1973 and 1975, many of the oldest buildings along the road I drove to Upper were Pennsylvania German-style banked barns. Evangelical United Brethren had merged with the Methodist Church in 1968, but none of the small rural churches had changed their signs. [27]

Camp Trinity was built by Upper’s Trinity Evangelical and Reformed Church. The original Trinity Reformed had become the Evangelical Assembly, and, in 1934, been subsumed into the E and R. It had been assimilated in the United Church of Christ by the Congregational Church in 1957, [28] but had not changed it name.

I did not interview any campers in 1974: I was trying to record their singing traditions without being intrusive. I did not learn their names or addresses, so do not know which parts of the county population were reached by the 4-H camping program.

Availability
My version is not available and I have not yet found any similar video on YouTube.

End Notes
1. The use of someone to refer to God appeared in the 1956 film "Someone Up There likes Me." The theme song used somebody, and was sung by Perry Como. I don’t know how popular a film about boxer Rocky Graziano was with children attending camps, but the record reached spot 18 on the Billboard chart that year. (Wikipedia. "Perry Como discography.")

2. Wikipedia said "the term is currently used for utterances which are not considered words." In a more specific sense, it said

"Such non-lexical vocables are often used in music, for example la la la or dum dee dum [. . .] Many Native American songs consist entirely of vocables." ("Vocable.")

3. Obernkirchen Children’s Choir performed the song in England in 1953, and recorded it on a British label. The original lyrics were by Florenz Siegesmund, and were adapted by Edith Möller to music by her brother, Friedrich Wilhelm Möller. The common English translation was made by Antonia Ridge. (Wikipedia. "The Happy Wanderer.")

4. The 4-H agent had accumulated a collection of song sheets dating back at least 30 years.

5. Lauritz Melchoir, a Wagnerian tenor, popularized "Vive l’Amour" in 1944; he often had his audiences sing along. I remember this was used by a Calhoun County, Michigan, 4-H song leader at an awards program in 1956; people had to shake the hand of the person on their right and left.

6. "Cuckoo - (Kuckuck)." Austria. English by K. F. R. [Katharine Ferris Rohrbough]. Copyright 1953, Cooperative Recreation Service, Inc., Delaware, Ohio. The original was "ho li rah hi hi ha," but camps converted it into a consonant rhyme with "oh lay ah cuckoo."

7. "Vrenalie." Swiss. Translation by V. M. S. [Violet Synge]. In Janet Tobitt. The Ditty Bag. Published by Tobitt, 1946. Republished in CRS songbooks.

8. Both were sung at Kitanniwa, the Battle Creek, Michigan, CFG camp. They changed the "yo ho ho" chorus of "Vrenalie" into a call-response section and used patterned gestures for "Cuckoo." (Camp Songs. 309, 178, 185.)

9. William D. Doebler. Tape of camp songs. Wayne State University folklore archives. 1965. The archives no longer exist.

10. A woman who attended Camp o’ the Hills, sponsored by the Irish Hills Girl Scout Council in Jackson, Michigan, from 1963 to 1970. Email to author, 12 April 2016.

11. I mailed the questionnaire to camps of all sorts during the summer season in 1976. Since I already had heard from a number of CFG camps, I include as many boys’ camps and camps with different sponsors in different part of the company as possible. I believe I sent out some 400 letters to camps listed in the then current directory of the American Camping Association.

While the sample was designed to be representative, the responses were not. Perhaps because a number of the songs came from the CFG repertoire, many of the answers came from people who shared the Midwestern girls’ traditions.

12. Camp Songs. 68.
13. Camp Songs. 68.
14. Camp Songs. 68-69.

15. One woman was at Kitanniwa (see #8), a second was a CFG leader in Maryland, and the third was the music counselor at Aloha Hive. Technically, the last was a private camp. However, it was founded by Edward Leeds Gulick. He was the brother of the organizer of the Camp Fire Girls. In the early years they shared program ideas.

16. Camp Songs. On the founding of CFG, 12; Seton was discussed throughout the book. He changed his name from Ernest Evan Thompson, and also was known as Ernest Seton Thompson.

17. The requirements for ranks were specified in The Book of the Camp Fire Girls. (New York: Camp Fire Girls, Inc., 1953. 88, 92. The source for symbolgrams was Francis Loomis Wallace and Earlleen Kirby. Your Symbol Book. (New York: Camp Fire Girls, Inc., 1951). My mother apparently did not have a copy of the name dictionary, but several were recommended based on one compiled by Charlotte V. Gulick. A List of Indian Words. (New York: The Camp Fire Outfitting Company, 1915.)

18. Indian lore often degenerated when it was used in camps that did not provide an institutional framework like that in CFG camps. I remember only one song that was filled with negative stereotypes, "We Are the Redmen." In the 1970s, when camps were purging their repertoires, this was the hardest to remove from CFG repertoires. I think it was because girls learned it so young they had no idea what the words meant, and built up associations with it, Native Americans, and camp or Camp Fire that were positive.

19. As suggested in #11, the total sample of responses did not represent the variety of summer camps in 1976. However, I had no reason to think any serious biases colored the subsets of responses. The one factor that may have skewed the results was the order of questions. The first asked it they had sung "Kumbaya" with motions, and the second was had they sung it without. Many may simply have seen the song title in the first line, checked it, and gone on without reading the detail.

In descending order, 89% of the Girl Scout camps who answered by questionnaire knew gestures for "Kumbaya," followed by 66% of CFG camps, 61% of religious camps, 44% of general public camps, 29% of private camps, and 20% of Boy Scout camps.

20. The History of Wyandot County Ohio. Chicago: Leggett, Conaway and Company, 1884. 537-543.

21. Sydney E. Ahlstrom. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. 616.

22. Wyandot County, history. 503-505.

23. Pestalozzi lived in a Swiss community twice occupied by Napoléon’s troops. (Wikipedia. "Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.")

24. Camp Songs. 482.

25. Charles Frederic Goss. Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912. Cincinnati: The S. J. Clark Publishing Company, 1912. 2:466-467.

26. Wyandot County, history. 548. It originally was called a männerchor and was still active in 1884, but was having problems attracting the American-born sons of its first members (p 551).

27. Wikipedia. "Evangelical United Brethren Church."

28. Wikipedia. "Evangelical and Reformed Church."