Indianola - Cumbaya

 Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
“Kumbaya” spread as a folk song before Joan Baez released her commercial recording in September 1962. [1]  In its most pure form, folk songs move from individual to individual.  In the process of oral transmission from place to place and over time changes are introduced into texts and tunes. [2]

Very often the primary versions are derived from print, but the same kinds of changes occur once people do not have access to the original sources.  The amount of variation depends upon the nature of the song and on institutional mores.  Some songs have structural traits that inhibit modifications, while some layers of society are more concerned with “correctness” than others.

“Kumbaya” first was published in a songbook produced for Camp Indianola on 15 March 1955 by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS).  A number of CRS customers, especially churches, ordered enough copies of songbooks to distribute them to every camper as souvenirs.  These, more than likely, were used in formal settings like vespers, rather than during sings after meals.  Correctness was expected in the one setting, but not in the other.

Some customers of Lynn Rohrbough’s business, like the Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, and YWCA, used songbooks to raise money.  The organizations sold copies that were purchased by leaders, who might, in turn, teach songs from them.  Girls were expected to remember them.

Indianola was organized by the Indianola Methodist Church, located near the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus.  By the 1950s, the rural site was used as a family camp. [3]  One of the editors of Indianola Sings, John Blocher, Jr., remembered they used “the books after they became available, although it was soon learned by heart.” [4]  They did not order a second printing. [5]

Historically, folklorists have inferred the existence of oral transmission when they have had enough variants to make comparisons.  This was the method used by Francis James Child in the first folk-song collection important in the United States.  He drew upon collections made in England. [6]

Indianola probably had a core group of members, like the Blochers, who returned year after year, and others who came for a week or two.  It probably was not the only camp some children attended.  Both the Camp Fire Girls and Girls Scouts in Columbus had residential summer camps that had some prestige.

Judging from some personal songbooks made by individuals who were associated with Ken-Jockety, the song moved from Indianola to the Girl Scout camp through oral transmission in the 1950s and stayed in tradition there into the 1970s.  Ann transcribed  it as “Cumbayah” in a collection she kept in a looseleaf binder she could use with her guitar.  Each song was typed on a separate page.  Joyce used “Cum baya.”  She wrote her songs down on index cards she could use when she leading a song.

The reason the transcriptions identify Indianola as the source, rather than CRS, is that Blocher said he never heard the first syllable pronounced as if it rhymed with “loom or doom.”  They sang it as though it rhymed with “comb” [7] or the beginning of the Latin “cum sancto spiritu.” [8]

As mentioned in the post for 29 May 2022, someone added the notes about the word’s pronunciation as “koom-bah-yah” after he submitted his manuscript. [9]  He asked CRS to remove the footnote. [10]  In February 1959, Rohrbough wrote, “we have since found the word should be pronounced ‘cum’ instead of ‘koom’ and have corrected our plates.” [11]  He did not revise the pronunciation note, but removed it entirely. [12]

The spelling of “Kumbaya” came from the lines in the text, not the title “Kum Ba Yah.”  Even people who learned the song orally, wrote it down with the hard “k” consonant, not the softer “c.”  I’ve seen it spelled it “kum bai ya” [13] and “kum bye yah,” [14] but the “cum” pronunciation seems to have been limited to the sphere of influence of the Columbus Girl Scout council. [15]

In 2016, a woman at Baldwin Wallace University was interviewing Rohrbough for an oral history project.  He wrote me:

“As an experiment, before telling her the story, I had [Helen], BW staff, sing the version of Kum Ba Yah she learned.  Without my prompting, she sang it in 3/4 time, Kum = ‘comb’.” [16]

I later contacted Helen, who confirmed the meeting.  She wrote me she didn’t remember exactly when she learned “Kumbaya.”  She thought it was “around the middle ’50s I would have been in Girl Scouts and I think it would have been at a GS day camp that I learned ‘Kumbaya’.” [17]  She then was living in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, a suburb north of Pittsburgh. [18]  She added, “I don’t recall that we had a songbook but I’m guessing that one of our leaders knew the song and taught it to us.” [19]

The only other song sheets I’ve seen with “Cum by ya” were collected Larry, who was the 4-H agent in Wyandot County, Ohio, in 1974.  He kept every handout he was ever given, but did not note the sources.  One with “Cum by ya” included fourteen texts that were a mix of 4-H songs, fun songs like the “prune song,” and slower ones like “I love the mountains.”  The other had six spirituals or church camp songs like “Do Lord.”

Notes on Lyrics
Pronunciation: “Cum” for first syllable

Verses: None of the versions from Ann, Joyce, or Larry are exactly like that published by Rohrbough. Ann and Larry used the verse order introduced in 1968 by Tommy Leonetti. [20]  Joyce wrote the verses as “crying,” “singing,” “praying,” and “sleeping,” but said the verses had an obvious progression from “crying” to “praying” to “singing.”

Basic Form: As near as one can tell from written texts, none repeated “cumbaya” as a burden between verses, although Ann began and ended with “cumbaya” and sang “come by here” as the next-to-last verse.  Blocher said they sang “it only as a four-verse song.” [21]

Notes on Music
Guitar Chords: Ann indicated the chords she used were G C D7 D

Notes on Performers
The editors of Indianola Sings were John Blocher, Jr., and Kathryn Thompson Good.  Their photographs appear on the Photos K tab, and she is profiled in the post for 10 October 2022.  He will discussed in a future post.

Ken-Jockey still exists as one of the camps managed by Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland Council.  In the 1970s, it was part of the Seal of Ohio Council headquartered in Columbus.

Ann attended one Michigan Girl Scout camp (Camp o’ the Hills) from 1963 until 1970 when her family moved.  In 1976, she was the business manager and assistant director at Ken-Jockety.  She since has worked as a copy editor, and written books on science.  One place she lived is near the coast in McIntosh County, Georgia, where early versions of “Come by Here” were collected by Robert Winslow Gordon. [22]

Joyce’s background was more varied.  As a child in Michigan, she had attended a Girl Scout camp (Fort Hill), a YWCA one (Talahi), and a Congregational church one (Pilgrim Haven).  In 1957 and 1959, she was the song leader at Kitanniwa, the Camp Fire Girls’ camp I attended.   She married and moved to Ohio where she had been to Ken-Jockety in the 1970s before I interviewed her in 1974.  She can play piano and sing harmony.  Recently, she has served as discussion leader for the Miriam Circle Bible Study group in her local Evangelical Lutheran church.

Availability
Songbook.  “Come By Here”/“Kum Ba Yah.”  Indianola Sings, edited by Kathryn Thompson Good and John Blocher, Jr. for Camp Indianola, sponsored by the Indianola Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 18 March 1955.  38.  It is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022.

End Notes
I collected information on camp songs in the 1970s.  That was so many years ago, I am not using people’s last names because their attitudes toward publicity may have changed since then.  Some have died, changed their names, or otherwise become impossible to contact for permission to use their names on the internet.

1.  Joan Baez’s version is discussed in the post for 9 October 2017.

2.  My source for this concept is Louise Pound.  “Introduction.”  xii–xxxvi in American Ballads and Songs.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922.  xii–xvi.  She is mentioned briefly in the posts for 12 May 2019 and 27 February 2022.

3.  The post for 10 October 2021 traces the history of the camp.
4.  John Blocher, Jr.  Letter, 2 July 2016.

5.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 26 July 2017.  “I remember only one order of song books, containing the score I scanned with a copy for you.  If another (revised) printing had been made when I was in the loop, I think I would have kept a copy.  The one printing may have been enough to supply the need over the few years of activity involved.”

6.  Francis James Child.  The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, ten volumes, 1882–1898.  The importance of this collection is described in the post for 6 February 2019.  It is mentioned briefly in the post for 22 December 2019.

7.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 16 June 2016.
8.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 21 June 2016.
9.  The origins of the pronunciation will be discussed in a future post.
10.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 25 June 2016.
11.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press, 16 February 1959.
12.  Details will appear in a future post.

13.  Songbook from Melacoma, Camp Fire Girls camp sponsored by Cascade Council, Vancouver, Washington.  Summer 1974.

14.  Songbook from Adahi, Camp Fire Girls camp sponsored by the Reading, Pennsylvania, council.  Received, summer 1974.

15.  “Cum” also appears in England.  Those versions will be discussed in a later post.
16.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 21 June 2016.
17.  Helen.  Email, 28 October 2020, 1:24 pm.
18.  Helen.  Email, 28 October 2020, 4:39 pm.
19.  Helen.  Email, 28 October 2020, 1:24 pm.
20.  Tommy Leonetti’s version is discussed in the post for 12 April 2020.
21.  John Blocher, Jr.  Letter, 2 July 2016.

22.  The version by Henry Wylly is discussed in the post for 2 June 2019.  The one by Floyd Thorpe is discussed in the post for 16 June 2019.