Surviving.

I did not learn about Bessie Jones from stories. I actually met and worked with her during the time I was singing as a member of the freedom Singers.... The man she called her grandfather, Jed Sampson, was shipped from Virginia and sold on the block in Americus, Georgia. Bessie Jones said that he was a full-blooded African who wore his hair down his back.

Jed Sampson took Bessie as a child into the woods and taught her about the herbs that were for healing. One of his lessons was that any plant or tree that stayed green throughout the winter was good for the healing of the body. Jed Sampson taught her games and songs, such as:

    Reglar, reglar rolling under,
    Gimme the gourd to drink water
    Reglar, reglar rolling under,
    Gimme the gourd to drink water.

    I don't want no gopher snow water,
    Gimme the gourd to drink water
    I don't want no gopher snow water,
    Gimme the gourd to drink water.

    Never seen the likes since I been born,
    Gimme the gourd to drink water
    Bull cow kicking on the milk cow's horn,
    Gimme the gourd to drink water.

What is the song about? Bessie Jones always told stories about a song before and after she sang it. In this case, she told us that during slavery, white people on the plantation drank out of glass dippers, and they forbade their slaves to drink out of those dippers. The slaves made dippers out of gourds and the water in the gourd dipper was cooler than the water in the glass dipper. "Gopher snow water" is another way of saying white people's water.

"Reglar reglar rolling under" is a response to a greeting inquiring how you are doing. Someone would come in the house and you'd asked them how they were doing, and they would say, "Ah--reglar rolling under," meaning that this life, this world, these conditions got me rolling under, or I am being rolled under by the wheel of life. And in this phrase you get the feeling of trouble or challenge of one's daily life just turning you under, and in that turning, in spite of it all, you are still moving.

The bull cow, the male of the herd, is also the largest and most powerful. Bulls occasionally fight bulls, but never the milk (female) cow. Slavery was full of examples of those in charge--the planter, overseer, or driver--doing violence to and brutalizing someone weaker or more vulnerable. Often when our behavior is improper, we say that we're acting like animals, but this song makes it clear that the problem is not with the nonhuman animals. Bulls compete and fight other bulls--not the milk cows. However, with humans, in a system like slavery, the powerful dominate those who are most vulnerable: wives, children, slaves, workers. The text of this song chides the planter or any manager who would brutalize the very workers whose labor creates their wealth and status. "Never seen the likes since I been born, bull cow kicking on the milk cow's horn."

Reprinted from If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition, by Bernice Johnson Reagon by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. [C] 2001 by the University of Nebraska Press.