Topic: Dress in red for a funeral?

[outfidel]

When Mance Lipscomb's Ella Speed & Mississippi John Hurt's Louis Collins are found dead, all the people dress in red.

Why is that? I thought black was the usual funeral color, and occasionally white in some cultures.

Where/when is it customary to dress in red? Is this appropriate only when the deceased, like Ella Speed & Louis Collins, has been murdered?

[ozrkreb]

I posted this over in the woodshed, but I'll post a reply here also. This information comes from Cat Yronwode's website. There is a tremendous amount of material on her site, much of which I find utterly useless, but the information on the blues is very interesting. I sometimes question the validity of her claims and information, but it's interesting nonetheless (the spelling errors aren't mine).
Az

"White folks, accostomed to black being the colour worn both for funerals and for post-funereal mourning, sometimes think that references in blues songs to dressing in red signify a party atmosphere or happiness over a person's death. Not so. In Africa, and among African-Americans in earlier times, drssing in red has been a funerary custom. As such, it is reminiscent of burial with red ochre pigment, which was used among neolithic poeople (the "red paint people") the world around. The religious idea behind this custom is that as a baby is born from the mother's womb through blood, so will rebirth occur (after interrment in Mother Earth) through blood."

www.luckymojo.com/blues.html

[TX_Songster]

Does anyone know what this lyric means?  Basically it is saying the girls get dressed in red after a funeral.  It shows up in a couple songs: Duncan and Brady, and M. John Hurt's Louis Collins.  I am guessing it implies that people are celebrating the death.

[CF]

I thought the red signified it was a murder & not a natural death . . .

[Bunker Hill]

In about 2003 the late Keith Briggs's Words, Words, Words column in Blues & Rhythm magazine covered this topic at some length. I'll see if I can locate it.

[TX_Songster]

Thanks for the replies.  BH- That would be great if you can find it! 

The muder theory is good, and that would make sense too.  The reason I thought it was celebration is that in Duncan and Brady, the sherrif is killed, and I figured everyone was happy to see him gone.  However, Louis Collins is such a sad song in which the mother is weeping for her son who was murdered.  If people were celebrating his death that puts a whole new spin on things- Collins was a good son to his mother, but maybe misunderstood to everyone else.  You can really let your imagination run wild.

[CF]

They dressed in red after Ella Speed was murdered too

[dj]

It wasn't just murders:  "When the news reached town that Casey Jones was dead, the women went home and now they're out in red..."  - Jesse James, "Southern Casey Jones"

Maybe they dressed in that color because it rhymed with dead? 

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Thought you might be interested in an earlier thread on this same topic, so I merged the old thread, which was hiding in the Jam Session with this new one.
all best,
Johnm

[Richard]

Doesn't the song Cocaine have a line that goes something like "See that woman dressed in red..."

[TX_Songster]

Ha!  Well, at least I'm not the only one who has been puzzled over this line.  Thanks for merging the two threads.  I like DJ's explanation, maybe it's as simple as that

[Cambio]

I know that red is the color that symbolizes the Holy Spirit.  On Mother's Day, on the South Side of Chicago, black folks used to wear a red flower if their mother had passed, and a white flower if she was still living.

[uncle bud]

I look forward to BH digging up the Blues and Rhythm article. I have two very vague recollections of this subject being discussed elsewhere. One involved an African tradition of dressing in red for a funeral. The other was from David Evans, who postulated that women dressing in red possibly indicated some affiliation with the, er, less than legitimate business practises of prostitution, pimping, whorehouses, gambling etc., and that this practise of dressing in red was meant to show solidarity with a "rounder" or less than savory character. Like I said, vague memories, and I would not want to myself (or Evans) to be held to account for what I've just typed. But looking forward to any forthcoming elucidations (as FrontPage might say).

[Bunker Hill]

I look forward to BH digging up the Blues and Rhythm article. I have two very vague recollections of this subject being discussed elsewhere. One involved an African tradition of dressing in red for a funeral. The other was from David Evans, who postulated that women dressing in red possibly indicated some affiliation with the, er, less than legitimate business practises of prostitution, pimping, whorehouses, gambling etc., and that this practise of dressing in red was meant to show solidarity with a "rounder" or less than savory character. Like I said, vague memories, and I would not want to myself (or Evans) to be held to account for what I've just typed. But looking forward to any forthcoming elucidations (as FrontPage might say).

DJ, the light bulb is glowing, all this is very familiar to me. I think Keith Briggs originally raised the topic on MKA's prewar group. I'm sure Cat Yronwode supplied lots of differing historical usage.

[waxwing]

I became aware of a similar red for black, cultural dissonance while performing a performance art piece in Cairo, Egypt, about 10 years ago. The name of the very surreal piece was "Seeing Red", which, of course, for us had the connotation of 'being angry' (altho' there was no depiction of anger in the piece, but a heck of a lot of red -G-). We had quite a bit of interplay with locals and after discussion found that when an Egyptian gets angry, they see black.

All for now.
John C.

[Bill Roggensack]

Attempting Andrew's anticipated elucidation, I have only one thought to add - "The Red Tent" - which makes me wonder if men and women both wear red, or only the X-chromosome types?

[uncle bud]

Sometimes those thread mergers can be temporally disorienting or maybe I'm just disoriented. (I agree they should be merged.)

Came across another example. It's in Cecil Brown's Stagolee Shot Billy (wonderful book), where Brown mentions a version of Stagolee collected by the Lomaxes from an Arkansas convict.

The women come dressed in pink and they come dressed in red
So glad to hear that bad man Stagolee was dead

This could be taken to imply they are dressing in red to celebrate the death of Stagolee. Or it could be that there is no connection between the colour of their dress and their satisfaction that Stack is dead.

This wouldn't work with a song like Louis Collins, who seems to be simply a murder victim, where there would be no reason to celebrate his death.

Was there any kind of ceremonial or official dress (that was red) for the church ladies in Southern black churches? It wouldn't have to necessarily be funeral related. It could simply be a red robe they would wear as an indication of their role in the church. To sing about the women coming dressed in red would then simply mean something along the lines of "here come the church ladies", who would quite possibly have a role in a funeral. All speculation on my part.

[Rivers]

Bob shot one, Louis shot two... sounds like Louis was doing most of the shootin'. Murder, or self defense? Unless there were two guys called Louis present. Or was that "Louis shot too?"

[uncle bud]

I'd always seen this as two guys, Bob and Louis, shooting Collins. Sorting out who's shooting who has also has come up somewhere else before. Can't remember where.

Hurt based this song on an actual shooting he'd heard about, as I recall. Does anyone remember any further details?

[Bunker Hill]

Hurt based this song on an actual shooting he'd heard about, as I recall. Does anyone remember any further details?

Somewhere here I posted the results of the research John Garst carried out. Maybe a search for Louis Collins may bring it to light.

[Rivers]

I did some searches, no joy. Were you thinking of the Delia or Ella Speed threads perhaps? I for one would be interested to read Mr Garst's take on Louis Collins.

PS While searching for Garst, Cowley, Louis Collins et al I did some tagging.

[uncle bud]

"Recorded on December 21, 1928 in New York City. Hurt said, when
asked about this sweet murder ballad, that he 'made it up from
hearing people talk. He was a great man, I know that, and he was
killed by two men named Bob and Louis. I got enough of the story to
write me a song.'"

http://www.archive.org/details/Collins

[Bunker Hill]

I did some searches, no joy. Were you thinking of the Delia or Ella Speed threads perhaps? I for one would be interested to read Mr Garst's take on Louis Collins.

I must be losing it. For somebody in the past six moths I supplied the following, could have sworn it was here. John Garst produced this in November 2006 so he may have gleened more. Is it worth my asking him? Give the length you may want to make a new topic of this:

"Louis Collins" (Mississippi John Hurt)

"Recorded on December 21, 1928 in New York City. Hurt said, when asked about this sweet murder ballad, that he 'made it up from hearing people talk. He was a great man, I know that, and he was killed by two men named Bob and Louis. I got enough of the story to write me a song.'"

http://www.archive.org/details/Collins

Although it seems hard to imagine a "sweet murder ballad," maybe that's an apt description.

I wish I could report that I've found the historic murder.  Sorry, I can't make that claim, but I do have a candidate.  Although it seems a weak one, I don't think it can be ruled out entirely.

See http://www.wvculture.org/history/thisdayinwvhistory/0610.html

There you will find

****** On June 10, 1924, Lewis Collins, a prominent businessman in Litwar,
McDowell County, was murdered.

Learn more: "Merchant At Litwar Killed In Bed" "Son-in-Law of Lewis Collins, Murdered at Litwar, Is Arrested" "No Bond Is Secured For George Conley, Held For Murder Of His Father-In-Law, L. Collins" "Mrs. Conley Suffers Loss O[f] Arm Thru Discharge Of Gun" "Continuance Is Secured By State In Conley Case; Petit Jurors Discharged By The Court" "George Conley On Trial For The Murder Of His Father- In-Law, Lewis Col[l]ins" "George Conley Acquitted of the Murder of Father-in- Law, Lewis Collins" ******

Lewis Collins was regarded as an outstanding citizen, these accounts allege, consistent, perhaps, with Hurt's statement that "Louis Collins" was a "great man."  There the resemblance to Hurt's account stops.  Lewis Collins was somewhere between 55 and 61 years old (accounts seem to vary), while my impression of Hurt's ballad is that the victim was younger.  Lewis Collins was shot, as in Hurt's account, but he was killed as he lay asleep, apparently, in his bed at his store in Litwar, WV.  He was shot 3 times.  The accounts of the Lewis Collins murder focus on George Conley, who was acquitted at a trial.  This doesn't square with Hurt's account that he was shot by two men, Bob and Louis, in what Hurt paints as some kind of confrontation.

If you accept that Hurt really knew what he was talking about, these discrepancies rule out the WV event as his inspiration.  I don't accept that conclusion.  From Hurt's description, the murder was something he had heard about, not something he had read about. Tales, I think, like ballads, get distorted in transmission, so Hurt could heard a garbled version of the story of  the murder of Lewis Collins in West Virginia.

How likely is it that Hurt, in Mississippi, would have heard about this West Virginia murder?  Not likely, I think, but you never know. It was in the West Viginia news for five months, at least.  No doubt it was subject to great discussion, especially since the killer seems not to have been found.  Who knows who may have travelled to Hurt's area of Mississippi bearing stories about Lewis Collins?  Did Hurt himself travel much?  As a songster, perhaps he could have. (I've not read biographical information on him recently - I'll try to get to that soon.)

This is 1880 Texas news:

"Lewis COLLINS, a former resident of Comanche county, was killed in a
bar-room row at Buffalo Gap on the 25th inst."

This is more like Hurt's description of the "Louis Collins" murder
than the West Virginia incident, but the time frame is wrong.

[uncle bud]

Just noticed another instance of dressing in red, in the murder ballad "Batson" sung by Wilson "Stavin' Chain" Jones. I have this on the Boll Weevil Here, Boll Weevil Everywhere, Field Recordings Vol 16 disc on Document. It's rather epic as far as these ballads go, taking up two sides of a disc and clocking in at over 11 minutes in total. Towards the end of the first disc, Stavin' Chain sings:

Now, you may dress in red, you may dress in black
You may dress in any color you want but you'll never bring Batson back

It's a pretty remarkable string band recording. I've given this CD an "ehhh..." elsewhere, but the more I listen to it, the more I find to enjoy. "Batson" is worth the price of admission for sure, as are other tracks by Wilson Jones. I also finally put some music to a rather familiar face. Here is Wilson Jones - the photo is frequently just captioned Stavin' Chain when I see it:

[Bunker Hill]

Just noticed another instance of dressing in red, in the murder ballad "Batson" sung by Wilson "Stavin' Chain" Jones. I have this on the Boll Weevil Here, Boll Weevil Everywhere, Field Recordings Vol 16 disc on Document. It's rather epic as far as these ballads go, taking up two sides of a disc and clocking in at over 11 minutes in total.

This is another ballad that's been researched by John Garst. I don't know how deep the booklet writer delves into this but if anybody's interested I could ask JG to pass on his findings.

[Bunker Hill]

I don't need to ask Garst. Batson was the subject of an enquiry on the Prewar Blues Group five years ago and what follows is a composite of Garst's replies:

Batson is an "official" native American ballad, Laws I 10.  As far as I know, it has been collected, in anything resembling complete form, only once, in Lafayette, LA, in 1934, by Lomax, from "Stavin' Chain" (Wilson Jones).  Jones said it was based on a crime that happened near Lake Charles, LA, but Lomax's inquiries failed to confirm the story.

Nearly ten years earlier, Gordon had received three verses from two informants and had briefly looked into the factual history, sufficient to establish that the ballad is based on a crime committed near Lake Charles, LA, in 1902 and the subsequent conviction and execution, by hanging, of Albert "Ed" Batson, age 22, a hired hand on the farm of one of the victims, Ward Earll.  Batson was from Spickard, Grundy County, MO.

Compare a couple of opening stanzas:

(Lamkin)
Bo Lamkin was as fine a mason
As ever laid a stone,
He built a fine castle,
But pay he got none.

(Batson)
Batson been working for Mr. Earle
Six long years today,
And ever since he been working for Mr. Earle,
He never got a pay.
    Cryin', "Oh, Mamma,
    I didn't done the crime."

A book written about the crime in 1903 argued that Batson's conviction on purely circumstantial evidence was probably wrong and that other leads should have been investigated.  The book also states that there was high prejudice against Batson and that local citizens who swore that they could be fair jurors also made statements indicating that they were convinced of his guilt.  A motion for a change of venue was denied in the face of substantial indications that Batson could not get a fair trial in the venue of the crime.

I have now made contact with relatives of Ed Batson.  They know about his case, and they believe him to have been innocent.  They tell of a statement clearing Ed, made many years after the murder and trial by a "colored man" who had been afraid to come forward at the time.

Check out

http://www.lft.k12.la.us/chs/la_studies/ParishSeries/JeffersonDavisParish/Batson.htm

and

http://www.numachi.com/cgi-bin/rickheit/dtrad/lookup?ti=BATSON&tt=BATSON

I've been going through the Robert W. Gordon mss at the Library of Congress.  He was mighty interested in the "Batson" ballad and made contacts who directed him to news accounts of the historical facts, but as far as I can tell, he never got more than a couple of fragments of the ballad.  Along comes John Lomax and he apparently got a very long (38 stanzas) version from "Stavin' Chain" (WilsonJones) in Louisiana, 1934, that is, if the version published in Our Singing Country is not a composite of several sources.

As far as I know, and this is just memory stuff, not the result of research, no one has come along and laid the historical facts beside the song, discussed this, etc.  How about it?  Is my memory correct? Is this just lying there waiting?

[Richard]

Interesting BH, in the jazz world we too have heard of Stavin' Chain, I cannot remember the title of the song (but it was on 78!) as this was played to me many, many aeons ago probably in a different alcoholic 60's galaxy  )

I'm wandering  ... anyway the stated lyric was "Shakin' like Stavin' chain...." and the explanation I was told at the time by heap big jazz guru was that Stavin' Chain (real name unkown) was convicted of rape, chained to a stake and that the "shakin' " referred to the act of copulation itself - that's polite isn't it 

It's probably as plausible as anything else isn't it

[Bunker Hill]

Interesting BH, in the jazz world we too have heard of Stavin' Chain, I cannot remember the title of the song (but it was on 78!) as this was played to me many, many aeons ago probably in a different alcoholic 60's galaxy  )

What goes around, comes around as they say. In January 2004 you started a Stavin' Chain thread which didn't get very far, see tags, perhaps it will now.

[Richard]

You are so right.... my memory must be going..... going..... 

[uncle bud]

"White folks, accostomed to black being the colour worn both for funerals and for post-funereal mourning, sometimes think that references in blues songs to dressing in red signify a party atmosphere or happiness over a person's death. Not so. In Africa, and among African-Americans in earlier times, drssing in red has been a funerary custom. As such, it is reminiscent of burial with red ochre pigment, which was used among neolithic poeople (the "red paint people") the world around. The religious idea behind this custom is that as a baby is born from the mother's womb through blood, so will rebirth occur (after interrment in Mother Earth) through blood."

www.luckymojo.com/blues.html

Just going back to the explanation ozrkreb quoted for us way back in light of some other examples of dressing in red and other colours that I've found in Howard Odum's The Negro and His Songs. (edited to add: as noted elsewhere, Odum collected songs in the South from 1905-08. This book was first published in 1925, though much of the material had been featured in 1911 in Odum's two-part essay in the Journal of American Folklore.)

While I don't have anything to refute the above argument, I've always found it a not quite satisfactory explanation of the lyric. How did this funerary custom survive the era of slavery yet doesn't seem to have survived into the 20th century in the U.S.? Or perhaps it has and there are examples someone can cite. Also, would the many slaves sourced from a variety of mostly western African countries and kingdoms all have had the same custom, and then transplanted it to North America as if they came from one homogeneous "African" culture? I'm no expert on the slave trade or African cultures, but this seems odd to me.

Anyway, while poking through Odum's book, I came across a couple more examples of the image of people "dressed in red", along with people dressed in blue, and dressed in black. In the section on religious songs, Odum includes "I Heard the Angels Singin'". (This is coincidentally one of my favorite Rev. Gary Davis songs. Davis uses different lyrics but a similar structure and the refrain "I heard the angels singin'". He also uses the "Down on my knees" chorus. Rev. Edward Clayborn uses the structure of the "Down on my knees" section in his version of the song.)

I Heard the Angels Singin'

Who is that yonder all dressed in red?
I heard the angels singin'
It look like the children Moses led
I heard the angels singin'

Down on my knees
Down on my knees
I heard the angels singin'

Well, who that yonder all dressed in black?
I heard the angels singin'
It looks like the mourners jus' got back
I heard the angels singin'

Yes, who's that yonder all dressed in blue?
it looks like the children just come through

Odum does not include the refrain "I heard the angels singin'" in the last quoted verse, but I think we can assume it's there. The mourners are dressed in black here. Odum writes that one variant replaces mourners with "a sister jus' got back".

He writes the following of the colour of the clothes (you'll note the cringeworthy colonial-sounding tone - he was of his age, though supposedly became much hipper as the years went by. I'm also maintaining his excessive use of dialect in the transcriptions.):

"The Negroes are great believers in dress and uniform. Color, too, appeals to them as significant, and the more strikingly distinct the color the stronger the impression it makes upon their imaginations. This idea of color has become interwoven in many of their songs. The rhyme helps to give the picture its vividness. The following song, with its variants, is still sung with considerable zest."

Another religious song Odum includes with an "all dressed in..." formula is "Cross Me Over", a verse that echoes the variant cited for I Heard the Angels Singin':

Yonder come er sister all dressed in black
She look lak er hipercrit jes' got back
I'm boun' ter cross Jord'n in dat mornin'.

Then we get into the songs Odum classifies as social and work songs. In one of the versions of Railroad Bill in the book, "It's Lookin' for Railroad Bill", he includes this verse:

Well, the policemen all dressed in blue
Comin' down the sidewalk two by two
Wus lookin' fer Railroad Bill

Then in "Lookin' for That Bully of This Town":

Now all the wimmins come to town all dressed in red
When they heard that bully boy was dead
An' it was the last of that bully of this town

In one version of "Casey Jones":

Womens in Kansas, all dressed in red
Got de news dat Casey was dead
De womens in Jackson, all dressed in black
Said, in fact, he was a cracker-jack

And another Casey:

Women in Kansas all dressed in red
Come to town when dey heard Casey wus dead

An interesting variant in a version of "Brady":

Womens in Iowy dey heard de news
Wrote it down on ole red shoes
Dat dey glad po' Brady wus dead

Then in "Lilly", which is a variation of "Frankie" (and also seems to have something of "Delia" in it):

The policemen all dressed in blue
Dey come down de street by two an' two
One mo' rounder gone.

The wimmins in Atlanta, dey heard de news
Run excursions with new red shoes
An' it's one mo' rounder gone.

All of this says to me that the significance of "all dressed in ..." is structural, and as dj suggested earlier in this thread, used to make a rhyme or series of rhymes. It's interesting that of the social songs, they are all ballad-like songs that would feature lots of verses, making structures like "dressed in red", "dressed in black", and "dressed in blue" appealing.

None of this necessarily refutes red as a funeral colour, but I'm still not convinced. It may just be a convenient rhyme for dead.

[Bald Melon Jefferson]

Not uncommon. For what it's worth... while visiting Mali earlier this year, a discussion with a local woman regarding dress, textiles, fabrics etc. yealded the following: White is the traditional color of dress for weddings; black and/or red for funerals. 
Granted, there are hundreds of cultures all with their own rich histories meriting much study within this one West African country alone..... Regardless, that's what it has generaly distilled down to today. 

Gary
The last funeral I went to everyone was in Hawaiian shirts. Now that was creepy, black being my favorite wardrobe color.

[uncle bud]

Not uncommon. For what it's worth... while visiting Mali earlier this year, a discussion with a local woman regarding dress, textiles, fabrics etc. yealded the following: White is the traditional color of dress for weddings; black and/or red for funerals.  
Granted, there are hundreds of cultures all with their own rich histories meriting much study within this one West African country alone..... Regardless, that's what it has generaly distilled down to today.

Not uncommon in Mali, or in African-American culture in the U.S.? I'm still not finding anything in African-American customs. Curiosity has me digging further into this though. Here's some more food for thought:

The book Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro by Newbell Niles Puckett was published in 1926 (based on his dissertation) and includes very detailed discussion of the burial and funeral customs of African Americans during the period we're concerned with, including a section on clothing. The book in its entirety looks quite remarkable and worth poking through for the historically curious.

The .txt version (with character errors) is viewable here: http://www.archive.org/stream/folkbeliefsofsou00puck/folkbeliefsofsou00puck_djvu.txt

690 page PDF version here: http://ia341012.us.archive.org/0/items/folkbeliefsofsou00puck/folkbeliefsofsou00puck_bw.pdf
 
Here are a couple excerpts from the sections dealing with clothing customs, where black definitely seems to be the funeral color. I've bolded certain passages:

FOLK BELIEFS OF THE SOUTHERN NEGRO

Puckett, Newbell Niles
The University of North Carolina Press 1926

Chapter II. Burial Customs, Ghosts, and Witches

The Concept of Death. European Acculturation. Dying in Ease.
Prophylactic Measures. Dying Whispers. Preparation for Burial.
Stygian Sign-posts. Wakes. The Funeral Procession. Negro Mourn-
ing Customs. Significance in Africa. Clothes and Crepe. Multiple
Funerals.

[snip]

Clothes and Crepe. The Southern Negroes consider
it proper for the relatives always to wear black to the
funeral ? the material to be borrowed if possible in-
stead of being bought. Although an Arkansas in-
formant says that black worn after the funeral will
cause some one else to die, the common Mississippi
custom is for the widow to stay in mourning for about
six months, wearing either black or white (generally
the former), and then changing to "second mourning"
which consists of lavender trimmed with black.  In
some cases the original primitive idea of mourning
being a sort of disguise used for the purpose of avoiding
the ghost, is quite evident. One informant directly
says, "de wearin' uv black is 'tended ter keep de ghos'
frum boddering you."  Crepe is generally placed
upon the door, but in certain Georgia communities
where there are an unusual number of deaths in the
family a piece of black ribbon is tied to every living
thing that comes in the house after the body has been
taken out ? even to dogs and chickens.  This is
interesting in that it seems to be an attempt to pacify
an avenging spirit which was the cause of the deaths.
Somewhat similar to this is the belief that one of your
family will die if you wear anything new (especially
new shoes) * to a funeral.  Here the danger would
seem to be that of exciting the envy of the dead man ?
somewhat analagous to one of the reasons for wearing
sack-cloth and ashes in former times. Others say the
new clothes will wear out quickly if worn for the first
time to a funeral.

And a little further down in the text:

At times the Negro will be buried the day after he dies and the
funeral preached several months afterwards, no doubt
a result of part-time pastorates where a minister was
not always available immediately after a death. In
other cases there appears to be one funeral at the
cemetery to which flowers are taken but no mourning
worn, and another held some time later at the church
at which the female relatives wear black. This
second service is called "stirring up the dead."


Puckett's work frequently cites the Southern Workman journal of the Hampton Institute, now Hampton University. One article taken from Southern Workman 26, published in January 1897, is reprinted in From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore and titled there "Beliefs and Customs Connected with Death and Burial". (Whether that is the original title or not I don't know as the compiler of the anthology seems to give many entries descriptive titles of her own.)

Here is how the funeral dress is described in the Southern Workman in 1897:

"Black was the color worn by the women and white by the children. The men wore crape on one sleeve and around their hats. The male relatives of the deceased wore their hats through the service. Usually before hearses were used the body was taken to the church in a wagon with a white sheet thrown over the coffin, and the people sang mournful 'leading praises' all the way to the church. In the church the coffin was placed in front of the pulpit, which had been previously draped with a black cover with white and black rosettes."

You can see a bit of this article here:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=KKhSvDCDzOsC&lpg=PP1&ots=-he5MxOrDX&dq=from%20my%20people&pg=PA614#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Where the page cuts off, I added the text from my copy of the book.

There is the book Passed On: African American Mourning Stories by Duke University professor Karla F.C. Holloway which may have information, but nothing about dress to be found in the previewable bits on Google, though black and white dress is featured in the cover art:


http://books.google.ca/books?id=FwoQkOrLvHYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=true


Here is some more colour rhyming. Dead/red again.

From http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27195/27195-h/27195-h.htm
Book of Negro Folk Rhymes by Thomas W. Talley, 1922

PRETTY LITTLE GIRL
Who's been here since I'se been gone?
A pretty liddle gal wid a blue dress on.
Who'll stay here when I goes 'way?
A pretty liddle gal, all dressed in gray.
Who'll wait on Mistess day an' night?
A pretty liddle gal, all dressed in white.
Who'll be here when I'se been dead?
A pretty liddle gal, all dressed in red.

[dj]

Uncle Bud,

Thanks for your diligence in researching the topic of wearing red at a funeral.  Your findings are very interesting.  The regents of Weenie University should should award you graduate course credit for this.  (So go ahead and put it on your resume.)         

[uncle bud]

dj - thanks. Perhaps Weenie should start offering matchbox courses...

[Mr.OMuck]

Good idea.

I can't help but think that the Red theme is celebratory and is related to the same ideas and impulses that produced the New Orleans funeral marches. The connection to Red Ochre use by neolithic peoples, while not impossible, seems like a stretch.

[lindy]

To restate what's already been noted in this thread, different cultures ascribe different meanings to different colors. I was teaching in China the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and some students in the city where I lived were arrested for wearing white armbands--the color of mourning in that country. Some Thai protesters who hit the streets following the latest military takeover of that country's government wore purple--their sign of mourning. Lately I've been doing a lot of reading about southeast Africa, and I've seen red mentioned as the color of mourning in parts of Zambia, Tanzania, and South Africa.

What I don't know is the color(s) worn in specific parts of West Africa--in and within Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, down to Congo/Zaire--where a large percentage of African Americans have ancestors. Blind Melon gave a nice eyewitness report, but based on my observation that vibrant colors are such an important part of indigenous fashion in that part of our planet, I suspect that black isn't a universal color of mourning across the entire region.

We also have to consider the mitigating factor of customs that colonial powers and slave masters gave to/forced upon Africans over the decades. The description from Southern Workman may reflect a new custom picked up in 19th century North America that enslaved people had to follow, or that they decided to follow in order to get along with the master.

From what I've seen of New Orleans second lines, when they're organized as simple celebrations for a social aid club and visits to shut-ins in the neighborhood, the colors of the main dancers' suits and umbrellas are electric -- limes and oranges and purples, from head to toe. When the second line is truly intended to give a respected member of the community a proper good-bye, then the dress code is much more somber and conservative. But the music and the dancing on the way back from the cemetery is still a joyous reminder to the rest of us that you've got to dance and enjoy the time you've got left.

Lindy

[Johnm]

Uncle bud,
I would like to echo dj's thanks for your recent contributions to this thread and the Lyric Archetypes thread.  It makes a huge difference, your accessing of source material from the period out of which many of these lyrics arose.  At least with regard to dressing in red for a funeral as it comes up in song lyrics, it really does look like the primary motivation was going for the rhyme, based on the analogous blue, black and white rhyming verses sometimes found in songs using the red verse.
All best,
Johnm   

[Bill Roggensack]

I'm trying to remember whether this (or at least closely related) topic cropped up on Prewar Blues as few years back, or perhaps on one of the precursors to WC.com. The role of colthing colours was discussed, as was the custom (in some parts of the South) of burial with the feet toward the East - presumably so that on Judgement Day, the dead would rise facing the rising sun. But I'll be darned if I can find this thread anywhere in my archives.

And I second (or third) the kudos to Uncle Bud for his scholarly behaviour, raising the bar for us plebes. 

[Bunker Hill]

I'm trying to remember whether this (or at least closely related) topic cropped up on Prewar Blues as few years back, or perhaps on one of the precursors to WC.com.

I?m fairly sure it was on the PWBG with Cat Yronwode being the main source of information in the discussion. I'll perform a search.

Folk who haven?t already checked out Cat's web site are encouraged to do so. She also has an interesting wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Yronwode
 

[Mr.OMuck]

A fairly typical entry.

[uncle bud]

The "dressed in red/white/black/blue" verses can be found in various spirituals and religious songs, such as Wade in the Water and Go Tell It On the Mountain, and I suspect that it is these songs that are the source of the "dressed in red" formula that we're now used to in blues lyrics. These floating verses are not linked to funeral or mourning practices. I'd already mentioned the verse from "I Heard the Angels Singin'":

Who is that yonder all dressed in red?
I heard the angels singin'
It look like the children Moses led
I heard the angels singin'

Here are some examples from "Songs and Rhymes from the South" -  E.C. Perrow, published 1912-1915
http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/drinkingsongs/html/books-and-manuscripts/1910s/1912-15-songs-from-the-south/part-1/index.htm
(also part 2 and 3 available there)

Perrow collected similar lines in a couple other religious songs. Parenthetical notes with sources/dates etc. are his.

29. MY LORD, HE DIED ON DE CROSS
(From North Carolina; negroes; MS. of W. O. Scroggs; 1908)

    Yonder come chillun dressed in white;
    Look lak de chillun ob de Israelite.

    Refrain
    My Lord, he died on de cross.

    Yonder come chillun dressed in red;
    Look lak chillun what Moses led.

    Yonder come chillun dressed in black;
    Look lak de hypercrits turnin' back.

30. PHARAOH'S ARMY GOT DROWNDED
(From East Tennessee; negroes; from memory; 1905)

    Who's dat comin', all dressed in red?
    One uh dem people dat Pharaoh led.

    Pharaoh's army got drownded,
    O Mary! don't yuh weep.


The formula is found in both black and white music as well. From a version of John Henry also found in Perrow (From Kentucky; mountain whites; MS. of E. N. Caldwell; 1912):

John Henry had a lovin' little wife,
Sometimes she was dressed in red;
She went walkin' down the track, and she never looked back;
She said, "I'm goin' where my honey fell dead."

John Henry had a lovin' little wife,
Sometimes she was dressed in blue;
Went to the graveyard where his dead body lies;
"John Henry, I've always been true to you."

Then from OLD BRADY
(From Mississippi; country whites; MS. of R. J. Slay, student; 1908)

They sent for the doctor in a mighty haste.
" Oh, yonder comes the surgeon in a racking pace!"
He raised his hand, and his hand was red,
" Oh, my goodness gracious! old Brady is dead!"
When the news got out that old Brady was dead,
Out come the ladies all dressed in red.

John Lomax also has a version of John Henry with an "all dressed in red" verse.

John Henry -  From American Ballads and Folk Songs, Lomax

John Henry's lil mother,
She was all dressed in red,
She jumped in bed, covered up her head,
Said she didn' know her son was dead,
Lawd, Lawd, didn' know her son was dead.

Then there are several verses from "John Hardy" in Cox, Folk-Songs of the South
1924, this one collected by Prof. J.H. Combs in Knott County, Kentucky

John Hardy had a pretty little wife,
She always went dressed in green;
And coming down on the hanging ground,
Says, "Johnny, you were always too mean."

John Hardy had a true little boy,
He was all dressed in black;
As coming down on the hanging ground,
Says, "Papa, I wish that you were back."

John Hardy had a true little girl,
She always dressed in red;
As coming down on the hanging ground,
Says, "Papa, I would rather be dead."

Lastly, a couple verses from "Elkhorn Ridge", which is supposedly traditional but I only have it in a great recorded version by Oscar Wright.

Yonder comes that girl of mine
She's all dressed in red
Looking down at her pretty little feet
And I wished my wife was dead

[snip]
Yonder comes that gal of mine
She's all dressed in brown
She is the darling of my heart
I'll see her for the sun goes down