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The Congo

1) The document is a poem called "The Congo" by Vachel Lindsay that describes scenes and characters from the Congo region. 2) It depicts "fat black bucks" drinking and dancing wildly, and the narrator having a vision of "the Congo creeping through the black." 3) Various scenes are described, including "a thousand miles of tattooed cannibals dancing in files" and "a thighbone beating on a tin-pan gong," with warnings about obeying Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, or facing hoo-doo.

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Daven Dorado
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116 views3 pages

The Congo

1) The document is a poem called "The Congo" by Vachel Lindsay that describes scenes and characters from the Congo region. 2) It depicts "fat black bucks" drinking and dancing wildly, and the narrator having a vision of "the Congo creeping through the black." 3) Various scenes are described, including "a thousand miles of tattooed cannibals dancing in files" and "a thighbone beating on a tin-pan gong," with warnings about obeying Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, or facing hoo-doo.

Uploaded by

Daven Dorado
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

REQUIRED PIECE FOR SPEECH CHOIR FOR 20TH ANNIVERSARY

THE CONGO (A Study of the Negro Race)

by: Vachel Lindsay

Male Voice – Dark


Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
# A deep rolling bass. #
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

Voice - Medium
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
# More deliberate. Solemnly chanted. #
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,

CHORUS
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song
# A rapidly piling climax of speed and racket. #
And a thighbone beating on a tin-pan gong.

Female Voices - Light


And "BLOOD" screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
"BLOOD" screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors,
"Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,"
# With a philosophic pause. #
A roaring, epic, rag-time tune

Male Voice - Dark


From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,

#With a short pause.#

Female Voices - Light


Torch-eyed and horrible,
Foam-flanked and terrible.

# Shrilly and with a heavily accented metre. #

Male Voice - Dark


BOOM, steal the pygmies,
BOOM, kill the Arabs,
BOOM, kill the white men,
HOO, HOO, HOO.

CHORUS
# Like the wind in the chimney. #
Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.
Listen to the creepy proclamation,
Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation,
Blown past the white-ants' hill of clay,
Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play: --

Male Voices - Mixed

# All the o sounds very golden. Heavy accents very heavy.


Light accents very light. Last line whispered. #

"Be careful what you do,


Light accents very light. Last line whispered. #
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
And all of the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you."

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