Season 2: Episode 7: 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

In this podcast episode, Gina delves into the intriguing history of the nursery rhyme "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed." While exploring various versions of the rhyme, she highlights its cautionary theme for parents and children. Gina uncovers potential historical connections, suggesting similarities with an Austrian song and an African American folk song, "Shortening Bread." However, she confronts the uncomfortable possibility that the rhyme may have originated in minstrel shows, referencing post-Civil War songs with racist undertones. Gina emphasizes the challenge of verifying such historical claims due to a lack of primary sources. The episode raises thought-provoking questions about the origins and appropriateness of traditional nursery rhymes. Want to learn more? Reach out to Gina at info@atiskettasketpodcast.com. #NurseryRhymes #History #FiveLittleMonkeys #Podcast #MinstrelShows #RacismInNurseryRhymes #ChildrensSongs #CulturalHistory

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to A Tisket-Tasket podcast. I'm your host Gina. And on this podcast, we talk about this sometimes and chanting and sometimes dark history of nursery rhymes. For the next a few episodes, 

we will be focusing on nursery rhymes that count to five. Today we are exploring five little monkeys jumping on the bed. Disclaimer, I will be discussing race in antiquated terms in this podcast. The terms I use are not to reflection on my views but a historical exploration. And as uncomfortable as they may make us, I believe it is still important to understand that these types of terms were used and why and the contexts in which they were used. With that being said, Let's begin.

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  During my research, I uncovered. A lot of versions in variations of this rhyme and to refresh your memory here is just one of them.  Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said no more monkeys jumping on the bed. For a little monkeys jumping on the bed. When Phil off and bumped his head.  Mama called the doctor and the doctor said. No more monkeys jumping on the bed.  Three little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped her head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said no more monkeys jumping on the bed.  Two little monkeys jumping on the bed. 

One fell off and bumped his head mama called the doctor and the doctor said. No more monkeys jumping on the bed. 

One little monkey jumping on the bed. He fell off and bumped his head mama called the doctor. The doctor said, put those monkeys to bed.

 Now, before I get into the history and other things that I talked about in this podcast. Just want to note that I will not be adding any audio recordings to this episode. I really couldn't find any that I could justify adding in. A number of them were newer than 1989. And I couldn't really find anything that was over 30 seconds of a sample. And I couldn't really find any historical ones that I wanted to add, so that is something a little bit different. That I just wanted to note to end this podcast episode, but let's go ahead and move on to the history of this little ditty.  

This rhyme on the surface is a cautionary tale that resonates with parents and children everywhere. Rambunctious children may play around and hurt themselves. My goddaughter was running around the living room and bumped her head on the stone fireplace and had to have a trip to the emergency room. 

Kids hurt themselves when they're playing. It's just the way it is. Parents might be exasperated with cautioning their children, that they may hurt themselves as well as warning them that they might break furniture. Combining these elements with a fun song and accounting element, we have the culmination of teaching to count. And a cautionary tale.  According to the American songwriter in craft of music, this nursery rhyme shirts, they similar melody with the Austrian song whose title I can only hope to pronounce correctly.  It also is very similar to the African American song shortening bread, which contains the lyrics. Three little children lying in bed. 

Two was sick and the other most dead send for the doctor. And the doctor said, feed them children on shortening bread.  Shortening bread, route a folk song number 4,209. What's collected and published by James Whitcomb Riley in 1900.  Riley suggests that the song is a plantation song. Referencing the making of shortening bread. Cornmeal base bread often made floored. The lyrics, talk about plowing and harvesting of corn and the seemingly medicinal value of shortening bread. 

It is similar to five little monkeys as it features children in bed. And even bumping their heads as well as mothers intervention.  In 1915 ISI pero. We'll publish another version.  Who's familiar with lyrics of mommy's little baby love, shortening, shortening. 

Maybe he's a little baby love shortening bread. Repeat, maybe familiar to the lovers of early 20th century cartoons. ISI pero to continue off the track of talking about the original nursery rhyme I intended to discuss was a noted folklorist focusing on American style folk songs, especially around African American plantation songs.  Now, when I was looking up the history of this particular stock nursery rhyme, as in five little monkeys jumping on the bed, I felt a number of.  Hearsay. An anecdote in it, total evidence, but I couldn't find primary sources. 

And that is always a huge. Red flag for me when I'm researching. Because.  I find that it's easy to attribute alternate history when we don't know that original history. So as I was exploring, I kept uncovering some very uncomfortable. Evidence that might suggest that this nursery rhyme. Has its roots in racism or post civil war.  Songs that. 

Talk about African-Americans in not a kind light. I also found evidence that this song might be written by black minstrels as in Africa's so freed African-American slaves who went on into the music industry. Black Wiki, has An entry on five little monkeys that says five little monkeys. 

It's an English language folk song and finger play. And it is usually accompanied by a sequence of gestures that mimic the words of the song. Each successive verse sequentially counts down from the starting number. And then once discussing its history, it says the rhyme was written by noted American songwriter Septimus winner in 1864 and performed at minstrel shows. It was then adopted by 1869 by Frank J. 

Green 

as 10 little niggers again, I'm sorry. I hate saying that word, but I just want to get it out there that this is the word that was used. It became a standard of the blackface minstrel shows in England and America. The sockets similarly are X and tuned to the first verse of the 1890s folk song shortening bread. And as it was derived from. Now, when I went to go look up a Frank Green's type little niggers from 1869, I found a completely different song and that was 10 little nigger boys went out to died in that.  Also appears in the first edition of mother Goose's tails. So it, this is referencing to a different song. And Frank Green's version is incredibly racist by today's standards. But it doesn't.  Reference. Anything to do with five little monkeys. I found a very awesome. Video. 

On the education for life academy website. Have a video by Gerald DS, D E a S that talks about his book, 10 little narrators nursery rhyme book and movie. And in it, he talks about a little bit about black minstrel shows after the American civil war, as well as his personal experiences, as an African-American and reading some of these racist nursery arrives. 

He's a collector of, of African-American stories as well. And I'll link the video in the description of an reference of this podcast episode. I highly recommend checking it out.

Other references that I found that kind of referenced these. Perhaps racist, undertones or beginnings was the Atlanta black star in an article that was published on February 1st, 2019, titled 12 childhood nursery rhymes. You didn't realize were racist. And when it talks about five little monkeys, it says this nursery rhyme has been taught to many children to help them learn how to count. 

However, the original words use the song have far less benign implications. Instead of monkeys, five little monkeys, also known as 10 little monkeys originally used the N word or darkies ever referenced to black people. But in that context, does the current edit make this nurturer any less derogatory? 

Again, I can completely understand and agree that this nursery rhyme. If you see that word is derogatory. However, I have found no primary evidence to suggest this. I however, have not followed the original copy or original version of five little monkeys. I have found.  References to five little monkeys back.  Toward. The 1970s and eighties. 

But before that, I haven't really found any copies. So as a researcher, I'm stumped. About where this nursery rhyme came from.  And I wish I had more to say on this episode about it, but I don't. I I really don't.  

I found a personal blog that also talks about the racist undertones of this, and this was written on July 22nd. 2014. From the author pin NOCO jams. And It was updated. Bye. Aziz Powell on April 15th, 2022. And it says well, anecdotal evidence suggests that early versions of the chant that is known as five little monkeys, also known as 10 little monkeys was based on shortened bread song. 

As I mentioned.  These early versions of five little monkeys jumping on the bed, use the N word, plural or darkies as reference.  For black people instead of the word monkey. In monkey itself as a word, which has been used in the past and the present as an offensive reference for black people.  The Pocono go. 

James post presents a compilation of online comments that I have found to date about the probable racist roots of five little monkeys, 10 little monkeys chance. This post also includes my comments about the information about another possible  source for the chance.  This concept of this post is  is presented for folkloric in cultural purposes.

 James Bradley is historical and philosophy study professor at the university of Melbourne. Wrote an article in may of 2013 title the ape insult a short history of a racist idea. And what she says most of us know that calling someone on ape is racist, but few of us understand why apes are associated  in the European imagination with indigenous people and indeed people of African descent. Again, this was written into Australia. 

So ape and monkey. We can extrapolate from an American perspective. Monkey's a term that I've heard more often. And in fact, when I looked it up in the OED as a racist term, it says originally U S derogatory and offensive non white or dark skin person. And they have the first usage from 1849. Or thereabouts. 

In fact, they have.  A excerpt from J Cobb's green hands, first crews from 1841. And again, Excuse the language that says that nigger has done nothing but stare at me in the face. That ever the Lord should let monkeys grow to man's size and learn them to talk.  

However, jumping back to the Bradley article. He says to understand the power and scope of the ape insult, we need a dose of history when I was an undergraduate. University, I learned about racism and colonialism, particularly the influence of Charles Darwin  18. Oh nine to 1882, whose ideas seem to make racism. Nastier. Indeed. It is easy to infer this Darwin's theory of natural selection. 

1859 showed that the closest ancestors of human beings were the great apes. And the idea that homosapiens were descended from monkeys rapidly became a part of the theater of evolution. Darwin himself was often depicted as half man, half monkey.  What's more while most evolutionists believe that all human races descended from the same stock. They also noted that migration in natural and sexual selection had created human varieties, that in their eyes appeared superior to Africans or Aborigines.

Both of these, a lot of groups were often portrayed as being evolutionary, the closest to the original humans in there for apes or monkeys. And the early 20th century, the increasing popularity of the Mundelien genetics named after Greg or John Mendel, 1822 to 1884. Did nothing to depots the way of thinking.  If anything, it made things worse. Suggested that the races have become separate species in that Africans in particular. We're  far closer in evolutionary terms. 

So the great apes. 

And yet during the same period, there was always a stream of evolutionary scientists that rejected this model. It emphasized the deep similarities between different races in that differences in behavior where the product of culture, not biology.  The horrors of Nazi-ism put paid to mainstream sciences dalliances with biological racism out of Hitler's genocide, willingness supported by the German scientists and doctors showed. With a misapplication of science might end up. This left scientific racism in the hands of far, right. Groups.  Who were only too willing to ignore the findings of post-war evolutionary biology in favor of its pre war variants. Clearly evolutionary thinking has  has had something to do with the longevity of the insult. But the European association of apes with Africans has a much longer cultural and scientific pedigree.  And the 18th century, a new way of thinking about species emerged previously, the vast majority of Europeans believed that God had created species, including man. And that these species were immutable.  Many believed in the unity of the human species, but some thoughts that God had created  separate human species. And the schema. Europeans were described as the closest to the angels while black Africans in Aborigines were closest to the apes.  Many 18th century scientists tried to undermine this creationist model. But doing so they gave more power to the ape insult.  In the mid 17 hundreds, the great French naturalist mathematician, and cosmologists comped. 

They perform.  Put forward. The idea that all species of animals were descended from my small number of spontaneously generated types. Feline species, for example, were supposedly descended from a single ancestral cat. As cats migrated away from the point of spontaneous generation. They degenerated into separate species under the influence of climate.  In 1770, the Dutch scientist Petrus camper took the phones model and applied it to man for camper. 

The original man was ancient Greek as  the original human moved from his point to creation around the world. He too degenerated under the influence of climate.  In campers view monkeys, the apes and orangutans were all degenerative versions of the original man. Then in 1809 Darwin's intellectual 

forbearer Lamarck John Baptist piano. Twan D Monet shoveler dilemma. Ella mark 1744 to 1829 proposal model of evolution that saw all organisms as descended from a single point of spontaneous creation.  Worms evolved into fish fish, and a mammals and mammals in the men. This happened, not through  not through Darwinian selection, but through an inner vital force driving simple organisms. To become more punk complex working in combination with the influence of the environment. And this view humans didn't share a common ancestry with apes. 

They were directly descended from them. And Africans then became the link between monkeys and Europeans. This popular image, commonly associated with Darwinian evolution of the stage transformation of ape in demand should more properly be called Lamarckian.  



Each of these ways of thinking about the relationship between humans and monkeys reinforced the connection made by Europeans, between Africans and apes. 

And by making it seem as if people of non European origin were more like apes than humans, these different theories were used to justify plantation slavery in the Americas and colonial.  And colonialism through the rest of the world.  All these different scientific and religious theories all worked in the same direction. To reinforce the European right to control large swath of the world.  The Abe insult is actually about the way Europeans have differentiated themselves, biologically and culturally in an effort to maintain superiority over other people. 

And you can continue to read this article again, it'll be listed on my reference page, but you might be asking yourself, Gina, why are you going into colonialism in history? When you're talking about nursery rights.  These aspects of history are incredibly important to understand when researching in referencing nursery arrives. There have been number of nursery rhymes that I've talked about. On this podcast and you can refer to about this time last year, when I started to talk about clapping games. That have their origins in different cultures. 

And you have to understand colonialism and racism before you can really understand the historical context of where these nursery rhymes originated.  And it's important to understand this. Not only because of the history of nursery rhymes, but where these nursery rhymes might be going or how they're viewed. 

I talked a lot about fake etymology, especially with. Nursery rhymes, like ring around the Rosie and.  It's easy for me as a 21st century scholar to be like, oh yes, five little monkeys definitely have its roots in racism, but I haven't found evidence of this. I haven't found primary evidence that this does. I'm not saying that it doesn't, but I don't have evidence that it does. But I do think it's important to understand these terms in their contexts and racism and colonialism. To kind of bridge this gap where we don't necessarily have primary research and maybe we can make logical jumps. I say the term may be there. 

However, I wouldn't said Fastly say that this does have its roots in racism. There are others. However that I strongly believe that they do. Recently. 

With my little understanding of African-American culture and folklore. I've been doing a lot more research in that area. And I would still say that I'm a novice and I don't. Really have the historical underpinnings of understanding all of this. I came across the book spirituals in the birth of black entertainment industry by standard Jean Gray ham that was published by university of Illinois, press in 2018. 

Now. If this is an area of nursery rhyme or folklore that interests you, I definitely recommend. Listening to last year's podcast where I do , talk about African-American influences on their shoe, your items. I have a few episodes that talk about how clapping games were from the American south, especially with plantation songs. But I really think this book is a very fascinating. It talks about elements of folklore and song that I wasn't really familiar with.  Specifically, it talks about the rise of the Jubilee industry and spiritual for the masses. So there are two parts. And she talks about the Jubilee thinkers of Fisk university. The Fisk concert, spiritual innovators, imitators in the Jubilee industry. She also talks about the minstrel show gets religion, commercial spirituals, spirituals in uncle Tom shows, melodramas and spectacles and blurring boundaries between traditional and commercials.  It is a fantastic book. And I definitely recommend it. And I'd like to read a little bit of the introduction for you because I feel that it's a great way to add additional context to what I was discussing as far as. African-Americans influences and context in a lot of song. Especially in nursery rhyme that unfortunately gets whitewashed out. She writes in her introduction. Black men and women took to the popular stage in unprecedented numbers after the civil war. By the late 1870s, hundreds of black entertainers were performing in concerts. Minstrel shows, musical place, circuses in variety shows. Whether in big cities or rural backwaters, they drew large numbers of blacks to their performances. Changing the face of 19th century audiences. Collectively 

they constituted the first black entertainment industry in the United States. And until about 1890, these diverse genres were connected by one common ingredients, black, sacred song known as the spiritual. Black entertainment had emerged in fits and starts over the previous 100 years. Katrina D Thompson and her persuasive book. Ring shout wheel about the racial politics of music and dance in north American slavery. Posits that the first entertainment venue in America was slave society. And that white perceptions of slave entertainers were shaped by misrepresentations of black culture in a series of widely read publications. For example, the journals and travel narratives, avoid explorers, missionaries, and adventurers traveling in west Africa. And the late 16 hundreds and 17 hundreds. Almost always commented on the ubiquity of music and dance. Which accompanied, both ceremonial, and everyday activities. Their accounts portrayed Africans in as innately musical, but also in desperate need of Christianization to curb behavior that their white observers deemed superstitious

 such dehumanizing rhetoric became a template for white reactions to black music making in the new world. Barbara's as it reportedly was black musical behavior, fascinated whites, some of whom took every opportunity to exploit it for personal  pleasure, and profit.

Beginning with the middle passage ship captains, coerce, slaves to sing and dance on deck often while bound in chains for their entertainment.  Likewise plantation owners would sometimes order their slaves to dance and sing even after an exhausting day of work in the fields. Some masters had a platform stage built for these performances. And they would pit their slave dancers against those of. Um, they bring plantation.  Slavers discovered that slaves who could play an instrument, execute an impressive jig or sing a powerful song. But higher prices, consequently music song and dance became a staple of the , the slave pen in the auction. Such coerce entertainments helps fabricate one of the enduring and mythical characters of the Southern plantation. The carefree, submissive, dancing, slave.  Right. 

Stops in music and dance became tied to the violence of slavery. Turning a form of amusement into one of terror. 

In addition to slave musicians who played for dances and other social occasions attended by weights. There were free blacks. You can post popular songs, played in bands and led them and even performed in stage entertainments. There was a strong culture of music making in black middle class homes and communities with the same type of piano, vocal and chamber music founded. 

Wait parlors.  Black musicians were everywhere. But we're especially numerous in urban centers. Most of these musicians never attain recognition beyond their locality. However, and those who did, were seldom able to sustain enduring careers. And then she goes on with a couple of paragraphs  Notable black figures. After the civil war.  In around the 18 hundreds, that's, we're famous. 

And what on to make black music apart of culture. And some of those figures, I actually talk in previous episodes on my podcast. But she continues. All of these exceptional musicians have in common, a devotion to European and American art music, which they mixed with popular parlor songs.  In concert, according to the conventions of the day. They participated in, made their own contributions to systems of education and entertainment  that had been defined  and continue to be controlled by white Europeans and Americans. If you black musicians were able to sustain likely performing careers in the early 18 hundreds. Theatrical livelihoods replants were even more precarious as demonstrated by the short-lived  historic African Grove in New York, which opened as a permanent theater in 1821. It then close after only three seasons, but she says serving as a training ground for black actors and musicians, if featured musical productions, orig versions of Shakespeare plates, historical dramas, pantomimes, and farces. Most of which Catered to its black audiences with themes of revolt and triumph that struggle on occasion addressing slave life directly. 

And in fact, it became like a white person tourist trap to. Where I imagine that, , white tourists are like, Ooh, let's see what this different culture is. And it became kind of a first, so unfortunately it closed down. very soon after its opening. 

She says that the alternative to the legitimate stage for those who wanted a theatrical career was blackface minstrelsy. 

Although very few black performers entered this profession before the war. 

The vitro is sick dancer. Villiam. Henry Lane known as master Juba made history as the first black member of a white troop. When he joins the Georgia champion minstrels in 1845.  The fortunes of black minstrel and to entertain years in black entertainers generally include improved during reconstruction. 

Although every success came with a cost and there were. Innumerable failures. It is with these new opportunities that this book begins.  And she said that the scope of this book, uh, continues as spirituals originated as folk songs and their surroundings were embedded in the black daily life before the war. During the 1860s as number of, of white union officers in charge of black regiments, impressed with the singing of spirituals and other black folk songs and army camps described them in articles that were published in Northern newspapers in magazines. The culmination of this burgeoning interest in black song was the first anthology of spirituals with musical scores. Slave songs to the United States, 1867. And they had by William Francis, Allen, Charles Pickerd where in Lucy McKim, Garrison. Despite the value of these detailed written descriptions, they failed to convey , the essence of spirituals, which was located in sounds. One antidote to this problem arrived a few years later. In 1871. Did you believe singers or troop of black students from Fisk university in Nashville, Tennessee began touring to raise money for their school.  And so then she continues to talk about spiritual or spiritual ism. In folk song. And the reason why I read the introduction is that I thought it dovetailed so nicely in what I described in this episode. 

And while I couldn't find the historical beginnings of five little monkeys. I did talk a lot about these. Anecdotal. Assumptions that it was grounded in racism, but I really think there is a huge disconnect between, , the historical knowledge in research between African-American slave songs. And then what became later, these nursery rhymes that people are purporting to be racist because if I had to make a hypothesis, I would say that a lot of nursery rhymes, the African-Americans were.  Singing to their children or even perhaps singing to their white charges. We're then used again in change after the civil war and never properly attributed to them in their culture. 

And then either. Are considered racist today or are, were completely whitewashed and changed. However, I don't have. Enough historical research to make that statement. Or to prove that hypothesis, but that's certainly one that I think could be made. And I talk a little bit about this in a hush little baby, as far as the Mockingbird. And I think it's a real shame. I really think that.  We should be learning in school and we should be researching these things that might make us uncomfortable because of our past and because of our history as Americans. 

But I think that.  This is history. In African-American music. In slavery or  pre slavery or post-slavery. It's something that has been continually swept under the rug that should be researched. And I'm concerned as a researcher that it's already been destroyed and it's already too late. But it continues to annoy me when I read these articles. That people just assume that they're racist when in reality, maybe they're not, maybe they were actually maybe the actually originated and African-American slave spirituals and songs that were later made racist. 

And I'm not saying that there aren't racist nursery rhymes. There certainly are. And, regarding a number of different races and gender and religion. But I just feel like there is an aspect or perspective and its history that is completely lost, , researchers, , because we want our history to look better.  So I know I'm going way off script here, especially because this episode should have been about five little monkeys, but again, I didn't find a lot of research about it and here's why. But I really hope that you learned something. 

I really hope that it has made you think. And I really hope you pick up. , Gramps. Book or  from 2018. I think it was . Really fascinating. And if you have an interest in learning more about this aspect of folklore, and you'd like to talk to. Expert, please contact me at info at statistic. task@podcast.com and I'd be happy to connect you with someone whose area of research,  happens to be this. But that's what I have for today. 

Please continue to listen to my podcasts in the upcoming weeks where I continue to talk about counting rhymes. And stay tuned for the continue weirdness of nursery rhymes. Thank you.