Monkey Draw Bow (Monkey Jaw Bone)

DESCRIPTION: Jamaican patois: Singer goes to a pond hears a bull frog, asks the watchman what it said. Chorus: monkey jaw bone [or monkey draw bow] is so sweet. He hears an alarm in Linstead when "Sweetie tumble off a chair."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1950 (Rovere: see Notes)
KEYWORDS: fiddle music nonballad animal
FOUND IN: West Indies(Jamaica)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Murray-FolkSongsOfJamaica, pp. 37-38, "Monkey Draw Bow" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Olive Lewin, _Forty Folk Songs of Jamaica_ (Washington: General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, 1973), pp. 79-80, "Monkey Jawbone" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Edric Connor with the Caribbeans and Earl Inkman, "Monkey Draw Bow" (on WIEConnor01)
NOTES [78 words]: The 1950 single verse is from a short story that follows the "monkey draw bow" line (Ethel Rovere, "Prempeh" in 14 Jamican Short Stories (Kingston: The Pioneer Press, 1950), p. 46, ("Go to Long Pnd fe water").
Lewin: "'Jawbone' probably refers to an instrument (made from the jawbone of an animal) which was used in old Jamaica. In some versions of this song the words 'draw bow' are sometimes substituted for 'jawbone' in which case reference is made to a fiddle." - BS
Last updated in version 3.7
File: JaMu038

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