Note 143 — Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs.

Quimbé is a verb of African origin. It survives in Louisiana Creole as tchombé or chombo:

[“Caroline, pretty woman; put your arm about my neck!”—lit.: “take me by the neck.”]

There are other African words used by the older colored women, such as macayé, meaning to eat at all hours; and Ouendé, of which the sense is dubious. But the Congo verb fifa, to kiss; and the verbs souyé, to flatter; pougalé, to abuse violently; and such nouns as saff (glutton), yche or iche (baby), which are preserved in other Creole dialects, are apparently unknown in Louisiana to-day.

In Chas. Jeannest’s work, Quatre Années au Congo [Paris: Charpentier, 1883], I find a scanty vocabulary of words in the Fiot dialect, the native dialect of many slaves imported into Louisiana and the West Indies. In this vocabulary the word ouenda is translated by “partir pour.” I fancy it also signifies “to be absent,” and that it is synonymous with our Louisiana African-Creole ouendé, preserved in the song:

This is one of the very few songs with a purely African refrain still sung in New Orleans. The theme seems to be that, the master and mistress of a house being absent, some slave is encouraging a slave-friend to eat excessively, to “stuff himself” with wine, chicken, etc. “They are gone, friend: eat, fill yourself; I’m not a bit ashamed; stuff yourself!—I’m drinking good wine; stuff yourself!—I’m eating good chicken; gorge yourself,” etc. Here ouendé seems to mean “they are out; they are gone away,”—therefore there is no danger.

There is another Creole song with the same kind of double refrain, but the meaning of the African words I have not been able to discover.

[“Nicholas, etc., you are a turkey-cock! Nicholas walks ouaminon: when he walks, it is ouarasi, ouarasa.”] The idea is obvious enough; viz.: that Nicholas struts like a turkey-cock; but the precise signification of the three italicised words I have failed to learn.