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Do-Now:
Click on Download File above. Click Save, then Open at the bottom, then Create.
If you are unable to successfully open the file, work with a neighbor on the Do-Now.
Answer the following Questions, using Complete Sentences.
Click on Download File above. Click Save, then Open at the bottom, then Create.
If you are unable to successfully open the file, work with a neighbor on the Do-Now.
Answer the following Questions, using Complete Sentences.
Classwork Agenda:
1. Omie Wise
a. Read the lyrics to the ballad, Omie Wise, as you listen to the audio file.
b. If you cannot open the OneNote file, the text of the page you need is at the bottom of this webpage.
c. Answer the questions below, using Complete Sentences.
1. Omie Wise
a. Read the lyrics to the ballad, Omie Wise, as you listen to the audio file.
b. If you cannot open the OneNote file, the text of the page you need is at the bottom of this webpage.
c. Answer the questions below, using Complete Sentences.
Omie Wise
Oh, listen to my story, I'll tell you no lies,
How John Lewis did murder poor little Omie Wise.
He told her to meet him at Adams's Springs.
He promised her money and other fine things.
So, fool-like she met him at Adams's Springs.
No money he brought her nor other fine things.
"Go with me, little Omie, and away we will go.
We'll go and get married and no one will know."
She climbed up behind him and away they did go,
But off to the river where deep waters flow.
"John Lewis, John Lewis, will you tell me your mind?
Do you intend to marry me or leave me behind?"
"Little Omie, little Omie, I'll tell you my mind.
My mind is to drown you and leave you behind."
"Have mercy on my baby and spare me my life,
I'll go home as a beggar and never be your wife."
He kissed her and hugged her and turned her around,
Then pushed her in deep waters where he knew that she would drown.
He got on his pony and away he did ride,
As the screams of little Omie went down by his side.
T'was on a Thursday morning, the rain was pouring down,
When the people searched for Omie but she could not be found.
Two boys went a-fishin' one fine summer day,
And saw little Omie's body go floating away.
They threw their net around her and drew her to the bank.
Her clothes all wet and muddy, they laid her on a plank.
Then sent for John Lewis to come to that place --
And brought her out before him so that he might see her face.
He made no confession but they carried him to jail, No friends or relations would go on his bail.
In "The Folk Songs of North America," Alan Lomax writes: "Jonathan Lewis...courted lovely Naomi Wise, an orphan who worked as a servant and field hand for Mr. Adams (in Randolph County, North Carolina, 1808). Lewis compromised Naomi, then engaged to marry her; but when his ambitious mother found a better match for him he resolved to do away with poor Naomi. She agreed to elope with him...Naomi began to complain when she realized they were riding in the wrong direction, and then John Lewis told her his real intentions. He tied her dress above her head, rode into the middle of Deep River, and held Naomi under the water with his foot. When he heard someone coming, he spurred his horse for home.
Next day, in order to throw off suspicion, he went courting a girl named Martha Huzza, and the officers found him on the front porch with Martha on his lap. Confronted with Naomi's corpse, Lewis calmly stoked the dead girl's hair and denied the crime. The following day, with the aid of friends, he broke out of the 'shackley jail' and disappeared in the West ... the folks of the North Carolina hills say that he confessed the crime on his death-bed..."
I have five versions of this song in my house and have seen more in libraries. In some versions, the names are different (Romy and George, for example) or place names vary (they meet at the Adams spring in one version and the Hellington Spring in another). Sometimes, boys fishing, or Omie's brother, find the body, and John Lewis confesses; in others, he is caught and hanged, which is probably not really what happened, but what people wished.
This ballad is a window into what life was like in an earlier time, and it is quite historical: a true event is recorded and remembered. It is an expression of how such events were communicated in the old days. The song is censored because of moral restrictions of the day (you wouldn't know she's pregnant by hearing some versions); it expresses the outrage of the North Carolina people and the story was never quite forgotten because of the song. There is a timelessness, too, about the story. Women are still being abused and murdered, and communities are still outraged. The song and the story have left a powerful mark in folksong and lore and personally for many people.
