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This is the creation of the user page for Ian Cully. It was created on Feb 5th 2010

Below is the draft of an article on the meaning of the words of the song Iko, Iko.

"Iko Iko" – what the words mean

The words of the song Iko, Iko

Iko, Iko,
Iko, Iko an day
Jockomo fee no wah na nay
Jockomo fee na nay

Introduction

The song "Iko, Iko" made its debut as "Jock-o-mo" in 1953. It was written by a 19 year old black musician named Sugar Boy Crawford who copied down the ceremonial war chants of opposing Black Indian tribes who faced each other off during the Mardi Gras festivals in New Orleans.

More than 50 years have passed since the original release of “Jockomo” and the song (now known as "Iko, Iko") has achieved wide and international renown, having been released and covered by dozens of groups and singers, having appeared in two major movies on TV, and in commercials.

During all the years of its success however the listening public has remained bewildered by the incomprehensible words of the song. Some people think the unintelligible words have a Cajun or Creole origin, others think it they are just rhythmic gibberish put together for a novel Black Indian chant at a Mardi Gras festival.

This article aims to draw aside that veil by demonstrating that the song's words are neither impenetrable nor gibberish. Their origin lies in genuine Creole French, rendered difficult to understand when it was reproduced phonetically by the Black Indians and made perhaps even more unfathomable by the phonetic interpretation written by Sugar Boy Crawford to what he thought the Indians were singing.

Controversy

In a 2002 interview with Offbeat.com entitled “Backtalk with James Sugar Boy Crawford”, he says he phonetically copied down two of these chants. One was "Iko, Iko" - the other was "Jockomo fee no wah na nay". Sugar Boy Crawford said he then amalgamated the two separate chants and put them to music - and a great song was born.

The only problem with this story is that the words “Iko, Iko” are entirely absent from the Sugar Boy Crawford song” Jockomo” released in 1953. You can hear the original song free of charge on www.deezer.com by typing in the word ‘Jockomo’ into the search box.

The words “Iko, Iko” only appeared twelve years later, in 1965, when the Dixie Cups recorded it on the Redbird Records label. The girl band claimed that they didn’t understand the words themselves having learned them parrot-fashion from their grandmother.

A lawsuit lodged by Sugar Boy Crawford claiming that the Dixie Cups version of the song was based on his original Jock-o-mo 1953 version was settled out of court. In his 2002 interview with Offbeat.com Sugar Boy Crawford said he considered that it was better to have 50% of something than 100% of nothing.

It could be that the settlement was due to the fact that the music and the "Jockomo fee no wah na nay" lyrics were indeed the original work of Sugar Boy Crawford, but that the "Iko, Iko" part wasn't, because it was introduced by the Dixie Cups who'd heard it from their grandmother.

Leaving aside the legal aspects of the claim, it’s fascinating to know that the Dixie Cups had learnt the words parrot-fashion from their grandmother.

So someone other than Sugar Boy Crawford was also writing down (or remembering) the Indian chants!

The French Heritage of Louisiana

The south-western United States has two types of French speaking people.

One is the Cajun people - settlers of French origin who were expelled by the English from Acadie (Acadia) or Nova Scotia in Canada in 1755 and who after much roaming and hardship evntually resettled in Louisiana in 1764.

The second set of French speakers is the Creole people, who are the descendants of the settlers of the original French colony of Louisiana (La Lousiane). Sybil Kein who wrote “Interpreting Indian chants” (Social Science History Association, New Orleans, 1991) describes the Louisiana Creoles as “gens de couleur libre” (free colored people) born in the Louisiana colony and often the offspring of mixed European and African unions, along with the growing numbers of married free people of mixed race. She further added: “Creoles of colour need not be light skinned but generally are thought to be; they need not be Catholic but generally are. Creoles did not use English as their primary language until English replaced Creole French as the dominant language in New Orleans.”

The Louisiana Purchase

Louisiana remained a French colony (though the Spanish laid claim to parts of it) till it was absorbed into the United States by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 when he bought 828,800 square miles for $18 million from France under the Louisiana Purchase. One of the major purposes of the transaction was the acquisition of the sea port of New Orleans, then called Nouvelle Orleans".. The huge tract of land doubled the then size of the fledgling United States and was later to be split into thirteen States.

The original French-speaking denizens of Louisiana, now hemmed in on all sides by Anglo-Saxons following the Louisiana Purchase, saw an inevitable evolution of their tongue as it absorbed foreign words from three sources - English and Native Indian words as well as several Gambian words from slaves who had been shipped to Louisiana by the French and the Spaniards till the practice was abolished. Present day Frenchmen from the other side of the Atlantic can still understand the patois spoken in Louisiana, though some Cajuns and Creoles will tell you that if they really "turn it on" they can use words and an accent that would leave any Frenchman completely bewildered!

Creole French – the origin of the song “Iko, Iko”

The Black Indian chants, even though they have words of French origin, have more to do with Creole French than Cajun French. The grammar in Cajun French is very near to standard French, whereas Louisiana Creole, though similar, has a syntax of its own.

The web site www.frenchcreoles.com contains the portrayal of French linguist M. Harris, who describes Louisiana Creole geographically as a language spoken by blacks but sometimes by whites in the plantations along the Mississippi between New Orleans and Pointe Coupée Parish and in St. Martin Parish. Another French writer, Rousseve, added to the picture: "This medium of communication, still a living language, was developed by the Negroes of Colonial Louisiana, and was fused from French, with traces of Spanish and African influence."

In this article on the meaning of the words of the song "Iko Iko", it is thus not to traditional French or to Cajun French that we turn, but to Creole French. Unfortunately, Creole dictionaries are rare, and often incomplete. Some dictionaries that do however stand out and which have been used for the purposes of this article are "Le Dictionnaire Créole" - “Le Dictionnaire Sioudi” - “Louisiana Creole Vocabulary” - “The Creole/English Wordlist” - and the “Verbix Creole conjugator”

The Black “Indians”

These are the people who make up the “tribes” who dress in fantastic homemade Native American costumes and stage mock battles at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. They aren’t really Native Indians but descendants of the Louisiana Creoles and the slaves – but their elaborate costumes are based on native Indian costumes.

The Maripia.com web site tells us:
-the Black Indians were organized by tribes formed in the 1700's when the first escaped black slaves found refuge in the swamps surrounding the newly founded city, helped and protected by the Indians tribes living in the bayous - the Choctaw, the Chickasaw and the Blackfoot.
-Since then, the Mardi Gras Indian Tribes have honored their former protectors. Their name comes from a place where the Indians used to trade, renamed Mardi Gras Point by the French settlers. To this day, their rituals are a mix of West African, Caribbean and Indian rhythms, chants and dances. Each tribe has its Big Chief, its Queen, Second Chiefs, Third Chiefs, Spy Boys, Flag Boys, Trail Chiefs, and Wild Men.
-On Mardi Gras day (Fat Tuesday), each tribe walks the street of its neighborhood, often with no announced route or schedule. When two tribes meet, they enter into a contest of costumes and chants. The best day to catch them all together is still on the closest Sunday to St-Joseph Day, in March. At one point, all tribes will gather near Bayou St-John, an Indian trade post for centuries.

Jelly Roll Morton (born Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe), the well-known American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer, was said to have been a Spyboy, and revealed that at that time there were only four or five Black Indian tribes in New Orleans.

One by one, dancing in toe/heel fashion, each member of a tribe meets his counterpart. Spyboy first meets Spyboy. Flagboy meets Flagboy. Wildman, then first, second, and third chiefs, queen(s) and children - all meet and play out their traditional roles. And finally one Big Chief faces the other. Knees bent, arms outspread, swaying from foot to foot and turning in a circular motion, the chiefs slowly size up each other. This preening proves especially effective for showing off the costumes. Prestige for the tribe is garnered through the beauty and intricacy of the suits, role playing, and the strength of its presence in the community.

The “Indian” Chants

The chants are generally in the Call and Response fashion.

The tribe and its crowd of enthusiastic followers "respond", sometimes chanting a traditional chorus of words that have no common meaning and often derived from the early Creole language. These songs, although similar, are rarely sung in the same way by all the tribes although they lay claim to the same common repertoire. The tempo may be relaxed or fast depending upon the mood of the singers, but it remains consistent throughout the song. Competition is nurtured in a creative climate that awards prestige and respect to the person who is able to out-sew, out-dress, and out-sing another Black Indian of equal rank from another tribe

Sybil Kein writes: “The chants of the Mardi Gras Black Indians have been diluted over the years by American black speech. A good example of the Black Indian creole is in the chant or prayer that opens their Mardi Gras observance. They sing “Madi cu defio, en dans dey” which is a corruption of the old Creole song “M’allé couri dans déser” used in connection with Voodoo rituals and associated with the Calinda dance” (Wilson, “Traditional Louisiana French Folk Music”, pg 59; Mrs. Augustine Moore, interview with author, 1980.

“Iko, Iko” and “Jackomo” were two of these Black Indian chants.

The phonetic words of the song Iko Iko

The words as they are sung today are:
Iko, Iko,
Iko, Iko an day
Jockomo fee no ah na nay
Jockomo fee na nay

Over the years the song has been covered by many artists, including The Dixie Cups, the Grateful Dead, Dr. John, Cyndi Lauper and The Belle Stars. Some artists have introduced variations of their own. For instance Dr. John sings "Jockomo pee no ah nan day" as opposed to the 1953 lyrics of Sugar Boy Crawford - "Chocomo fee no wah na nay". You can listen to both versions on "Deezer.com" by inputting into the search box either "Jockomo" (for the Sugar Boy Crawford version) or "Iko Iko" (for the individual versions of all the other groups or singers, including Dr. John’s version).

If the song is still being sung 500 years from now, one wonders what the words will have evolved to!

The word "Jockomo"

When Sugar Boy Crawford sang the song in 1953 it was not entitled "Iko Iko" but "Jock-o-mo". Sugar Boy Crawford says he used the word "Choc-o-mo" in the 1953 recording, but the Chess & Checkers Recording Label's President, Lloyd Price, misheard what he had sung and issued the record under the title Jock-o-mo.

Sugar Boy Crawford wasn’t the only singer to use the word Chocomo or Jock-o-mo. The most oft-recorded Indian tribe, Big Chief Boudreaux and the Golden Eagles, issued “In the Morning, Jockomo”, the Krewe Renegades recorded “Jockomo Zydeco”, Huey Piano Smith’s song “Don’t You Know Yocomo” can be heard on Deezer.com and Danny Baker’s song released on King Zulu Records had lyrics of “Choco Me Fee ndo Hey”.

However, the word is NOT either "Jockomo" (as sung by The Dixie Cups, Dr. John, The Grateful Dead and other artists) or “Chocomo” (as Sugar Boy Crawford sang it) or even “Yocomo or Choco Me” as sung by Huey Piano Smith and Danny Baker.

On a sleeve note to one of his albums Dr. John says “Jockomo means jester in the old myth”. The old myth means French Creole, which strayed from traditional French and went its own way as they evolved on the other side of the Atlantic far from their European cousins.

In Creole "Jackomo" might just mean Court Jester – but the connection is very remote, and unlikely, as explained below.

The Court Jester was one of the personages of mediaeval courts, his purpose being to amuse or distract the attendants of the court, its King and Queen, Princes and Nobles. The jester was thus a truly multi-talented person - he could sing, he could dance, he could act, he could juggle, he could tell jokes, play musical instruments, and recite poetry - but the jester was traditionally known for his ability to play the clown.

It was for this reason that the French courts mostly used the word "bouffon" (buffoon in English) when they referred to the jester. However they also used other words - Claun (clown), Fou (fool or idiot or madman), Jongleur (juggler).

When the personages of the Court were incorporated into decks of playing cards in the 1400’s to 1600’s, the order of the top three cards depicted the most familiar and the most powerful court figures - the King, the Queen, and the English Knave or Jack. The French words for these three figures were "Roi" (King), "Dame" (Queen), and the Jack in a deck of French playing cards was called the “Valet” (for squire or knight).

The nearest to "Jockomo" in these court cards is the English JACK. But "Jockomo" was far from being a "jester". The Jack and the Valet in both English and French playing cards is a knight, hero or nobleman. Further evidence lies in the original French names for the four “Valets” in each of the four suits.
- Jack of Spades: Ogier a cousin of Charlemagne
- Jack of Hearts: La Hire fought for Joan of Arc
- Jack of Diamonds: Hector - from Homer’s Iliad
- Jack of Clubs: Lancelot - of Arthurian legend, a knight of the Round Table

There is only one other card in a deck of cards which shows a figure - the Joker - which in French is a "Fou" meaning idiot or fool or madman or jester. The figure depicted is of a person with a multi-colored cap with three appendages whose extremities are equipped with small bells. And “Fou” is definitely one of the references for a “jester” – making some kind of case for what Dr. John contends.

However, none of the various French names for a jester (bouffon, claun, fou) has any connotation with “Jockomo”. Even the Creoles or Cajuns would have called the Jester a “Fou”, not "Jockomo".

If further proof is needed, not one of the five Creole dictionaries used for this article cite the word Jockomo as a jester. In fact, the words Jacquemot, or Jockomo, or Chocomo, or Yocomo, or Choco Me, are all entirely absent from the dictionaries.

The most likely meaning of Jockomo

Far more likely is that Jockomo is simply the misspelling of a genuine French name, whose English equivalent is rooted in the name JACK. In French Jack is “Jacques”, and it can change into Jacquemot in two ways:
1. The first is as a surname to which an addition has been made – as in common French surnames such as “Jacquemin, Jacquemont, Jacquemond, or Jacquemot.”
2. The second, and most likely origin of “Jacquemot” is that adding “mot” to the end of a first name is the affectionate way of referring to “Jacques” – as Pierrot is for Pierre, and as Jeannot is for Jean. It basically confers on the name "Jaques" a familiarity and affection that can mean “Little Jack”, or “Our Jack” or “Our dear, little Jacques”.

A French source (citations.com) for the origin and etymology of French names specifically reports on the name "Jacquemot". The translation of what they say is:"the name comes from an ancient baptism name which has now become recognized in a hereditary sense. It has been constructed from the name Jacqueme, which was the ancient form of the name Jacques".

It may well be that sometime in a long distant past (the Chants have been going for well over two centuries) one of the Big Chiefs was someone called Jacques, who his tribe would have affectionately called Jacquemot, and their chant must have made such an impression that the name itself stuck and went into Black Indian lore. The name would only have been remembered phonetically because Black Indian tradition was oral, not written - so it may have deformed with time and usage to Jockomo. But in its original Creole it would have been Jacquemot.

So "Chocomo" as sung by Sugar Boy Crawford in 1953 is essentially what it really is in French – a name – Jacquemot.

The last two lines

The last lines of the song “Jockomo fee no wah na nay - Jockomo fee na nay” are two genuine French Creole-origin sentences which were adapted in the Black Indian chant and which paid scant respect to the rules of French grammar.

"Jockomo fee no wah na nay" is "Jaquemot fi nou wa nan né".... which in English is: 'Jacquemot made our King into born”.

And "Jockomo fee na nay" is "Jacquemot fi nan né."... which in English is: 'Jacquemot made into born'.

We can prove this by examining the individual words of the original Creole chant:
“Jacquemot fi nou wa nan né"
“Jacquemot fi nan né”

The word "fi"

The word “fi” (pronounced fee) is the third person past tense of the conjugation of the French verb “faire”, which means to make, to do, to prepare, to construct etc. So "Jacquemot fi" would be "Jacquemot made" (or did, or prepared, or constructed).

Modern French has no word such as “fi”. For “fi” the French say “fit” (made). In addition, modern French speakers rarely use “fit”. Thus, to say "Jacquemot made" - they would say "Jacquemot a fait" – not “Jacquemot fit” (even though it is grammatically correct) - because it is 'old French'.

However, 'old French' is very prevalent in the Creole language. The Verbix Conjugator (reference at the end of this article) gives the use of “fi” for all cases:

I made - mo fi
You made - to fi
He or she made - li fi
We made - nou fi
You made - vou fi
They made - yè fi

But Sugar Boy Crawford wasn't a Creole speaker. He was a young man listening to Back Indians slogging it out verbally at Mardi Gras. It's highly likely that when he heard the Indians chanting "Jacquemot fi..." he would, quite naturally, have phonetically written it as "Chocomo fee..."

The word "no"

The Sugar Boy Crawford lyrics "Jockomo fee no" are really "Jacquemot fi nou".

The "no" used in the Sugar Boy Crawford version is not a negative. It is really "nou" the Creole word for "our", "us" or "we".

Sugar Boy Crawford however heard "no" for "nou"

To a young 19 year old black musician listening to a rowdy chant by a whole tribe in a noisy New Orleans street, the distinction would have been hard to pick up. He wrote down what he heard as best he could, equating the word 'nou' to the English word 'no'. Perhaps it was even due to the way the 'warring' Indians pronounced the word, cutting short the ending.

The words "wah na nay"

As an entire set of three words, "wah na nay" does not exist in either traditional old French, modern French, or Cajun French.

In phonetic Creole French however, it does exist. It’s “wa” (in French Roi, in Englsh King) – "nan" (into) – "né" (born).

The Creoles changed the French pronunciation of the word King (Roi) to the simpler and flatter "Wa" leaving off the initial 'r' sound (as catalogued in the Creole/English Wordlist referenced at the end of this article).

The word "Nan" is is exclusively peculiar to Creole. The Creole/English Wordlist (reference at end of this article) shows several meanings of "nan", which are 'into' 'in', 'to', 'on'.

And the word "Né" (born) is the same in both Creole and French, pronounced 'nay' just as Sugar Boy Crawford wrote it.

So the whole line:
"Jockomo fee no wah na nay" is:"Jacquemot fi nou wa nan né" meaning "Jacquemot made our King into born" (in English: Jacquemot gave life to our King)
and
And "Jockomo fee na nay" is: "Jacquemot fi nan né" meaning "Jacquemot made into born". In this sense 'born' is used more like 'gave life to'.

It’s the kind of pidgin-French that would make French speakers cringe, but Creole grammar, although similar, doesn’t have the same syntax as French grammar.

The opening lines of "Iko Iko"

Iko, Iko,
Iko, Iko an day

A web site called 'clearlight.com' advances the possibility that "Iko", and "Amay" come from the Gambian language. Their web page provides us with the following information:

"Iko, and un day (amay), are Creole corruptions of the Gambian call Ago! [Pay Attention!] and the expected response, which is Amay! [I/we are listening]". In other words, the contention on the clearlight.com web site is that the Chant:

Iko! Iko!
Iko! Iko! An day!

...really was:

Ago! Ago! (Attention! Attention!)
Ago! Ago! Amay! (Attention! Attention! We are listening!)!

At first sight, this looks like a reasonable possibility. There are however good reasons for challenging it.

In the first place, it is incorrect to refer to a ‘Gambian call', because there are several languages in Gambia. Mandinka and Wollof are the primary languages but there are also Pulaar, Sarahole, Serer-Sine, and other dialects.

Fortunately, there are two reliable dictionaries that can help us. In 1995 the Peace Corps put together dictionaries of the two principal Gambian languages, Wollof and Mandinka, and both can be accessed as pdf files free of charge on-line at africanculture.dk/gambia.

However, neither the Wollof/English nor the Mandinka/English dictionaries contain the words "Ago!" or "Amay" referred to on the clearlight.com website.

Furthermore neither the Wollof nor the Mandinka words for "listen" bear any resemblance to "Amay"
-In Wollof (page 61 of the dictionary) "listen" is not "amay" but "déglu".
-And in Mandinka (page 132 of the dictionary) "listen" is not "amay" but "Tuloo loo" or "Lamoyiroo".

And finally, the words written down by Sugar Boy Crawford were in any case “ah nay” – not “amay”.

There is however a closer and genuinely Creole French origin for the words:
Iko! Iko!
Iko! Iko! an day!

It is:
Akout! Akout!
Akout! Akout! an dèyè!

“Akout!” (“Ecoute!” in French) is “Listen!” (source www.sioudi.com)
“An” is Creole for the English “in” (source Creole/English Wordlist)
and “dèyè” in English is “after”, or “behind” or “rear” (Creole/English Wordlist).

So:
Iko! Iko!
Iko! Iko! an day!

Would be in Creole:
Akout! Akout!
Akout! Akout! an dèyè!

And in English:
Listen! Listen!
Listen! Listen! in (the) rear!

This would plausibly be what the gang at the front (Big Chief, the Queen, Flagboys, Spyboys and Wildmen) leading the procession would be chanting to their followers behind them as the whole tribe marched down the street.

The fact that the French Creole “Akout!” was pronounced as “Iko!” was possibly due to how the Black Indians deformed or adapted the Creole word to suit their timing, metre or accent, leaving off the hard “ut” at the end of the word.

The whole verse

As sung by Sugar Boy Crawford and the Dixie Cups:
Iko! Iko!
Iko! Iko! an day!
Jockomo fee no wah na nay
Jockomo fee na nay

In the original Creole French would be:
Akout! Akout!
Akout! Akout! an dèyè!
Jacquemot fi nou wa nan né
Jacquemot fi nan né

And in English would be:
Listen! Listen!
Listen! Listen! at the rear!
Jacquemot made our King to born
Jaquemot made to born

It’s never easy to decipher the true origins of a very old chant, especially as it wasn’t written down but passed from generation to generation, but whatever the truth – it’s still a great song!

External links

• example.com