Folklore: Italian dandle song

Genre: Counting Rhyme, Albanian-Sicilian 

Concetta Orlando, female, 91
great-grandmother/housewife
Italian-born, Italian-Sicilian-Albanian-English-speaking
Richmond, CA
Oct. 14, 2001
Genre: Dandle Rhyme, counting

Natare Natare (it begins in Italian)
(na-tar re na-tar re) 

(nonsense sounds)
cerca diu
(cheshka deeo)
Look for two [people]
cerca diu un lavandare
(cheshka puu un lav andare)
Look for 2 people
lavandare ki kiri ki
( la van dar re (nonsense sounds: a rooster)
una due e li tri
(oona dew way ee lee tree)
one, two and three
yetz ze ata di mauri (last line is in Albanian)
yets zee ata dee mauree)
Go to those two poor wretches.

Connie, who was born in 1910 in the 500-year-old village of Piana digli Albanesi, Sicily, Italy, came to the United States to meet her American-born husband in 1930, where she learned English. 

She learned this counting baby dandle song from her own nonna, her grandmother, who was also from Piana digli Albanesi (Plain of the Albanians, founded by Albanian refugees fleeing from Ottoman Turks in 1492). She says that she first learned this dandle rhyme in 1912 when she was two or three. She had six sisters and a brother; three grandparents lived with them. They all grew up with the dandle.

Connie lives at 653 W. “H” Street, in Ontario, Ca., 91762, and is very active. She is a great-great-grandmother so there are always plenty of babies around to dandle. Using a pillow, she showed me how she rocked the baby who either drooped over at her knee, or sat on it, depending on how big it was, and how she patted his back, saying the dandle, her hand keeping time with each syllable of the dandle rhyme. 

Like many rhymes, this has a chant-like quality, almost a song. She said that many of the words were nonsense words, but when pressed, she was able to translate many of them. I suspect that the Albanian line is written in phonetic Italian. 

And I wonder if Natare has anything to do with natal—as in birth, as it does sound like a real word. 

Another Albanian dandle, Neo neo na, which I wasn’t able to get the complete version from Connie (but we have it on video-tape), translates something like this: Neo neo na (nonsense words), we’re all going to Lacabau (a make believe place), we went there, didn’t want the ???, they took the meat, two rams ate them up, two elves grabbed them by the horns, and the little girl has two eyes. Connie says that it’s a fairy tale dandle. 

Neil O'Neill said that he collected Neo neo na ca. 1999, so the Albanian dandle should be in the Folklore Archives in Kroeber Hall.

To dan·dle, a verb, dan·dled, dan·dling.
To move (a baby, child, etc.) lightly up and down, a son one's knee or in one's arms.
Origin: 1520–30; dand- (obscurely akin to the base of French dandiner to dandle, se dandiner, to waddle, and related Romance words)

In my family we sang a few English dandles:Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John

Went to bed with his britches on.

One shoe off, and one shoe on;

Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John.

Deedle, deedle dumpling, my son John,

Went to bed with his stockings on

One shoe off, and one shoe on,

Deedle, deedle dumpling, my son John.  

(And off came the shoes. An undressing dandle?)

(Roud Folk Song Index number of 19709. ca.1797)

To market, to market to buy a fat pig.
Home again, home again, Jiggity jig!
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog.
Home again, home again, Jiggity jog!

( Another shoe undressing dandle? Followed by This little piggie went to market...)

(Roud #19708, ca. 1611)

And there was one about a hobbity horse that I can't remember. But it would be interesting to trace the subject matter of the Albanian dandle: meat, elves, eyes, sheep, and compare it with other dandles.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

List of English nursery rhymes