According to an article in "Kodaly Envoy" by Lum Chee-Hoo, some time between 1922 and 1931, members of the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals collected a version from the South Carolina coast. "Come by Yuh", as they called it, was sung in Gullah, the creole language spoken by the former slaves living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, as well as The Bahamas. It is possible this is the earliest version, if it was collected before 1926. Because the individual songs in this society's publications are not dated, however, it cannot be dated with certainty to before 1931.