Why we Sing.............Spirituals as Coded Communication Perhaps the best known use of spirituals in the service of freedom during the slave period was the imbedding of “hidden” or coded messages in song lyrics for the purpose of clandestine (secret) communication on the Underground Railroad. One of the first public revelations by a former slave of this practice of secret communication through spirituals is found in the autobiographical writings of the noted Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in which Douglass revealed to his readers that some songs interpreted by outsiders as referring to life after death in Heaven, were actually understood within the enslaved African community as signifying a determination to reach freedom in the North, outside the reach and power of Southern plantation owners. Two common types of coded spirituals were signal songs and map songs. In a signal song, a singer or group of singers communicated in code that a certain event – such as a planned escape from a plantation – was imminent. In a map song, the lyrics actually contained elements of a map that directed people to significant points of escape along the routes of the Underground Railroad. The most famous map song was “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” which used the metaphor of a drinking gourd to symbolize the constellation of stars known as the Big Dipper, containing the North Star, an important compass guide for individuals and families who needed to be certain that they were continuing to travel in the direction of north as they made their way to freedom.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:03:38 +0000
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