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Coded Slave Songs |
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The fact that contemporary soul descended from an amalgam of
Gospel music and R&B is beyond question, but if we trace its roots back still further
we come to the point from which all Afro-American music evolved, the slave songs. Before the Civil War, the crime of helping slaves
to escape, or even inciting them to escape was punishable by death. For this reason the slaves started to put coded
messages into their songs, so that they could communicate in ways that the
‘massa’s’ could not understand.
Marlena Shaw’s excellent ‘Wade in the Water’
has long been a big soul favourite of mine, so when I discovered a snippit in a book,
which described a gospel version of it my interest was aroused.
‘“Wade in the Water”, one of the most common
slave songs and still a gospel standard, provided literal escape instructions’
(A Change is Gonna Come- Craig Werner (P7))
This ‘Gospel’ version was allegedly a derivation of
a coded slave song. My first task was to find
out if Marlena Shaw’s song was a secular re-work of this gospel favourite or not. Thankfully John Glassburner, a contact on the
internet, who has three versions of the Gospel original, and the contemporary version was
able to confirm that it was. Furthermore he
was able to provide me with the lyrics of the gospel variant.
Wade in the water (children)
Wade in the water
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
If you don't believe I've been redeemed
God's gonna trouble the water
I want you to follow him on down to Jordan stream
(I said) My God's gonna trouble the water
You know chilly water is dark and cold
(I know my) God's gonna trouble the water
You know it chills my body but not my soul
(I said my) God's gonna trouble the water
(Come on let's) wade in the water
Wade in the water (children)
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
Now if you should get there before I do
(I know) God's gonna trouble the water
Tell all my friends that I'm comin' too
(I know) God's gonna trouble the water
Sometimes I'm up lord and sometimes I'm down
(You know my) God's gonna trouble the water
Sometimes I'm level to the ground
God's gonna trouble the water
(I Know) God's gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water (children)
Wade out in the water (children)
God's gonna trouble the water
To try and de-code this song now is difficult. Firstly
we don’t know what the code is but which must have been quite sophisticated if it was
to fool the Massa’s and the bounty hunters. The
second problem is that there is no guarantee that these are indeed the original lyrics. The slave songs were passed on by word of mouth
and never written down. There may well have been several other variants before we arrived
at the gospel version we see here. None the
less there are still enough references for us to say it was originally about escape. The very title of ‘Wade in the Water’ is
advice to the runaways on how to avoid being tracked by bloodhounds. The reference to ‘Jordan’ could well be
the Promised Land, in this case Canada where slavery did not exist. ‘It chills my body, but not my soul’ is
reference to the physical discomforts that the journey will take, but at the same time is
trying to bolster the spirits. ‘Now if
you should get there before I do’ and ‘Tell my friends that I’m a
comin’ too’ are much more obvious allusions to a journey.
“Wade in the Water” is an important soul record
because of its historical links. It has a
clear and traceable lineage way back to the cotton fields.
A record which the soul fraternity now dance the night away to was once a
song which pointed the way to freedom, and may even have saved lives.
Probably the most famous slave song was entitled,
‘Follow the Drinking Gourd’ which to my knowledge has no contemporary version. What made it special was that it not only gave
hidden advice but also contained a complete coded map with full details of how to escape
to Canada. The Monty Python team, probably
wholly unaware of its hidden agenda, skitted the song in ‘The Life Of Brian’ as
they included a sketch where demented Jews trailed a physical gourd.
For those who haven’t already worked out what ‘The
Drinking Gourd’ is, it is a reference to ‘the big dipper’ a constellation
very close to the North Star itself. The
North Star can be very difficult to recognise, but ‘The Big Dipper’ is easily
identifiable, looking like a massive drinking gourd, and a clear indication of a northerly
direction. The series of routes and safe
houses, which were often run by Quakers, was known as ‘The Underground Railway’. This is the railway, which James Carr was singing
about in his ‘Freedom Train’. By
1861 there were about 500 abolitionists, helping slaves find this invisible network of
pathways, safe houses and signals. Probably
the most courageous of these was known as ‘Peg Leg Joe’ who moved from one
plantation to another teaching slaves the lyrics to ‘Drinking Gourd’ and helping
them interpret it.
A full interpretation of the song was posted in the
‘Detroit News’ on Tuesday 25th. February 1997.
‘When
the sun comes up and the first quail calls, follow the drinking gourd.
For
the old man is a-waiting to carry you to freedom,
If
you follow the drinking gourd.’
(With
the beginning of winter on Dec. 21, the sun starts climbing higher in the sky each day.
And in winter, the call of migratory quail echoes across southern fields. So Peg Leg Joe's
ingenious song advised slaves to escape in winter and head north toward the Big Dipper --
code name, drinking gourd. A guide will be waiting at the end of the line. )
‘ The riverbank makes a very good road.
The dead trees show you the way,
Left foot, peg foot, travelling on
Follow the drinking gourd. ‘
(This verse directs fugitives to the Tombigbee River, where special
"Peg Leg" markings on fallen trees will show they're on the correct northerly
course. Travelling under cover of darkness, slaves could find their way along a river even
on nights too overcast for the Big Dipper's stars to shine through. The Tombigbee River,
which empties into Alabama's Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, originates in northeast
Mississippi. Perhaps as many as 200,000 enslaved people lived near that river, according
to Gloria Rall, producer of a children's planetarium show, Following the Drinking Gourd,
about the escape route. )
‘The
river ends between two hills.
Follow the drinking gourd.
There's another river on the other side,
Follow the drinking gourd. ‘
(When the Tombigbee ends, the runaways who'd memorized the song knew to walk north
over a hill until they came to another river, the Tennessee, then go north on it as well.
)
‘Where the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the drinking gourd.
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom,
If you follow the drinking gourd. ‘
(The song ends by instructing slaves that at the end of Tennessee River they must cross
over to the north side of the big Ohio River, where someone from the Underground Railroad
would ensure their passage to the first of a string of safe houses reaching all the way to
Canada. )
Getting across
But how were slaves to ford the huge Ohio? Swimming across was all but
impossible. Although boats on the Illinois side of the river did cross over to pick up
riders, planetarium show producer Rall has noted, an escaped slave who waited long risked
meeting up instead with a bounty hunter.
The solution was to walk across the Ohio River when it was frozen.
Because Underground Railroad engineers calculated that the trip from the Deep South to the
Ohio normally took about a year, their "Drinking Gourd" song suggested beginning
the journey north in winter in order to get to the Ohio by the next winter.
Eliza Harris, the heroine of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous
abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was "modelled on a real woman who crossed the
ice of the Ohio River in winter," Underground Railroad scholar Blockson explained in
a National Geographic article. By the time Eliza reached the river, its ice was breaking
up.
"In desperation as her pursuers closed in, Eliza darted into the
river, holding her child in her arms. Springing from one floe to another, she lost her
shoes in the icy waters but struggled on with bleeding feet to the opposite shore and the
safety of the Ohio underground," Blockson recalls.
With her heart-stopping story of Eliza's flight to freedom, Stowe
fuelled anti-slavery sentiment in the North and became, in the words of Abraham Lincoln,
"the little woman ... who wrote the book that made this great war."
To
see the complete article follow this link http://detnews.com/1997/accent/9702/25/02250025.htm
For
more information on the Underground Railway follow this link
http://www.ugrr.org/wwwhome.htm
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