Abstract

Abstract:

In the first half of the twentieth century, many African Americans in the South regarded owls as harbingers of death. This paper examines interviews conducted by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s to investigate why former slaves repeatedly spoke of the screeching or hooting of an owl as a sign that death was nearby. This belief suggests that African Americans understood these birds to either possess or embody supernatural spirits that were able to move between the spiritual and material worlds, a passage that was very permeable in African-American culture. In an attempt to answer why African Americans regarded owls in this way, this article looks to the characteristics of owls as birds of prey in juxtaposition to black folklore from during and following the slavery era. Many slaves understood that after death, the soul of the deceased returned to the continent of Africa. Spiritual birds of flight facilitated this journey to the land of ancestors acting as guides for spirits or carriers of spirits of dead slaves in the afterlife. As Christianity became more widespread across the antebellum South, the notion of flight enabled slaves to remain confident that their souls would be carried to Heaven upon the snowy white wings of angels and cherubs. Birds and winged creatures were the epitome of liberté totale for enslaved African Americans, a freedom that was achieved through flight.

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