What is the secret message in Follow the Drinking Gourd?
Lee Hays Arrangement
| LYRICS | EXPLANATION |
|---|---|
| Follow the drinking gourd | The “drinking gourd” alludes to the hollowed out gourd used by slaves (and other rural Americans) as a water dipper. Used here it is a code name for the Big Dipper star formation, which points to Polaris, the Pole Star, and North. |
What does Follow the Drinking Gourd symbolize?
“Follow the Drinking Gourd” was a song used in the Underground Railroad to help give directions to the escaping slaves. The “drinking gourd” was the name for a hollow gourd that the slaves would use to collect water.
How did the use of the song Follow the Drinking Gourd help enslaved people in the Underground Railroad?
The Drinking Gourd song was supposedly used by an Underground Railroad operative to encode escape instructions and a map. These directions then enabled fleeing slaves to make their way north from Mobile, Alabama to the Ohio River and freedom.
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls meaning?
Refers to the winter or spring. The days are getting longer, and the angle of the sun is higher each day at noon. and the first quail calls, Refers to the breeding season.
Why was William still so important to the Underground Railroad?
Still was the director of a complex network of abolitionists, sympathizers and safe houses that stretched from Philadelphia to what is now Southern Ontario. In his fourteen years in the service of the Underground Railroad, he helped nearly eight hundred former slaves to escape.
What was the drinking gourd in slavery?
The Drinking Gourd is another name for the Big Dipper asterism. Folklore has it that enslaved people in the United States used it as a point of reference so they would not get lost. According to legend, the song was used by a conductor of the Underground Railroad, called Peg Leg Joe, to guide some fugitive slaves.
How did the slaves use the Big Dipper to escape?
In the early-to-mid 19th century, countless American slaves used the Big Dipper—aka the Drinking Gourd—as a guide to finding the North Star in the night sky, which led them to the northern (freed) states.
What did fugitive slaves use to locate the North Star?
As slave lore tells it, the North Star played a key role in helping slaves to find their way—a beacon to true north and freedom. Escaping slaves could find it by locating the Big Dipper, a well-recognized asterism most visible in the night sky in late winter and spring.
What does God’s gonna trouble the water mean?
English term or phrase: “(God’s’) a gonna trouble the water” Selected answer: going to stir up the (healing) waters.
What message was hidden in the song Wade in the Water?
“The secret code in ‘Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water’ for the slaves trying to escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad, meant to be aware that one of the methods used by the slave masters to track runaway slaves down was to send their bloodhounds out to track down the slave,” Calvin Earl, an …
Was William still a real person?
William Still, a free-born Black, became an abolitionist movement leader and writer during the antebellum period in American history. He was also one of the most successful Black businessmen in the history of the City of Philadelphia.