There is an old Gullah Geechee tale about an incredible slave rebellion.
According to the story, a group of kidnapped Igbo people screamed all the way from Africa to America. Every time the captain would send members of the crew down into the belly of the ship to quiet them, the crew members would be afraid because they would realize that the captives weren’t just screaming; they were saying one chant, over and over, in unison. They were just waiting and praying: “Orimiri Omambala bu anyi bia. Orimiri Omambala ka anyi ga ejina.”
As the ship drew closer to the shore, the chants grew louder. “Orimiri Omambala bu anyi bia. Orimiri Omambala ka anyi ga ejina,” they yelled in unison.
And somehow, the Africans broke the chains, rebelled and threw the entire crew overboard. Led by a captured chieftain, the people walked calmly into the sea, chanting: “Orimiri Omambala bu anyi bia. Orimiri Omambala ka anyi ga ejina,” drowning themselves rather than be slaves. Some say the number was 75; others say it was 13.
But that’s the white version of the story.
In the Black version, the enslaved people survived.
Which one do you believe?
In 1940, the Georgia Writers’ Project released what might be the whitest and the Blackest book ever published.
Drums and Shadows is essentially a collection of interviews conducted by the 1930s Federal Writers’ Project workers and the Gullah people in the coastal region of South Carolina and Georgia. The book opened with a warning that while most of the people were God-fearing Christians, they still managed to hold on to superstitious beliefs and pagan rituals from their African ancestors.
“Today sorcery is still practiced,” district supervisor Mary Granger explained whitely in the book’s introduction. “Modern root doctors, visited frequently by their superstitious clients, perform mystic rites and promise to work miracles and cures.”
These white people had no idea what they were talking about.
First of all, instead of treating the interviewees like they treated white men with Southern accents, they wrote the Gullah people’s words phonetically. But my favorite part is how they wrote about the Igbo Landing and other crazy “superstitions” of these Christian communities.
Here are a few that I have kept in the original Gullah language, followed by my translation into standard English:
Muh mothuh use tuh tell me bout slabes jis brung obuh frum Africa wut hab duh supreme magic powuh.Deah wuz a magic pass wud dat dey would pass tuh udduhs. Ef dey belieb in dis magic, dey could scape an fly back tuh Africa. I hab a uncle wut could wuk dis magic. He could disappeah lak duh win, jis walk off duh plantation an stay way fuh weeks at a time. One time he git cawnuhed by duh putrolmun an he jis walk up to a tree an he say, ‘I tink I go intuh dis tree.’ Den he disappeah right in duh tree.
— Jack Wilson
Translation: My mother used to tell me about slaves just brought over from Africa who had the supreme magical power. There was a magic password that they would pass on to others. If they believed in this magic, they could escape and fly back to Africa. I have an uncle who could work this magic. He could disappear like the wind, just walk off the plantation and stay away for weeks at a time. One time he got cornered by the patrolman and he just walked up to a tree and said, ‘“I think I will go into this tree.”
Then he disappeared right into the tree.
Wen I wuz a boy I heah lots uh stories bout people flyin. Some folks brung obuh frum Africa could fly off aw disappeah anytime dey wanted tuh. I alluz belieb dat story. I know folks right now dat kin make duh spirits uh dead people come back.
— Henry Bates
Translation: When I was a boy I heard lots of stories about people flying. Some folks brought over from Africa could fly off or disappear anytime they wanted to. I always believed that story. I know folks right now that can make the spirits of dead people come back."
Doze folks could fly too. Dey tell me deah’s a lot ub un, wut wuz bring heah an dey ain much good. Duh massuh wuz fixin tuh tie um up tuh whip um. Dey say, ‘Massuh, yuh ain gwine lick me,’ and wid dat dey runs down tuh duh ribbuh. Duh obuhseeuh he sho tought he ketch um wen dey git tuh duh ribbuh. But fo he could git tuh um, dey riz up in duh eah an fly way. Dey fly right back tuh Africa. I tink dat happen on Butler Ilun.
— Cuffy Wilson
Translation: Those folks could fly, too. They tell me there's a lot of them who were brought here, and they weren't much good (to the slaveholders). The master was fixing to tie them up to whip them. They said, 'Master, you aren't going to lick me,' and with that they ran down to the river. The overseer surely thought he would catch them when they got to the river. But before he could get to them, they rose up in the air and flew away. They flew right back to Africa. I think that happened on Butler Island
Some of the blasphemous, so-called “mystic rites” practiced by these so-called Christians were actually everyday religious practices. For instance, when the interviewers wrote about Bilal, an enslaved man who came from Africa, they didn’t just spell his name wrong; they were too dumb to associate his name, the names of his children, the waistbeads his daughter wore or even the way they prayed with Bilal’s Muslim faith.
“Belali hab plenty daughtuhs: Medina, Yaruba, Fatima, Bentoo, Hestuh, Magret, and Chaalut,” the interviewer wrote. “Dey weah duh string uh beads on duh wais. Dey pray at sun-up and face duh sun on duh knees an bow tuh it tree times, kneelin on a lill mat.”
Now here’s my question: Which one is more believable?
The stories I translated about enslaved Africans who had magical powers that allowed them to walk on water, raise the dead and fly back to the place where they were born; or:
The stories a white man translated about a Jew who had superpowers that allowed him to walk on water, raise the dead and ascend back to his father in heaven.
Here’s another question:
What if Harriet Tubman could fly?
We still don’t actually know how Harriet Tubman reached freedom. Historians say “her exact escape route is unknown, as is the source of help she received on her way to Pennsylvania…and it is unclear how long it took her.” The people who were there say Harriet Tubman “disappeared” into thin air. The white people translated it into “escape.”
And in regard to her escape, all she ever said was: “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”
Anyway, back to the Igbo Landing.
In the 1980s, researchers found a 150-year-old letter from Roswell King to Pierce Butler, a plantation owner and slave owner on St. Simons Island, detailing how he had lost an entire shipload of enslaved Igbo people who walked into the water. A few years later, someone found another letter from a company demanding payment for being hired to recover bodies from a marsh of Igbo slaves who jumped to their deaths. But Pierce refused to pay the company, because...well…
They didn’t find any bodies.
What if I told you that Harriet Tubman actually said that she “flew like a bird?” What if her brother said she got her powers from a meteor shower and not being beaten by a slavemaster? What if she said it, too? What if the Star of Bethlehem that signaled Jesus’ birth was a meteor?
What if Maurice White claimed a voice spoke to him and gave him a superpower that became the music of Earth, Wind & Fire?
Now that’s just crazy.
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Today’s Reading List:
Earth Wind and Fire Explained by Michael Harriot
The Hoodoo Guide to the Bible by Sherry Shone
My Life With Earth Wind & Fire by Maurice White
The Undeniable Witchiness of Harriet Tubman by Astrea Taylor
