References to praying in a pot, like those heard by Ruby Pickens Tartt in Sumter County, Alabama, [1] appeared in 58 slave narratives collected between 1936 and 1938 by employees of the Federal Writers’ Project. [2] Most of the memorats were recorded in Arkansas (22), North Carolina (11), Alabama (7), Tennessee (5), and Texas (5).
Nine of the individuals said they were born before 1850, which means they could have participated in prayer meetings. Another 27 were born after that date, and either heard about the practice or remembered it from Civil War and Reconstruction times. [3] Josh Horn, quoted in the post for 22 September 2019, knew about the pots even though they weren’t used on his plantation. [4] They may have been a topic of discussion when freedman met after the war.
Nearly everyone believed the pots were used to use to dampen sound waves so outsiders wouldn’t hear their voices. [5] Minnie Fulkes specified the concern was "paddy rollers" in Petersburg, Virginia. [6] Henry Green suggested the practice continued after the war when the Ku Klux Klan took over the functions of the slave patrols in Montgomery, Alabama. [7]
The memorats were remarkably consistent for an activity that occurred in a number states over several generations. Most said they were "praying" (17) or "singing and praying" (19). Those who were young during the Civil War remembered they prayed for freedom. [8] Emma Barr [9] and Charles Hinton [10] specified this occurred during the Civil War in Arkansas and North Carolina. Those born after the war tended to be among the six who mentioned "shouting."
Those born before 1850 sometimes said they were wash pots, [11] but more often individuals simply used the term "pot." Those born later were more specific. Ella Washington said they used "de great big hog pot dey uses to scald hogs." [12] John Hunter remembered they were "big old iron pots." [13]
Most said the pot was turned upside down at the door. Only one remembered it being placed in the middle of the room. [14] A few tried to reconcile the idea of singing or praying into something that was inverted. Henry Cheatam [15] and Emma Tidwell [16] said the voices went under the pot. Will Glass thought there was a hole under the pot for the head. [17]
All the interviewed African-Americans were at least two generations removed from Africa. [18]
The practice may have been introduced by individuals who came from a single cultural area, but was accepted by others because it fit their own, different, religious needs. The purpose may have been so obvious to participants that it didn’t need stating. In the resulting information vacuum, their descendants may have created their own reasons for perpetuating the ritual.
George Rawick thought the use of the pot might have been borrowed from the Yorùbá who placed pots in their shrines to the river gods. [19] His explanation is internally consistent, but does not explain why the pots ware set on their rims. It also does not accord with the demographics of slavery. The map below shows the natal counties of the people who said they had used pots in religious meetings.
The large clusters in northern North Carolina and northern Tennessee may have been a result of the activity of the Federal Writers’ Project in Raleigh and Nashville. Keeping that in mind, many of the reports were from areas settled by small farmers from Virginia who took their slaves with them, or later bought them from speculators disbursing chattel purchased in Richmond. That would make the southern neighbors of the Yorùbá, the Igbo, just as likely to have been the fountainhead. [20]
The Igbo were metal workers centuries before the Yorùbá. The earliest known Igbo religious site has been dated to the ninth century;[21] the Ife bronzes associated with the Yorùbá are believed to have been created in "the late 12th or early 13th century." [22]
Nothing is known of their origin. [23] Judging by the date, the Igbo may have been fleeing subjugation by some regional power. [24] Their priest, the Eze Nri, was associated with introducing the yam. [25]
John Jaynes suggested that early peoples had direct contact with gods who spoke directly with them, but when a severe crisis occurred that resulted in migration and new eating patterns, individuals lost their immediate contact with the supernatural. They turned to oracles who communicated with gods at specific locations. [26] The Igbo priest had direct contact with the oracle called Chukwu. [27]
The Eze Nri was responsible for restoring the purity of the land, and adjudicating conflicts. He did not believe in slavery, which corrupted the earth, and did not establish a political or military state. [28] Bassey Andah noted bells were "a primary symbol of rank and power" for important individuals. [29]
The identity of the Igbo oracle varied over time. Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa said "the Awka blacksmiths, who worked at markets and settled all over Igboland and the Niger Delta, spread the influence of the Agbala oracle." [30] Excavations at one site dated to 1491 unearthed 15 iron gongs and cast bronze bells. [31]
The Portuguese established trade on the lower Niger river in 1485. [32] Soon after, the Onitsha formed a stronger social organization that may have borrowed elements from the Yorùbá of Benin. Chiefs were surrounded by malevolent spirits because they were responsible for killing others or ordering warfare. [33] Whenever they or their representatives traveled, a herald preceded them ringing a bell to drove away the evil spirits. [34]
When English traders reached the Niger river delta in the 1690s, [35] the Igbo were taken as slaves. In the early 1700s, the Aro invaded [36] and offered an alternative oracle, Arochukwu. The Aro priests used their powers of adjudication to sell the people they condemned to the Europeans. As mentioned in the post for 8 September 2019, the Igbo were the largest group of slaves taken to the Chesapeake between 1718 and 1750.
Inverted iron pots may have been as close to bells as slaves could acquire. Instead of evil spirits, they may have been used to protect against outsiders. Less literally, the substitute bells may have been used to define a safe space. Once in place, they may have functioned in other ways for some participants.
Any cultural attributions are speculation at best: the sample of American narratives was created by "pure happenstance." [37] African facts still literally are being unearthed. We know the Igbo and Yorùbá were neighbors in Africa who exchanged cultural elements. Such overlaps may have facilitated the acceptance of practices that may have been central to one and familiar enough to another. [38] By the 1930s, individuals who shared an activity remembered it from the perspective of their unique cultural heritages, and thus what might once had been a fairly uniform African-in-America activity reflected the diversity of the African-American experience.
Graphics
The original map is from the United States Census Bureau. Abe Suleiman uploaded a copy to Wikimedia Commons on 7 February 2010.
End Notes
1. Tartt’s narratives were quoted in the post for 22 September 2019.
2. George Rawick oversaw the publication of the WPA narratives by Greenwood Publishers of Westport, Connecticut, in The American Slave in the 1970s. The Project Gutenberg website since has posted the originals. I searched each of the on-line versions for the word "pot" to arrive at the sample used in this post. The following references cite volumes of A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project. Washington: Library of Congress, 1941.
3. Twenty-two narratives did not provide age or birth date information.
4. Josh Horn comments about the pot were not included in WPA interview, but in a essay by Tartt published by the Southwest Review in 1949. [39]
5. Only two ascribed a religious purpose: Georgiana Foster [40] and Julia Malone [41] said it was done so the Lord could hear. William Ball Williams III [42] and Wade Owens [43] said the same technique was used to protect dances.
6. Minnie Fulkes was born in Petersburg, Virginia. Volume XVII: Virginia Narratives. "Paddy rollers" was a common term for the slave patrols. The patrols were mentioned in the post for 8 September 2019.
7. Henry Green was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.
8. Praying for freedom was mentioned by eight.
9. Emma Barr was born in Madison County, Arkansas. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 1.
10. Charles Hinton was born in North Carolina. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.
11. For instance, Robert Wilson was born in 1836 in Halifax County, Virginia, [44] while Anderson Edwards was born in 1844 in Maryland. [45]
12. Ella Washington was born in 1852 in Saint Mary’s Parish, Louisiana. Volume XVI: Texas Narratives, Part 4.
13. John Hunter was born in 1864 in Halifax County, North Carolina. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.
14. Emma Barr.
15. Henry Cheatam was born in 1850 in Clay County, Mississippi. Volume I: Alabama Narratives.
16. Emma Tidwell. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 6.
17. Will Glass was born 1887. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.
18. Fannie Moore was the only one to indicate her grandmother came from Africa. Volume XI: North Carolina Narratives, Part 2.
19. George P. Rawick. From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, Press, 1972. 42. He was drawing on research by William Bascom. [46]
20. The Igbo were mentioned as the source for slaves in Virginia in the post for 8 September 2019.
21. Thurstan Shaw excavated three sites at Igbo-Ukwu. Carbon-14 dates from "wood from a copper-studded stool in the burial chamber fell in the time range from the eighth century to the early eleventh century, and three determinations from charcoal in the disposal pit belonged to the same period; another from the same source, however, fell into the late fourteenth/early fifteenth century." [47]
22. "Ile-Ife." Encyclopædia Britannica website.
23. Ogonna Chibuzo Agu. "An Examination of the Nri-Igbo Concept of CHI in the Light of Oral Traditions." PhD diss. University of London, October 1990. 8.
24. The Ghana Empire flourished to the northwest beginning around 700. [48] The Kanem became a regional power in the area of Lake Chad in the 700s. [49] Adiele "Afigbo himself is of the view that the Igbo people might have migrated from the area around the Niger-Benue trough [50] that goes from the Niger river to Lake Chad. [51]
25. M. Angulu Onwuejeogwu. An Igbo Civilization: Nri Kingdom and Hegemony. London: Ethnographica, 1981. Cited by Agu 11. Agu does not provide page references.
26. Julian Jaynes. The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990 paperback edition. His ideas were introduced in the post for 13 March 2019.
27. Agu commented on the difficulty of early religious beliefs after they have been described by individuals who were Christians or trained by Europeans. [52] He quoted Donatus Nwoga who wrote: "the Europeans came and ‘baptised’ Chukwu and turned him from an oracle into the Supreme God." [53]
28. Thurstan Shaw. "The Guinea Zone: General Situation." 461–487 in Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. Edited by M. El Fasi. Paris: UNESCO, 1988. 477. "The most important part of his function was in connection with the yam crop and the fertility of the land, and was concerned with removing ritual pollutions after taboos had been broken and in settling disputes."
29. B. W. Andah. "The Guiñean Belt: The Peoples between Mount Cameroon and the Ivory Coast." 488–529 in Fasi. 520.
30. E. J. Alagoa. "Fon and Yoruba: The Niger Delta and the Cameroon." 434–452 in Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Edited by B. A. Ogot. Paris: UNESCO, 1992. 448–449.
31. Andah. 522. His sources were D. D. Hartle, "Bronze Objects from the Ifeka Gardens Site Ezira," West African Archaeological Newsletter 4:1966, 26; and, D. D. Hartle, "Radiocarbon Dates," West African Archaeological Newsletter 9:73:1968.
32. Richard N. Henderson. The King in Every Man. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. 44.
33. Henderson. 319–320.
34. Henderson. 320. The belief bells could calm or warn off evil spirits is similar to the Roman Catholic ones mentioned in the post for 9 December 2019. Like some of the beliefs mentioned in the post for 13 March 2019, the faith in the power of bells may have survived from a much older pan-Mediterranean culture.
35. Hugh Thomas. The Slave Trade. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. 363.
36. Agu. 13. "The history of the Aro people, and their growth as a State is but a recent phenomenon, having been founded at the rise of the slave trade in about 1700 A.D. as Onwuejeogwu would have it." Agu added "One core of the normadic Aro groups must have migrated from Akunakuna, an area around the Cameroon mountains."
37. Rawick. xviii. In addition to the problems with self-selection mentioned by Rawick, each state handled the Federal Writers’ Project in its own way: Arkansas collected 694 narratives, while Louisiana did not participate.
38. Sterling Stuckey described a similar cultural convergence around Columbia, South Carolina. He believed a tale about a buzzard king who tricked his people into slavery and who, after his death, was condemned to wander the Earth as an animal referred to an Aro priest. However, he said the Yorùbá also thought it was their oral tradition. [54] His source was a version recorded by Edward C. L. Adams, a physician whose ancestors had owned slaves in Richland County. [55]
39. Ruby Pickens Tartt. "Alice." Southwest Review 34:192–195:1949. Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 103.
40. Georgiana Foster was born in 1861 in Wake County, North Carolina. Volume XI: North Carolina Narratives, Part 1.
41. Julia Malone was born in Caldwell County, Texas. Volume XVI: Texas Narratives, Part 3.
42. William Ball Williams III was born in 1839 in Greensburg. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 7.
43. Wade Owens was born in 1863 in Virginia. Volume I: Alabama Narratives.
44. Robert Wilson. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 7.
45. Anderson Edwards. Volume XVI: Texas Narratives, Part 2.
46. William Bascom. The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
47. Shaw. 480.
48. Wikipedia. "Ghana Empire."
49. Wikipedia. "Kanem-Bornu Empire."
50. Agu. 8. He was citing Adiele Afigbo. "Prolegomena to the study of the Culture History of the Igbo-speaking people of Nigeria." In Igbo Language and Culture. Edited by Frederick C. Ogbalu. Ibádan: Oxford University Press, 1975. 36.
51. Wikipedia. "Benue Trough."
52. Agu. 2.
53. D. I. Nwoga. The Supreme God as Stranger in Igbo Religious Thought. Ihiazu Mbaise, Nigeria: Hawk Press, 1984. Cited by Agu. 92.
54. Sterling Stuckey. Slave Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 edition. 2–4.
55. Edward C. L. Adams. Tales of the Congaree. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1927. Biographical information from the press’s website for the 1987 edition edited by Robert G. O’Meally.
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