In this thread, there was considerable discussion about the meaning of 'buzzard lope'. I knew I had seen something about this somewhere, and I finally remembered where. The following might throw some light on the matter. Alan Lomax recorded the great Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Islands leading a song called 'The Buzzard Lope'. It has been reissued in the Lomax 'Southern Journey' series on Rounder - the final volume, volume 13, 'Earliest Times: Georgia Sea Island Songs for Everyday Living' Rounder CD 1713. The song itself has the words 'buzzard lope' only in its title. Lomax noted:

Bessie Jones leads a most beautiful and interesting African-American litany, which may be one of the most intact pieces of African dance in North America. It makes reference to a time when slaves were not given a proper burial. 'Throw me anywhere, Lord, in that old field' are the words of a slave identifying with Jesus at Golgotha, saying that, although he may be thrown in a field like carrion for the buzzards to eat, Jesus owns and chooses him.

While a ring of singers claps out the refrain ['In that old field'], a coat representing carrion, is dropped in the centre. A male dancer, his shoulders hunched up around his ears, his arms spread out, dipping, waving and thrusting forward his head with fierce gestures, comes high stepping into the ring. He is the buzzard. He spots the carrion and suddenly stoops over, crouching and circling lower and lower, his head thrust forward like a bird's, approaching and fluttering away, until finally he swoops low and snatches the cloth with his teeth or fingers and whirls away like a bird of prey with its meat. The cloth is replaced and the dance repeated, each dancer enacting the part of the buzzard in his own way.

Bessie Jones gave a spoken introduction to the song:

Now this song, 'The Buzzard Lope', is one of the old plays that we had, as though the buzzard had found some carrion. And we playin' that this thing lyin' on the floor here is the carrion. And this boy here is acting as the buzzard, as he goin' around, and he goin' to pick out the carrion's eye, whether he's a cow or a dog or whatever he is. He going to pick out his eye, then he going to pull out his tail, and then he's going to [get] him after awhile, and he's going to run the dogs from him. This is not our real Buzzard Lope boy tonight, but his brother.

Stewie.