Thanks, Barry. I very much appreciate that imformation. I have Bessie Jones'{and Bess Lomax Hawes'} book "Step It Down"-though its been hiding from me for some time.

However, to add to the information you've presented, I'd like to quote a passage about the Buzzard Lope from Lynne Fauley Emery's "Black Dance-From 1619 to Today" {Princeton Book Company, 1988; pps 93-94. originally published in 1972}:

"Survivals of African dance were found in the so-called animal dances seen in American.These dances took mamy forms, but the one mentioned most frequently by ex-slaves was a dance called the Buzzard Lope. Many of the ex-slaves in the Sea Island region remembered during the Buzzard Lope, but very few described it...

Edward Adams, in his "Congoree Sketches", described the exploits of Big Charleston as narrared by a Negro named Tad:

"De first time I see Big Charleston at a dance...You could hear 'em laughin' and talkin' a mile. Dey come to de road jumpin' to de drum and steppin' as high as a man's head. And as de night wored on you ought er seen some od dem niggers cut de buck and de buzzard lope and sidin' 'round dem sisters like er rootser 'round er hen."
[Chapel Hill, N.C University of North Carolina Press, 1927]

The Buzzard Lope gad been known to song-collecir Lydia Parrish since 1915. M. J. Herskovits told her that he had seen a similar dance done in Dahomey. She described the Buzzard Lope seen in the Georgia Island as follows:

"on Sapeko Island, I found in the Johnson family a combination fo the old dance forms with rahten modern steps than the original African pantomime warranted. Of the twins, Naomi did the patting while Isaac did the dancing; an older brother rhythmically called out the cues in a sharp staccato, and another one lay on the floor of the wide veranda representing a dead cow. Anyone who has seen turkey buzzards disposing of "carr'on" will recognize the aptness of the following directions:

March aroun'!    {the cow}
Jump across!    {see if she's daid}
Get the eye!    {always go for that first}
So glad!         {cow daid}
Get the guts!    {they like them next best}
Go to eatin'!    {on the meat}
All right-cow mos' gone!
Dog comin'!
Scare the dog!
Look around for more meat!
Alright!-Belly full!
-"Goin to tell the res'"
[Slave Songs Of The Georgia Sea Islands, Creative Age Press, 1942]

The parenthetical asides were given to Miss Parrish by the Negroes who were performing the dance.

Other animal dannces mentioned with the Buzzard Lope were the Turkey Trot, Snake Hip, and those mentoned by Emma and Mary Stevens of Sunbury, Georgia:

"We do git tuh gedduh an hab dabce ab oagtues ab bug suppahs, we does duh Snake Hip and duh Buzzard Lope. An addalas dance we did duh Fish Tail an duh Fish Bone an duh Camel Walk"
[Georgia Writers Project "Drums and Shadows"]