Re: Codes in spirituals.

Of COURSE spirituals were codes. Many-layered, most probably. I would bet most of us are not smart enough to understand all the layers. It simply requires too great a leap of culture for us, nowadays. (What, we want to be re-creators???)

OK, if we can agree there were codes "of some sort," ya know-- that might be all we need to agree upon about it. Why not just be satisfied with that degree of agreement?

I think it's silly to think that we, here, in this time period, can crack the code. It's not our business! It was as clear as it needed to be, to people who needed it to be clear, at the time it was needed. Now, it's mystery.

That does not mean it's lost. We can celebrate mystery, but not if we try TOO hard to pin it down-- IMO the genre was always meant to be so much looser than that. When you try to pin it down. I've learned that's a sure sign you've missed the main point of it all. Contemplate, reflect, wonder-- but don't try to resolve it, folks-- that's not what it was FOR.

~Susan