I'm unsure about the meaning of these references to one cat (usually of a different color than the other cat) kicking out or doing some other act of violence toward the other cat. But my guesses are that those references did mean something, and their meanings were commonly known to Black folks. It's my guess that lines from these songs were codes.* For instance, I think that "Still Water Creek" where Black men were said to be ten or twelve feet tall was some mythical place where Black people who somehow got there could decide to stay for whatever length of time that they wanted to, and could eat all the food they wanted when they got hungrey. Most importantly, in "Still Water Creek" (or in that dream that the Mary, had as she floated down the stream (to freedom?), one cat (who represented Black people-regardless of the color given) being aggressive toward White people. In my opinion, the fact that the cat in the song who kicked or struck the other cat wasn't always the color black helped camouflage the real meaning of that line (as did other strung together lines and verses.

And it certainly seems to me that a cat "piddling" (which I'm guessing means "peeding"/"pissing") in another cat's eye would be a clear sign of disrespect, if not intense dislike. I think it's fair to say that many enslaved Black didn't think fondly of those persons who enslaved them.


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For those who may be interested, here's a link to a comment I made in which I expressed doubt that codes were used as often in spirituals as some people think that they were:

thread.cfm?threadid=113584&messages=150&page=1&desc=yes#2726883

That comment did not mean that I thought that enslaved Black people didn't use codes at all. I think that non-religious songs may have contained far more coded meanings than spirituals.