Flying Africans

[1] Though it is generally agreed that the legend reflects a longing for a reversal of the Atlantic slave trade, scholars differ on the extent to which this should be seen as supernatural belief or as allegory: of freedom, death, the afterlife, and even metamorphosis or reincarnation.

A common Gullah etiology given for this belief is the 1803 mass suicide at Igbo Landing as a form of resistance among newly enslaved people, although versions of the legend also occur across the African diaspora.

Gullah lore also associates flying Africans with a magical iron hoe that works by itself, and a never-empty pot that they leave behind,[6][7] perhaps relating to the influence of the Yoruba deity Ogun on Hoodoo.

[8] The means of flight varied, from levitation, to growing wings, to turning into birds (sometimes buzzards),[6] or in the case of the Igbo Landing drownings, they were allegorized as walking on water to Africa.

In Dash's research for the film, she found Igbo Landing had such salience that it was identified by tradition in many local places in the Gullah region.

[18] Sophia Nahli Allison began her Dreaming Gave Us Wings self portrait series in 2017,[19] including an experimental documentary in The New Yorker.