This notion and the memory of flight, Young concludes, endure in the tradition of the contemporary African. We find it, for instance, in the writings of Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, and Nella Larson as replica of the folkloric tradition that developed during the era of slavery and the slave trade and in tales and folkloric myths that are common predominantly along the Georgia coast.

Flight became connected with death. Notions of Africa as the final resting place for slaves became common notion through plantation America. This joy and hope of returning to Africa to die is expressed in several of the slave spirituals.

The flight motif also extended itself, in African mythology, to representations of the natural world. Certain species of birds, for instance the owl, took on portentous meaning for African slaves. Slave tradition viewed the owl as a sign of death. The buzzard was another example of a...
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