The Slave Who Became a Buzzard
A Gullah version of the Flying Africans legend, recorded by the Federal Writers' Project in the late 1930s. Wallace Quarterman, a Gullah man born in 1844 on Sapelo Island, Georgia, recounted that the Igbo people who drowned at Dunbar Creek did not die at all. According to the oral tradition passed down through generations, the Igbo 'rise out of the water and turn into buzzards and fly back to Africa.' In Gullah belief, the buzzard is not a carrion eater but a sacred bird that carries the souls of the dead back across the Atlantic. This story reflects the deep spiritual connection between the G