ScienceCampus Recommends | Jeroen Dewulf (Berkeley) | Flying Back to Africa or Flying to Heaven? Competing Visions of Afterlife in the South Carolina Lowcountry and Caribbean Slave Societies

This guest lecture is organised by REAF – Regensburg European American Forum, in collaboration with DIMAS, KNOW:IN – Knowledge Infrastructure Network, Regensburger Universitätsstiftung Hans Vielberth, IOS Regensburg and the Leibniz ScienceCampus.

Abstract:

This lecture presents a new theory on the famous African American folktale of the flying slaves, including the legend that only those who refrained from eating salt could fly back to Africa. Published in 1977, Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon gave worldwide attention to this intriguing myth in Black America. Scholarly interpretations of the folktale have focused primarily on sources relating to the cultural heritage of Blacks from the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, once the region with the highest concentration of enslaved Africans in mainland North America. Several variants of this tale can, however, be also found in the Caribbean. This analysis of historical documents in combination with ethnographic and linguistic research traces the tale back to Central Africa and present a new interpretation of its original meaning by relating objections to eating salt to the Kikongo expression “curia mungua” (to eat salt), meaning baptism, and claims that the legend originated in the context of discussions among the enslaved about the consequences of a Christian baptism for one’s spiritual afterlife. 

Bio:

Jeroen Dewulf is the Queen Beatrix Professor of Dutch Studies and a professor in the Folklore Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He also serves as Director of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Academic Director of UC Berkeley Study Abroad. Currently a visiting professor at LMU Munich, he will be in Regensburg for a short stay as part of the UC Berkeley–University of Regensburg partnership.

His research focuses on Dutch and Portuguese colonial history, the transatlantic slave trade, and the cultural, folkloric, and religious traditions of Afro-American communities. His publications include The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo (2016), From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square (2017), and The Congo in Flemish Literature (2020). His latest book, Afro-Atlantic Catholics (2023), received the John G. Shea Prize in 2024.