Religion #4 African American Spirituals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Religion #4 African American Spirituals - Essay Example The religious life included ring shouts spirituals and chanted sermons. The spirituals in particular resemble an amalgam of evangelical hymns, black traditional songs and black southern folk music. As the spirituals can not be attributed to any specific author, they represent the communal voice of the slaves who trust their faith in God. The call-and-response pattern followed in the spirituals, speaks that there is a dialogue between them and God. This indicates their innermost hopes for spiritual as well as physical freedom. The interpretational meaning of the spirituals is a decoded message for freedom from slavery. The author provides several examples to prove his argument, showing the Biblical connotations that most of the spirituals have. With the spirituals the African Americans are looking for awakening, to keep the faith both in God and in their hopes for freedom at last. In the article Harvey has listed several spirituals, illustrating the direct relationship between the slave who is singing and God. In the example of spirituals a double meaning can be felt. The word â€Å"home† can be interpreted as safe place, however it may also mean â€Å"Heaven†. He aven is the place where everyone is free, thus the meanings of the spirituals is converted to reinforce the dream for a free country. The African American spirituals can be related to other humanitarian course materials such as anthropological, ethnographical and sociological. The emergence of spiritual churches combines purely ethnographic description together with the song texts and other ritual, religious gestures. One of the general questions that anthropology seeks to answer is â€Å"Why people behave the way they do?† So we can relate this anthropological quest and why to explain why African Americans found shelter for their minds and souls in the spirituals. On another note, cultural anthropology studies the beliefs and cultural practices of people.