Originally Posted by
Wonnie
So.....if none of the quilts survived....and if no one wrote anything down....and they dismissed everything the blacks said as "just stories"... and the symbols on fences and trees were not meant to be permanent since the info changed sometimes frequently and have long since disappeared...where did these "professional" historians get their information....or is it.....afterall...just supposition.
Actually, it's the total LACK of information that best proves the idea as myth. No mention is made anywhere, written or oral, prior to 1987...more than 175 years after the beginning of the underground railroad, yet at the height of interest in women's studies and in African-American quilts.
There is no documentation that the 'quilt code' ever existed...no oral history, no journals, no diaries, no letters, no drawings, no songs, no poems, nothing...before it was first briefly mentioned (with no source documentation provided) in a video about women and quilts in 1987.
http://www.ugrrquilt.hartcottagequilts.com/
Perhaps calling it 'folklore' would be more PC than 'myth'?
