ABSTRACT
One ofthe children in the play, Reuben, sees the ghost of Miss Mabel, Seth's long dead mother. She instructs him to release the pigeons he had promised his dead friend Eugene that he would release. He relates the occurrence to Zonia, who, after an initial incredulousness, rather quickly believes in the ghost. The ease with which they accept this incident (they move from discussing Miss Mabel's appearance to sharing their first kiss) points again to the texturing of the culture with folkloristic forms. It is not unduly scary or unusual for these children to see something supernatural, just as it is not unusual for their adult counterparts-Bynum and Loomis-to have extranatural experiences. 12
The major fetish animal in the play is really a bird: the pigeon. Bynum sacrifices pigeons in the binding ceremonies he performs in the back of the boarding house. While flight motifs are endemic to African American culture, ranging from tales of flying Africans to stories of pilots at Tuskegee's flight school during World War II to Morrison's Song of Solomon, pigeons are not omnipresent characters in the lore. African American folktales frequently include buzzards-as Hurston does in Their Eyes Were Watching God-but pigeons do not appear with any regularity. Wilson's inclusion of them, therefore, reflects another expansion in his use of folk materials.
