In 1963, folklorist Harold Courlander, described a folk cry her heard at night while traveling through the Nigerian countryside. After one Nigerian let out an eerie cry, another Nigerian who was a long distance away, responded in a similar manner. Thus, this "call and response" folk cry was used as a form of communication. Courlander concluded that the cry he heard extremely resembled those of slaves heard by white people traveling though the South. The slave's folk cries were not only used for communication, but also as warnings. The folk cries were calls for help, food, water and also cries of loneliness, sorrow, or happiness. The folk cries were also a means by which the slaves would send warnings to other slaves of an approaching master or overseer. .
The slaves also performed the "ring shout", a holy dance, as a way of communicating with God. During the "ring shout", which took place during prayer meetings and other religious services, slave's would sing sacred songs while shuffle dancing. When white people witnessed "the shout", they assumed the slaves to be evil and barbaric; however, ignorant of the African tradition, they did not realize that the "shouters" reached the pinnacle of divine essence when the Holy Spirit possessed their souls. .
The work songs and other secular songs were one of the largest groupings of secular music among the slaves. The African work songs were multifaceted; they were about numerous subjects, such as hunting, fishing, boating, and instructional, religious, weaving and spinning songs, and songs of social commentary, including satire, social criticism, praise, ridicule, gossip and protest. Similar in content to the African work songs, African American songs were sung as a form of relief from the boredom of slave labor, such as rowing, stevedoring, cornhusking, rice-threshing, cotton picking, grinding, weaving, and spinning. The rhythmic accompaniments to the work, antiphonal singing (call and response) in boat songs, group participation, synchronized body movement, and the rhythmic use of work tools also originated from African work songs.
