Although narrative quilts are a distinctly American art form, they utilize an appliqué technique traceable to historic Eastern civilizations, and with discernible roots in African culture. Quilts made by African-American women like Harriet Powers form a link to the tapestries traditionally made by the Fon people of Abomey, the ancient capital of Dahomey (now Benin) in West Africa. Africans from that area brought with them to the American South their knowledge of appliqué, which in Dahomey was executed by men but in America was perpetuated by slave women.
In the Dahomean tapestries and in Powers' quilts, stories from oral tradition and oral history are illustrated with appliquéd figures. Many Dahomean tapestries contain animals as symbols of kings or as the central figures of proverbs. The Powers quilts include some of the same animals (pigs, fish, roosters, and birds) as proverbial characters, made in a similar style. Traditionally, in Dahomey, cloth figures were first basted onto the background cloth. Sometimes a chain stitch is directed away from the appliqué to ensure smoothness. Until recent years, the figures were made of handwoven cloth. Powers followed a similar construction technique, but used machine-made cloth.
Powers was born a slave in Georgia on October 29, 1837. Her only known quilts were made during the heyday of appliqué. Use of the technique, which was particularly prevalent in the South, was widespread from 1775 to 1875. For her subject matter, Powers drew on narrative folk tradition.
Although she certainly made more quilts, only two known to be made by Powers survive. The quilt now owned by the Smithsonian Institution illustrates biblical stories; that belonging to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston depicts biblical tales amplified with local legends and astronomical occurrences. The secular, seemingly local legends emblazoned on the Boston quilt include the tale of the independent hog named Betts, who ran from Georgia to Virginia, and the story of a man frozen at his jug of liquor. Each of these two events has the ring of a local incident, but is actually the plot of a traditional narrative known in several versions. Legendary accounts of actual natural phenomena (eclipses, meteors, and comets) are intermingled with traditional motifs. These accounts, which became formularized as they circulated in the oral tradition, seemed especially interesting to Powers.
At the core of Powers' religious symbology are the legends of biblical heroes such as Noah, Moses, Jonah, and Job, all of whom struggled successfully against overwhelming odds. Her source of material was "the Bible of the folk," in that she depicts traditional stories that have their origins in biblical narratives. The serpent of the Garden of Eden is portrayed with feet, before he suffered God's curse. Adam's rib, from which Eve was made, is prominently featured.
Powers' fascination with biblical animals and characters stemmed from her attention to vivid church sermons, which she committed to memory, according to Jennie Smith, the white woman who bought Powers' first quilt. Powers expressed to Smith a desire to attend a Barnum and Bailey circus that came to Athens about 1890, because she wanted to see the "Bible animals." What kept her away was the fundamentalist belief that it was a sin to go into a circus arena; however, she may also have lacked the price of
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