the song from African-American informants at various locations in the American South, with the fullest version obtained from a man in College Station, Texas. In his explanation of the song to Parks, the man described a peg-legged sailor who travelled through southern plantations, staying in one place for a few weeks working as a carpenter and teaching the song to the local slaves. He would then lay a trail north, marking dead trees on the route north with a footprint and a circle, representing the peg leg. The following spring, slaves would follow this trail to freedom in the north. Parks then writes that he mentioned the song to his unnamed white great-uncle who had heard it. Parks states that the great-uncle then informed him that he had seen written records connected to the song, and that it referred to "Peg Leg Joe", a member of the Underground Railroad, who he claimed was active "north of Mobile" and who had made his last trip to the South in 1859. Historicity The existence of Peg Leg Joe, and the analysis of the song as a coded guide for escaping enslaved people, has been repeated uncritically in popular history books, children's stories and on the internet. However, academic James Kelley argues that there is very slim evidence for Parks' original reading of the text. He suggests that the song may in actual fact have had a spiritual significance and express a more general desire for escape to freedom in the north, without encoding any specific information useful for escapees. Kelley is suspicious of Parks claim that his uncle knew of Peg Leg Joe and views his triple discovery of the song as "strained coincidences". He argues that mentioning the white great uncle's memory of reading about a sailor called "Peg leg Joe" was in fact designed to legitimise the story told to him by his black informant. Kelley further argues that Peg Leg Joe may represent the African lwa, Papa Legba. Papa Legba is frequently depicted as an old man with a cane or crutch, who acts as a guide and dispenses wisdom which aids a traveller in reaching their destination. The editors of collections containing Parks account of the song's discovery, B.A. Botkin and Alan Dundes, also cast doubt on the historicity of Peg Leg Joe. Literary depictions In the children's book Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter, Peg Leg