Gullah: Difference between revisions

The subtropical climate encouraged the spread of malaria and yellow fever, which were both carried and transmitted by mosquitoes. These tropical diseases were endemic in Africa and had been carried by enslaved Africans to the colonies.^[20] Mosquitoes in the swamps and inundated rice fields of the Lowcountry picked up and spread the diseases to English and European settlers, as well. Malaria and yellow fever soon became endemic in the region.

Because they had acquired some

The planters left their European or African "rice drivers", or overseers, in charge of the rice plantations.^[19] These had hundreds of laborers, with African traditions reinforced by new imports from the same regions. Over time, the Gullah people developed a creole culture in which elements of African languages, cultures, and community life were preserved to a high degree. Their culture developed in a distinct way, different from that of the enslaved African Americans in states such as North Carolina and Virginia, where the enslaved lived in smaller groups, and had more sustained and frequent interactions with whites and British American culture.

Civil War period

When the

After the Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the outside world increased in some respects. The rice planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their plantations and moved away from the area because of labor issues and hurricane damage to crops. Free blacks were unwilling to work in the dangerous and disease-ridden rice fields. A series of

Recent history

In the 20th century, some plantations were redeveloped as resort or hunting destinations by wealthy whites. Gradually more visitors went to the islands to enjoy their beaches and mild climate. Since the late 20th century, the Gullah people—led by Penn Center and other determined community groups—have been fighting to keep control of their traditional lands. Since the 1960s, resort development on the Sea Islands has greatly increased property values, threatening to push the Gullah off family lands which they have owned since emancipation. They have fought back against uncontrolled development on the islands through community action, the courts, and the political process.^[22]

The Gullah have also struggled to preserve their traditional culture in the face of much more contact with modern culture and media. In 1979, a translation of the New Testament into the Gullah language was begun.^[23] The American Bible Society published De Nyew Testament in 2005. In November 2011, Healin fa de Soul, a five-CD collection of readings from the Gullah Bible, was released.^[24] This collection includes Scipcha Wa De Bring Healing ("Scripture That Heals") and the Gospel of John (De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write). This was also the most extensive collection of Gullah recordings, surpassing those of Lorenzo Dow Turner. The recordings have helped people develop an interest in the culture, because they get to hear the language and learn how to pronounce some words.^[25]

The Gullah achieved another victory in 2006 when the U.S. Congress passed the "

The Gullah have also reached out to West Africa. Gullah groups made three celebrated "homecomings" to Sierra Leone in 1989, 1997, and 2005. Sierra Leone is at the heart of the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. Bunce Island, the British slave castle in Sierra Leone, sent many African captives to Charleston and Savannah during the mid- and late 18th century. These dramatic homecomings were the subject of three documentary films—Family Across the Sea (1990), The Language You Cry In (1998), and Priscilla's Homecoming (in production).

Customs and traditions

African influences

• The Gullah word guber for
  Kikongo and Kimbundu
  word N'guba.
• Gullah rice dishes called "red rice" and "okra soup" are similar to West African "jollof rice" and "okra soup" and hog maws. Jollof rice is a traditional style of rice preparation brought by the Wolof people of West Africa.^[27]
• The Gullah version of "gumbo" has its roots in African cooking. "Gumbo" is derived from a word in the Umbundu language of Angola, meaning okra, one of the dish's main ingredients.
• Gullah rice farmers once made and used mortar and pestles and winnowing fanners similar in style to tools used by West African rice farmers.
• Gullah beliefs about "
  hags" and "haunts" are similar to African beliefs about malevolent ancestors, witches
  , and "devils" (forest spirits).
• Gullah "
  root doctors" protect their clients against dangerous spiritual forces by using ritual objects similar to those employed by African traditional healers
  .
• Gullah
  herbal medicines
  are similar to traditional African remedies.
• The Gullah "seekin" ritual is similar to coming of age ceremonies in West African secret societies, such as the Poro and Sande.
• The Gullah ring shout is similar to ecstatic religious rituals performed in West and Central Africa.
• Gullah stories about "Bruh Rabbit" are similar to West and Central African trickster tales about the figures of the clever and conniving rabbit, spider, and tortoise.
• Gullah spirituals, shouts, and other musical forms employ the "call and response" method commonly used in African music.
• Gullah "sweetgrass baskets" are coil straw baskets made by the descendants of slaves in the South Carolina Lowcountry. They are nearly identical to traditional coil baskets made by the Wolof people in Senegal.
• Gullah "strip
  Ashanti and the Ewe peoples, as well as Akwete cloth from the Igbo people
  are woven on the strip loom.
• A non-English song of unknown meaning, preserved by a Gullah family, was analyzed in the 1990s and found to be a Mende funeral song. It is probably the longest text in an African language to survive enslavement to present-day USA. This research and the resulting reunion between Gullah and Mende communities was recounted in the documentary The Language You Cry In (1998).^[28]
• Some words coming from others African languages such as Yoruba, Fon, Ewe, Twi, Ga, Mende,and Bini are still used by Gullah people.^[29]

Cuisine

Rice is a staple food in Gullah communities and continues to be cultivated in abundance in the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina. Rice is also an important food in West African cultures. As descendants of enslaved Africans, the Gullah continued the traditional food and food techniques of their ancestors, demonstrating another link to traditional African cultures. Rice is a core commodity of the Gullah food system: a meal was not considered complete without rice. There are strict rituals surrounding the preparation of rice in the Gullah communities. First, individuals would remove the darker grains from the rice, and then hand wash the rice numerous times before it was ready for cooking. The Gullah people would add enough water for the rice to steam on its own, but not so much that one would have to stir or drain it. These traditional techniques were passed down during the period of slavery and are still an important part of rice preparation by Gullah people.^[30]

Celebrating Gullah culture

Over the years, the Gullah have attracted study by many

Gullah culture has proven to be particularly resilient. Gullah traditions are strong in the rural areas of the Lowcountry mainland and on the Sea Islands, and among their people in urban areas such as Charleston and Savannah. Gullah people who have left the Lowcountry and moved far away have also preserved traditions; for instance, many Gullah in New York, who went North in the Great Migration of the first half of the 20th century, have established their own neighborhood churches in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens. Typically they send their children back to rural communities in South Carolina and Georgia during the summer months to live with grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Gullah people living in New York frequently return to the Lowcountry to retire. Second- and third-generation Gullah in New York often maintain many of their traditional customs and sometimes still speak the Gullah language.

The Gullah custom of painting porch ceilings haint blue to deter haints, or ghosts, survives in the American South. Having also been adopted by White Southerners, it has lost some of its spiritual significance.^[31]

Representation in art, entertainment, and media

Exhibitions

• Finding Priscilla's Children: The Roots and Branches of Slavery [Multimedia cultural exhibition November 8 - March 1, 2006]. New York City: New York Historical Society. 2006.

Films

• Conrack (1974), film based on Pat Conroy's autobiographical book The Water is Wide (1972)
• One[
  which?] of the Tales of the Unknown South (1984) short films is a Gullah ghost story^{[citation needed}
  ]
• A Soldier's Story 1984 film adapted by Charles Fuller's from his Pulitzer Prize-winning Off Broadway production A Soldier's Play
• Gullah Tales (1988)^{[citation needed]}
• The Civil War film
  54th Massachusetts
  , including several Gullah words and phrases.
• Family Across the Sea (1990)^{[citation needed]}
• When Rice Was King (1990)]^{[citation needed]}
• Daughters of the Dust (1991), Julie Dash's feature film portrays a Gullah family at the turn of the 20th century, as the younger generation moves off the coastal South Carolina island.
• Home Across the Water (1992), a streaming video^{[citation needed]}
• God's Gonna Trouble the Water (1997)^{[citation needed]}
• The Language You Cry In (1998)^{[citation needed]}
• The Patriot (2000), a Gullah village in South Carolina is featured
• Bin Yah: There's No Place Like Home (2008)^{[citation needed]}

Historical landmarks

• "Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor". National Park Service. 2006. "Designated by Congress in 2006, the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor extends from Wilmington, North Carolina in the north to Jacksonville, Florida in the south."

Literature

As mentioned above, the characters in Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories speak in a Deep South Gullah dialect. Other books about or which feature Gullah characters and culture are listed below.

Children's books on the Gullah

• Branch, Muriel (1995). The Water Brought Us: The Story of the Gullah-Speaking People. New York: Cobblehill Books.
• Clary, Margie Willis (1995). A Sweet, Sweet Basket. Orangeburg, Sc: Sandlapper Publishing Company.
• Geraty, Virginia (1998). Gullah Night Before Christmas. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company.
• Graham, Lorenz (2000). How God Fix Jonah. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mill Press.
• Jaquith, Priscilla (1995). Bo Rabbit Smart for True: Tall Tales from the Gullah. New York: Philomel Books.
• Krull, Kathleen (1995). Bridges to Change: How Kids Live on a South Carolina Sea Island. New York: Lodestar Books.
• Seabrooke, Brenda (1994). The Bridges of Summer. New York: Puffin Books.
• Raven, Margot Theis (2004). Circle Unbroken. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Siegelson, Kim L. (1999). In The Time of The Drums. New York: Jump At The Sun/ Hyperion Books for Children.
• Siegelson, Kim L. (2003). Dancing The Ring Shout. New York: Jump At The Sun/ Hyperion Books for Children.

Fictional works set in the Gullah region

• Dash, Julie (1999). Daughters of the Dust. New York: Plume Books.
• Gershwin, George (1935). Porgy and Bess. New York: Alfred Publishing. Archived from the original on 2006-10-26. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Heyward, Dubose (1925). Porgy. Charleston, SC: Wyrick & Company. Critique.
• Hurston, Zora Neale (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial.
• Kidd, Sue Monk (2005). The Mermaid Chair. Viking Press.
• Naylor, Gloria (1988). Mama Day. New York: Ticknor & Fields.
• ISBN 0-8369-9062-5
  .
• Siddons, Anne Rivers (1998). Low Country. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers.
• Siegelson, Kim (1996). The Terrible, Wonderful Tellin' at Hog Hammock. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
• Straight, Susan (1993). I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots. New York: Hyperion.

Gullah culture

• Campbell, Emory (2008). Gullah Cultural Legacies. Hilton Head South Carolina: Gullah Heritage Consulting Services.
• Carawan, Guy and Candie (1989). Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life: The People of Johns Island, South Carolina, their Faces, their Words, and their Songs. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Conroy, Pat (1972). The Water Is Wide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Creel, Margaret Washington (1988). A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community Culture among the Gullahs. New York: New York University Press.
• Cross, Wilbur (2008). Gullah Culture in America. Westport, CT: Praeger.
• Joyner, Charles (1984). Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
• Kiser, Clyde Vernon (1969). Sea Island to City: A Study of St. Helena Islanders in Harlem and Other Urban Centers. New York: Atheneum.
• McFeely, William (1994). Sapelo's People: A Long Walk into Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Parrish, Lydia (1992). Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Robinson, Sallie Ann (2003). Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press.
• Robinson, Sallie Ann (2006). Cooking the Gullah Way Morning, Noon, and Night. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press.
• Rosenbaum, Art (1998). Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Rosengarten, Dale (1986). Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Columbia, SC: McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina.
• Twining, Mary; Keigh Baird (1991). Sea Island Roots: The African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press.
• Young, Jason (2007). Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.

Gullah history

• Ball, Edward (1998). Slaves in the Family. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
• Carney, Judith (2001). Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Fields-Black, Edda (2008). Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Littlefield, Daniel (1981). Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
• Miller, Edward (1995). Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from Slavery to Congress, 1839-1915. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
• Pollitzer, William (1999). The Gullah People and their African Heritage. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Smith, Julia Floyd (1985). Slavery and Rice Culture in Low Country Georgia: 1750-1860. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
• Smith, Mark M. (2005). Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
• Wood, Peter (1974). Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion. New York: Knopf.

Gullah language and storytelling

• Bailey, Cornelia; Christena Bledsoe (2000). God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks about Life on Sapelo Island. New York: Doubleday.
• Geraty, Virginia Mixon (1997). Gulluh fuh Oonuh: A Guide to the Gullah Language. Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing Company.
• Jones, Charles Colcock (2000). Gullah Folktales from the Georgia Coast. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Jones-Jackson, Patricia (1987). When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Mills, Peterkin and McCollough (2008). Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories collected by Genevieve W. Chandler. South Carolina: The University of South Carolina Press.
• Montgomery, Michael (ed.) (1994). The Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Sea Island Translation Team (2005). De Nyew Testament (The New Testament in Gullah). New York: American Bible Society.
• Stoddard, Albert Henry (1995). Gullah Animal Tales from Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. Hilton Head Island, SC: Push Button Publishing Company.
• Turner, Lorenzo Dow (1949). Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Music

• "Gullah" is the third song on Cluch's album Robot Hive/Exodus (2005)
• "Kum Bah Yah" is a Gullah phrase, and as such, the song is claimed to have originated in Gullah culture
• The folk song "
  Michael Row the Boat Ashore
  " (or "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore") comes from the Gullah culture
• The band Ranky Tanky specializes in playing modern arrangements of Gullah folk music

Photography

Historical photos of the Gullah can be found in such works as:

• Georgia Writer's Project (1986). Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Johnson, Thomas L.; Nina J. Root (2002). Camera Man's Journey: Julian Dimock's South. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
• Millerton, Suzanna Krout. New York: Aperture, Inc.
• Miner, Leigh Richmond; Edith Dabbs (2003). Face of an Island: Leigh Richmond Miner's Photographs of Saint Helena Island. Charleston, South Carolina: Wyrick & Company.
• Photographs by Doris Ulmann: the Gullah people [exhibition June 1-July 31, 1981]. New York: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 1981. {{cite book}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)

Television

• Nick Jr. programing block
  .
• "There Is a River". This Far by Faith (episode 1). PBS. 2003. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
• Vice News documentary on Gullah peoples' plight in the face of exploitation of land for resorts and housing
• Daughters of the Dust (1991) film directed by Julie Dash. (c) Gracenote, Inc. Members of a Gullah family plan a move from the Sea Islands to the mainland in 1902.

Cultural topics

• Boo Hag
• Golden Isles of Georgia
• Gullah Gullah Island

Historical topics

• Bilali Document
• Black Seminoles
• Bunce Island
• Virginia Mixson Geraty
• Ambrose E. Gonzales
• Igbo Landing
• Joseph Opala
• Port Royal Experiment
• Stono Rebellion
• Lorenzo Dow Turner
• Peter H. Wood

Notable Americans with Gullah roots

• Robert Sengstacke Abbott
• Jim Brown^[32]
• Emory Campbell
• Charlamagne Tha God
• Julie Dash
• Sam Doyle
• Trick Daddy
• Joe Frazier
• Candice Glover
• Marquetta Goodwine
• Gullah Jack
• Mary Jackson
• James Jamerson
• Michelle Obama^[33]
• Joseph Rainey
• Philip Reid
• Chris Rock
• Tony Rock
• Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor^[34]
• Clarence Thomas^[35]
• Denmark Vesey

References

1. ^
   ISBN 978-0-8078-6171-4
   .
2. ISBN 978-0-8203-4274-0
   .
3. ISBN 978-1-883199-14-2
   .
4. ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. p. 16.
5. ^ NPS. "Gullah Geechee History, Language, Society, Culture, and Change". National Park Service. p. 1. Geechee people in Georgia refer to themselves as Freshwater Geechee if they live on the mainland and Saltwater Geechee if they live on the Sea Islands.
6. ISBN 978-1-61069-930-3
   .
7. ISBN 978-1-4833-4638-0
   .
8. ISBN 978-0-313-34908-9
   .
9. ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. pp. 50–58.
10. ^ Althea Sumpter, Georgia Institute of Technology, and NGE Staff (March 31, 2006). "Geechee and Gullah Culture". Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. Archived from the original on April 6, 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
11. ^ Joseph A. Opala. "Bunce Island in Sierra Leone" (PDF). Yale University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 December 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
12. ISBN 978-0-226-29787-3
    .
13. ISBN 978-0-08-087775-4
    .
14. ^ [1]
15. ^ Low Country Gullah Culture Special Resource Study and Final Environmental Impact Statement, National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, p. 3
16. ISBN 978-0-674-02921-7
    .
17. PMID 12461173
    . Retrieved 2016-08-09.
18. ISSN 1061-4036
    . Retrieved 2016-08-09.
19. ^ ^{a b c} Joseph A. Opala (2006). "The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection". Yale University. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015.
20. ^ West, Jean M. "Rice and Slavery: A Fatal Gold Seede". Slavery in America. Archived from the original on 2012-02-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
21. ^ "South Carolina Slave Laws Summary and Record". Slavery in America. Archived from the original on 2012-03-18. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
22. ^ "Gov. Sanford to Sign Heirs Property Bill at Gullah Festival, US Fed News Service, May 26, 2006". Retrieved 25 September 2014.
23. ^ "Gullah | Wycliffe Bible Translators USA". blog.wycliffe.org. Archived from the original on 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2016-07-21. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
24. ^ ""Healin fa de Soul," Gullah Bible readings released | The Island Packet". Retrieved 2016-07-21.
25. ^ Smith, Bruce (2011-11-25). "Gullah-language Bible now on audio CDs". The Sun News. Associated Press. Retrieved 2011-11-26.^{[permanent dead link]}
26. ^ Bill Will Provide Millions for Gullah Community, National Public Radio, October 17, 2006
27. ^ Slavery in America Archived September 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
28. JSTOR 684061
    .
29. ISBN 978-0-9716245-8-0
    .
30. JSTOR 189895
    .
31. ^ Kelleher, Katy (January 16, 2018). "Haint Blue, the Ghost-Tricking Color of Southern Homes and Gullah Folktales". The Awl. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
32. ^ "10 Prominent African-Americans You Didn't Know Have Roots in the Gullah Geechee Corridor". Atlanta Black Star.
33. ^ "Michelle Obama's Family Tree has Roots in a Carolina Slave Plantation". Chicago Tribune. December 1, 2008. Archived from the original on January 9, 2012. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
34. ^ Economist Obit 09/24/2016
35. ^ "Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas a Gullah Speaker". New York Times. December 14, 2000.

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