Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study
Low Country Gullah Culture
Author: National Park ServicePublisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781484996973
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
This study was done to determine whether or not the National Park Service should have a role in preserving Gullah culture and if so, what that role might be.
Gullah Culture in America
Author: Wilbur CrossPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 156720712X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
In 1989, 1998, and 2005, fifteen Gullah speakers went to Sierra Leone and other parts of West Africa to trace their origins and ancestry. Their journey frames this exploration of the extraordinary history of the Gullah culture-characterized by strong African cultural retention and a direct influence on American culture, particularly in the South-described in this fascinating book. Since long before the Revolution, America has had hidden pockets of a bygone African culture with a language of its own, and long endowed with traditions, language, design, medicine, agriculture, fishing, hunting, weaving, and the arts. This book explores the Gullah culture's direct link to Africa, via the sea islands of the American southeast. The first published evidence of Gullah went almost unrecorded until the 1860s, when missionaries from Philadelphia made their way, even as the Civil War was at its height, to St. Helena Island, South Carolina, to establish a small institution called Penn School to help freed slaves learn how to read and write and make a living in a world of upheaval and distress. There they noticed that most of the islanders spoke a language that was only part English, tempered with expressions and idioms, often spoken in a melodious, euphonic manner, accompanied by distinctive practices in religion, work, dancing, greetings, and the arts. The homogeneity, richness, and consistency of this culture was possible because the sea-islanders were isolated. Even today, there are more than 300,000 Gullah people, many of whom speak little or no English, living in the remoter areas of the sea islands of St. Helena, Edisto, Coosay, Ossabaw, Sapelo, Daufuskie, and Cumberland. Gullah Culture in America explores not only the history of Gullah, but takes the reader behind the scenes of Gullah culture today to show what it's like to grow up, live, and celebrate in this remarkable and uniquely American community.
The Gullah People and Their African Heritage
Author: William S. PollitzerPublisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820327839
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
The Gullah people are one of our most distinctive cultural groups. Isolated off the South Carolina-Georgia coast for nearly three centuries, the native black population of the Sea Islands has developed a vibrant way of life that remains, in many ways, as African as it is American. This landmark volume tells a multifaceted story of this venerable society, emphasizing its roots in Africa, its unique imprint on America, and current threats to its survival. With a keen sense of the limits to establishing origins and tracing adaptations, William S. Pollitzer discusses such aspects of Gullah history and culture as language, religion, family and social relationships, music, folklore, trades and skills, and arts and crafts. Readers will learn of the indigo- and rice-growing skills that slaves taught to their masters, the echoes of an African past that are woven into baskets and stitched into quilts, the forms and phrasings that identify Gullah speech, and much more. Pollitzer also presents a wealth of data on blood composition, bone structure, disease, and other biological factors. This research not only underscores ongoing health challenges to the Gullah people but also helps to highlight their complex ties to various African peoples. Drawing on fields from archaeology and anthropology to linguistics and medicine, The Gullah People and Their African Heritage celebrates a remarkable people and calls on us to help protect their irreplaceable culture.
Gullah Geechee Heritage in the Golden Isles
Author: Amy Lotson RobertsPublisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439667640
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
The Golden Isles are home to a long and proud African American and Gullah Geechee heritage. Ibo Landing was the site of a mass suicide in protest of slavery, the slave ship Wanderer landed on Jekyll Island and, thanks to preservation efforts, the Historic Harrington School still stands on St. Simons Island. From the Selden Normal and Industrial Institute to the tabby cabins of Hamilton Plantation, authors Amy Roberts and Patrick Holladay explore the rich history of the region's islands and their people, including such local notables as Deaconess Alexander, Jim Brown, Neptune Small, Hazel Floyd and the Georgia Sea Island Singers.
A Delicate Balance
Author: Angela C. HalfacrePublisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611172799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Sustainability of the natural environment and of our society has become one of the most urgent challenges facing modern Americans. Communities across the country are seeking a viable pattern of growth that promotes prosperity, protects the environment, and preserves the distinctive quality of life and cultural heritage of their regions. The coastal zone of South Carolina is one of the most endangered, culturally complex regions in the state and perhaps in all of the American South. A Delicate Balance examines how a multilayered culture of environmental conservation and sustainable development has emerged in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Angela C. Halfacre, a political scientist, describes how sprawl shock, natural disaster, climate change, and other factors spawned and sustain—but at times also threaten and hinder—the culture of conservation. As Halfacre demonstrates, maintaining the quality of the environment while accommodating residential, commercial, and industrial growth is a balancing act replete with compromises. The book documents the origins, goals, programs, leaders, tactics, and effectiveness of a conservation culture. A Delicate Balance deftly illustrates that a resilient culture of conservation that wields growing influence in the lowcountry has become an important regional model for conservation efforts across the nation. A Delicate Balance also includes a foreword by journalist Cynthia Barnett, author of Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis and Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.
Gullah Spirit
Author: Jonathan GreenPublisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643362143
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
A celebration of the life and culture of the Gullah people of the South Carolina Lowcountry in 179 new paintings Jonathan Green is best known for his vibrant depictions of the Gullah life and culture established by descendants of enslaved Africans who settled between northern Florida and North Carolina during the nineteenth century. For decades, Green's vividly colored paintings and prints have captured and preserved the daily rituals and Gullah traditions of his childhood in the Lowcountry marshes of South Carolina. While Green's art continues to express the same energy, color, and deep respect for his ancestors, his techniques have evolved to feature bolder brush strokes and a use of depth and texture, all guided by his maturing artistic vision that is now more often about experiencing freedom and contentment through his art. This vision is reflected in the 179 new paintings featured in Gullah Spirit. His open and inviting images beckon the world to not only see this vanishing culture but also to embrace its truth and enduring spirit. Using both the aesthetics of his heritage and the abstraction of the human figure, Green creates an almost mythological narrative from his everyday observations of rural and urban environments. Expressed through his mastery of color, Green illuminates the challenges and beauty of work, love, belonging, and the richness of community. Angela D. Mack, executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, provides a foreword. The book also includes short essays by historian Walter B. Edgar, educator Kim Cliett Long, and curator Kevin Grogan.
African Reflections on the American Landscape
Author: Brian D. JoynerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 88
Book Description
"Summarizes highlights of the scholarship presented at the conference, 'Places of cultural memory: African reflections on the American landscape, ' ... held May 9-12 in Atlanta, Georgia. It ... illustrates ways in which this scholarship can be applied"--Page v.
Gullah Spirituals
Author: Eric Sean CrawfordPublisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643361910
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
In Gullah Spirituals musicologist Eric Crawford traces Gullah Geechee songs from their beginnings in West Africa to their height as songs for social change and Black identity in the twentieth century American South. While much has been done to study, preserve, and interpret Gullah culture in the lowcountry and sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia, some traditions like the shouting and rowing songs have been all but forgotten. This work, which focuses primarily on South Carolina's St. Helena Island, illuminates the remarkable history, survival, and influence of spirituals since the earliest recordings in the 1860s. Grounded in an oral tradition with a dynamic and evolving character, spirituals proved equally adaptable for use during social and political unrest and in unlikely circumstances. Most notably, the island's songs were used at the turn of the century to help rally support for the United States' involvement in World War I and to calm racial tensions between black and white soldiers. In the 1960s, civil rights activists adopted spirituals as freedom songs, though many were unaware of their connection to the island. Gullah Spirituals uses fieldwork, personal recordings, and oral interviews to build upon earlier studies and includes an appendix with more than fifty transcriptions of St. Helena spirituals, many no longer performed and more than half derived from Crawford's own transcriptions. Through this work, Crawford hopes to restore the cultural memory lost to time while tracing the long arc and historical significance of the St. Helena spirituals.
Lowcountry Voodoo
Author: Terrance ZepkePublisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 156164871X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 109
Book Description
When African slaves were brought to the American South to work the plantations, they brought with them their culture, traditions, and religion—including what came to be called voodoo. This unique blend of Christianity, herbalism, and folk magic is still practiced in South Carolina's Lowcountry. Though a beginners guide, Lowcountry Voodoo offers a surprising wealth of information about this fascinating part of Lowcountry life. Learn about: the Gullah and their ways how to bring good luck and avoid bad luck spells and curses and how to avoid them how to cook up traditional good-luck meals for New Years Day a real voodoo village you can visit sweetgrass baskets events and tours to acquaint you with Lowcountry culture. In a selection of Lowcountry tales that feature voodoo, meet: a boo hag bride who sheds her skin at night Dr. Buzzard, the most famous root doctor a giant ghost dog a young man whose love potion worked too well George Powell, who outwitted a haint Crook-Neck Dick, who (mostly) outwitted a hangman Doctor Trott, who captured a mermaid.