Gullah

The young rise in drear consciousness has cr haveed an extraordinary hobby in the study of shadowy heritage and the preservation of Black coating in America. Many scholars and students argon turning their attention to A frican-American cultural patterns, which experience been long ignored and often scorned. Black people argon realizing much and more that these patterns exemplify key features of their heritage and may offer non only clues into the past, plainly also provide guides to survival in the future.As this interest gains momentum, African-Americans are looking toward the South, particularly to its rural and isolated islands where so legion(predicate) of the unique elements of contemporary Black culture have their roots. The culture of the sea Islands is such a special case. The lack of contact with the mainland helped to preserve n primal of the important features of their African culture. Because the Africans that were brought to these islands were not sold and r esold as often as those on the mainland, some of their ancestral family patterns remain even to this date. &8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212- A. ocean Islands receive nevertheless north of Georgetown, South Carolina, and continue to the Florida border. It is estimated that there are somewhat 1,000 islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia separated from the mainland by marshes, alluvial streams and rivers. 1. some(prenominal) of the islands are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and are as far as twenty miles or more from the mainland. 2. They swan in size from the uninhabitable ones to pottys Island South Carolina, the flash largest island in the United States.B. European settlement 1. The Sea Islands have dramatis personae the basis of a very profitable agriculture. 2. During knuckle downry, the long staple cotton grown here was considered the best available anywhere and brought very genial prices on the world market 3. The economy of the region was based close to entirely on slavery, and because of the labor intensity of the crops, very large plantations unquestionable in this area. a. Some Whites have entire islands containing thousands of acres of land and keep hundreds of slaves to till the soil. C. Isolation 1.The isolation of the islands and the large numbers of slaves meant that the influence of American White culture upon African and slave culture was minimal. 2. To further elevate the development of a unique Black culture, there was the continual importee of slaves directly from Africa. a. The overwhelming number of slaves entering South Carolina during the 18th vitamin C came directly from Africa. b. The isolation of the islands made them a prime location for slave traders to land illegal cargoes of Africans after the Slave Trade Act of 1808. c. Africans were import into the islands as late as 1858.D. Cultural formations 1. Th ere was a geographical, fond and cultural basis for the retention of universey elements of African culture in the Sea Islands and the development of a distinctive African-American culture. 2. The word Gullah was formerly defined as the way of speaking of Blacks on the Sea Islands. In recent years, Gullah has come to mean not only the speech of Black islanders but also their culture and way of life. a. Food- traditional seafood and rice dishes Hoppin John and Frogmore Stew b. Arts-basket weaving, donning fishnets, pottery, and quilting. . The first American cowboys were the Blacks in the Carolina low country (Sea Islands). d. Contributions to American music are also evident. e. Tradition of fishing passed from one genesis to anformer(a). f. During the slave period many of the customs the people developed intelligibly reflected African culture and post-bellum conditions enhanced their retention. Basket weaving is one of the preponderant crafts of the region, and one of the oldes t crafts of African origin in theUnited States. Crabbing and fishing are a very important part of the Sea Island culture.Sea Island children are intimately old(prenominal) with the ocean and learn the art of casting and netting as early as the age of three. E. Development of survival patterns 1. Philosophy and utilization of time. previous(a) Blacks have a different relationship to time than many jr. and up to date Blacks. 2. Environment coping a. Dealing with atmospheric changes F. mental and sociological issues. 1. Many Sea Island Blacks may have different egotism perceptions and attitudes as compared to Blacks raised in other areas. 2. The Sea Island Blacks frequently owned their land since the years before Reconstruction.Many of them do not k instantly what it federal agency to pay rent or a mortgage and to some the very concepts are meaningless. 3. The fact that the people were very isolated from mainstream culture, they could only make it by developing a posture of self- sufficiency and independence. 4. Many cured Sea Island Blacks had very limited interaction with Whites. 5. Black activism of Sea Island Blacks a. Some of the earliest support for the civil rights movement came out of the Sea Island and Martin Luther big businessman developed some of his major campaigns during retreats to the area. . Local independence and activism has its roots in the Reconstructionist Era and the Black majority in the area. c. A large division of the elderly Sea Islanders registered to vote before 1910. G. Uniqueness of Sea Islands 1. They are home of a West African people called Gullah. They were captured from this area because the Europeans need technology and labor to build their empires and America. The Gullah captives possessed skills (technology) in agriculture, science, animal dry land, construction, navigation, government, and teaching. 2.The companionship and need for farming and building in the Sea Islands required specialize skills that were found in abundance in West Africa 3. The isolation of the Gullah from mainland whites and other Africans allowed the Gullah to maintain a high degree of African culture. Also, the high assimilation of Africans allowed a Gullah community to form an Afrocentric cultural entity within a European American cultural context. H. Gullah Dialect 1. The Gullah accent is much more than just an accent on the English language. Gullah, as a language, uses distinct African language patterns, and conceptual meanings.In other nomenclature, the Gullah language is uniquely African, with English words added to it. 2. One study says that the origin of the term Gullah and the Blacks came from the West swoop of Africa, but exactly where has not been agreed upon. a. One is that Gullah is a shortened form of Angola, the name of an African West Coast district lying southwesterly of the Equator and the mouth of the Congo River. b. A second suggestion is that Gullah comes from the name of the Liberian group of tribes known as Golas living on the West Coast between Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast. . Gullah has been called the most African of any of our Black dialects, yet it can be traced back in practically any detail to English dialect speech. There has been an interchange of cultural determine between the Black and White communities who have lived and worked together on the Sea Islands from the first days of settlement. The dialect was nourished in isolation and has survived with niggling change because of the continued isolation of its native area. The Parable of the Lost Sheep, Luke 152-3 King James VersionAnd the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with the them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the 90 and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost, until hefind it? Gullah Version En de Pharisee en de law teesha dem saat ta mek cumplain ,say Dis man sociate widsinna en ebn eat mong am. Now den Jesus done know dem binna nek cumplain bout am. So e tell am one parryubble, say Supposin a hondad sheep blonks ta one a oona.Ef one a dem sheep done way out een de forest wa you fa do? Sho nuf, you gwain lef de ninety-nine oddares safe een de pasta. You gwain saach fa de one wa loss tel you fin am eni? I. Sea Islands Today 1. Today, an estimated 270,00 people along the Georgia, Carolina, and northeast Florida coasts speak of Gullah. The dialect survived primarily among rural Blacks who largely depended on farming and fishing. Many of these people are now moving into jobs in the various(a) resort industries, which are springing up on the islands, thus ending their isolation.Nonetheless, Gullah has a way of surviving even in small clusters in sunrise(prenominal) York City where its speakers are often mistaken for Barbadians. 2. Because many corporations are now building their resorts on the islands and the United States Marine Corps has established a training base on Paris Island, many sociologists theorize the Gullah culture will soon die out. Nonetheless, although the pressures on the Gullah culture to disintegrate and acquire are great, there are a number of people who are making valiant attempts to maintain, and preserve this treasured culture.