Julie Rutledge's List: Gullah

• Goodwine
• According to the Gullah/Geechee coalition, the cultures began during the enslavement of Africans in America and are related to the traditional African cultures of the people of Windward or Rice Coast of West Africa.
• Many were isolated on the coastal islands, allowing them to maintain their culture, language and traditions, Goodwine said.
• Goodwine realized other people throughout the Sea Islands -- barrier islands off the coast of South Carolina, Georgia and North Florida -- were working to preserve the Gullah culture, but they were not keeping track of each others' efforts
• "Hilton Head is a prime example of native islander displacement and erosion of Gullah culture," Goodwine said.
• The coalition's efforts include signing petitions and raising funds to preserve historic sites

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• The name "Gullah" may derive from Angola where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated.
• After the Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the outside world actually increased in some respects. The rice planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their farms 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 hurricanes devastated the crops in the 1890s. Left alone in remote rural areas in the Low Country, the Gullahs continued to practice their traditional culture with little influence from the outside world well into the 20th Century.
• The Gullahs have also struggled to preserve their traditional culture. In 2005, the Gullah community unveiled a translation of the New Testament in the Gullah language (a project that took more than 20 years to complete).
• The Gullahs achieved another victory in 2006 when the U.S. Congress passed the "Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Act" that provides $10 million over ten years for the preservation and interpretation of historic sites relating to Gullah culture. The "heritage corridor" will extend from southern North Carolina to northern Florida. The project will be administered by the US National Park Service with strong input from the Gullah community.

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• the Gullah have been able to preserve more of their African cultural heritage than any other group of Black Americans. They speak a creole language similar to Sierra Leone Krio, use African names, tell African folktales, make African-style handicrafts
• rice is what forms the special link between the Gullah and the people of Sierra Leone
• heir language reflects significant influences from Sierra Leone and the surrounding area.
• the Gullah creole also contains several thousand words and personal names derived from African languages—and a large proportion of these (about 25%) are from languages spoken in Sierra Leone.
• a Black American linguist found Gullahs in rural South Carolina and Georgia who could recite songs and fragments of stories in Mende and Vai, and who could do simple counting in the Guinea/Sierra Leone dialect of Fula
• all of the African texts that Gullah people have preserved are in languages spoken within Sierra Leone and along its borders.

  • The texts that Gullah people have preserved have been in languages spoken in Sierra Leone & surrounding areas.

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• “Tortoise and the Hare”
• Aunt Pearlie Sue  (a character portrayed by native Sea Lander and actress Anita  Singleton-Prather).
• visitors can head "outside" the home and experience how the Gullah  people survived through shrimp catching, gardening and rice processing  in Livin’ off the Land.

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