AskDefine | Define Gullah

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English

Adjective

Gullah
  1. Pertaining to the language and culture of a group of islands off the southern coast of the United States.
    The music of George Gershwin’s Porgie and Bess was inspired in part by Gullah "shouts".

Proper noun

Gullah
  1. A creole of English and various African languages spoken on a group of islands off the southern coast of the United States.
    Gullah has been spoken continuously since before the Civil War.

External links

Extensive Definition

The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Low Country region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Historically, the Gullah region once extended north to the Cape Fear area on the coast of North Carolina and south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on the coast of Florida; but today the Gullah area is confined to the South Carolina and Georgia Low Country. The Gullah people are also called Geechee, especially in Georgia.
The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States. They speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and significant influences from African languages in grammar and sentence structure. The Gullah language is related to Jamaican Creole, Bahamian Dialect, and the Krio language of Sierra Leone in West Africa. Gullah storytelling, foodways, music, folk beliefs, crafts, farming and fishing traditions, etc. all exhibit strong influences from West and Central African cultures.

History

The name "Gullah" may derive from Angola where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. Some scholars have also suggested it comes from Gola, an ethnic group living in the border area between Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa, another region where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. The name "Geechee," another common name for the Gullah people, may come from Kissi (pronounced "geezee"), an ethnic group living in the border area between Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Some scholars have also suggested Native American origins for these words. The Spanish called the South Carolina and Georgia coastal region Guale after a Native American tribe, and the Ogeechee River, a prominent geographical feature in coastal Georgia, takes its name from a Creek Indian word. Regardless of the origins of these names, though, it is clear that Gullah language and culture have strong connections to the African continent.

African roots

Most of the Gullahs' ancestors were brought to the South Carolina and Georgia Low Country through the ports of Charleston and Savannah. Charleston was the most important port in North America for the Atlantic slave trade. Almost half of the enslaved Africans brought into what is now the United States came through that one port. Savannah was also active in the Atlantic slave trade, but on a much smaller scale than Charleston.
The largest group of Africans brought into Charleston and Savannah came from the West African rice-growing region that stretches from what are now Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau in the north to Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in the south. South Carolina and Georgia rice planters once called this region the "Rice Coast"—indicating its importance as a source of skilled African labor for their own rice industry—but modern historians call it the "Upper Guinea Coast." The second-largest group of Africans brought through these ports came from the Congo and Angola regions in Central Africa. Smaller numbers also were imported from the Gold Coast (what is now Ghana) and the West Indies.

Origin of Gullah culture

Gullah historical figures

Gullah leaders, artists, and cultural activists

Famous African Americans with Gullah roots

*GULLAH BIBLIOGRAPHY

Further reading

* 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.
  • 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: University of Georgia Press.
  • Smith, Julia Floyd (1985) "Slavery and Rice Culture in Low Country Georgia: 1750-1860," Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
  • Wood, Peter (1974) "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion," New York: Knopf.
  • 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: University of Georgia Press.
  • Jones-Jackson, Patricia (1987) "When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • Montgomery, Michael (ed.) (1994) "The Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • 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 (2002) "Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect," Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
  • 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: University of Georgia Press.
  • 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, Connecticut: 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.
  • Parish, Lydia (1992) "Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • Rosenbaum, Art (1998) "Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • Rosengarten, Dale (1986) "Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry," Columbia, South Carolina: 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.
  • Georgia Writer's Project (1986) "Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • Johnson, Thomas L. & Nina J. Root (2002) "Camera Man's Journey: Julian Dimock's South," Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • Minor, Leigh Richmond & Edith Dabbs (2003) "Face of an Island: Leigh Richmond Miner's Photographs of Saint Helena Island," Charleston, South Carolina: Wyrick & Company.
  • Ulmann, Doris & Suzanna Krout Millerton, New York: Aperture, Inc.
* BIBLIOGRAPHY: 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, South Carolina: Sandlapper Publishing Company.
  • Geraty, Virginia (1998) "Gullah Night Before Christmas," Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company.
  • 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.
  • Conroy, Pat (1972) "The Water Is Wide," Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  • Dash, Julie (1999) "Daughters of the Dust," New York: Plume Books.
  • Gershwin, George (1935) "Porgy and Bess," New York:Alfred Publishing.
  • Heyward, Dubose (1925)"Porgy," Charleston, S.C.: Wyrick & Compnay.
  • Hurston, Zora Neale (1937) "Their Eyes Were Watching God," New York: Harper Perennial.
  • Naylor, Gloria (1988) "Mama Day," New York: Ticknor & Fields.
  • Straight, Susan (1993) "I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots," New York: Hyperion.

Other media

Gullah Gullah Island; Children's show on Nickelodeon. *REVIEWS: FILMS ON THE GULLAH
Gullah in German: Gullah
Gullah in Spanish: Gullah
Gullah in Esperanto: Gulaoj
Gullah in French: Gullah
Gullah in Japanese: ガラ人
Gullah in Chinese: 古拉人種
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