Global InformationRepresentations of Gullah culture in art and media information
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, in both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. They developed a creole language, also called Gullah, and a culture with some African influence.
Historically, the Gullah region extended from the Cape Fear area on North Carolina's coast south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on Florida's coast. The Gullah people and their language are also called Geechee, which may be derived from the name of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia.[1] Gullah is a term that was originally used to designate the creole dialect of English spoken by Gullah and Geechee people. Over time, its speakers have used this term to formally refer to their creole language and distinctive ethnic identity as a people. The Georgia communities are distinguished by identifying as either "Freshwater Geechee" or "Saltwater Geechee", depending on whether they live on the mainland or the Sea Islands.[2][3][4][5]
Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in rural areas, the Africans, enslaved from a variety of Central and West African ethnic groups, developed a creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage from various peoples; in addition, they absorbed new influences from the region. The Gullah people speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and influenced by African languages in grammar and sentence structure. Sometimes referred to as "Sea Island Creole" by linguists and scholars, the Gullah language is sometimes likened to Bahamian Creole, Barbadian Creole, Guyanese Creole, Belizean Creole, Jamaican Patois and the Krio language of West Africa. Gullah crafts, farming and fishing traditions, folk beliefs, music, rice-based cuisine and story-telling traditions all exhibit strong influences from Central and West African cultures.[6][7][8][9]
Over the years, the Gullah have attracted study by many historians, linguists, folklorists, and anthropologists interested in their rich cultural heritage. Many academic books on that subject have been published. The Gullah have also become a symbol of cultural pride for blacks throughout the United States and a subject of general interest in the media. Numerous newspaper and magazine articles, documentary films, and children's books on Gullah culture, have been produced, in addition to popular novels set in the Gullah region. In 1991 Julie Dash wrote and directed Daughters of the Dust, the first feature film about the Gullah, set at the turn of the 20th century on St. Helena Island. Born into a Gullah family, she was the first African-American woman director to produce a feature film.
- ^ Michael A. Gomez (9 November 2000). Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-8078-6171-4.
- ^ Philip Morgan (15 August 2011). African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and the Gullah Geechee. University of Georgia Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-8203-4274-0.
- ^ Cornelia Bailey; Norma Harris; Karen Smith (2003). Sapelo Voices: Historical Anthropology and the Oral Traditions of Gullah-Geechee Communities on Sapelo Island, Georgia. State University of West Georgia. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-883199-14-2.
- ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. p. 16.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Anand Prahlad (31 August 2016). African American Folklore: An Encyclopedia for Students: An Encyclopedia for Students. ABC-CLIO. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-61069-930-3.
- ^ Mwalimu J. Shujaa; Kenya J. Shujaa (21 July 2015). The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America. SAGE Publications. pp. 435–436. ISBN 978-1-4833-4638-0.
- ^ Daina Ramey Berry (2012). Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-313-34908-9.
- ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. pp. 50–58.