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African-American Studies

Research Guides

Gullah Culture

African-American Christianity : essays in history

(University of California Press, c1994)
McNichols Campus Library
BR 563 .N4 A354 1995

Contains a chapter entitled "Community regulation and cultural specialization in Gullah folk religion" by Margaret Washington.

African heritage of American English

Holloway, Joseph E.. (Indiana University Press, c1993)
McNichols Campus Library
PE 3102 .N4 H65 1993

Contains a chapter entitled "The Bantu vocabulary content of Gullah."

Africanisms in American culture

(Indiana University Press, c1990)
E 185 .A26 1990

Contains a chapter entitled "Gullah attitudes toward life and death" by Margaret Washington Creel.

Africanisms in the Gullah dialect

Turner, Lorenzo Dow. (Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969)
McNichols Campus Library
PM 7875 .G8 T8 1969

Black-white speech relationships

Wolfram, Walt (comp.). (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1971)
McNichols Campus Library
PE 3102 .N4 W86

Contents: Problems confronting the investigator of Gullah, by L. D. Turner.--The relationship of the speech of American Negroes to the speech of whites, by R. I. McDavid & V. G. McDavid.--Toward a new perspective in Negro English dialectology, by B. L. Bailey.--Continuity and change in American Negro dialects. Sociolinguistic factors in the history of American Negro dialects. By W. A. Stewart.--Dialect research: mythology and reality, by L. M. Davis.--Black through white: patterns of communication in Africa and the New World, by D. Dalby.--Black-white speech differences revisited by W. Wolfram.--Bibliography (p. 160-161)

Black border; Gullah stories of the Carolina coast

Gonzales, Ambrose Elliott. (State Company, 1922)
McNichols Campus Library
GR103 .G6

Black Genesis; a chronicle

Stoney, Samuel Gaillard. (Macmillan Company, 1930)
McNichols Campus Library
GR103 .S8

Notes: "Tales of the Gullah Negroes of the Carolina low country [told in the Gullah dialect]"--Foreword. "The family tree of Gullah folk speech and folk tales": p. ix-xxv.

Blue roots: African-American folk magic of the Gullah people

Pinckney, Roger. (Llewellyn Publications, 1998)
McNichols Campus Library
GR 111 .A47 P56 1998

"An inside look at the history, practices, and people of Gullah country, off the coast of South Carolina: their spells and hexes, haunts and hags, the dreaded spirit called the Plateye, and the tales of the "root doctors" themselves. 24 photos." (Amazon.com)

Daughters of the dust

(Kino International [distributor], c1992)
E 185.93 .G4 D38 1992

Story of a large African-American family as they prepare to move North from the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia at the dawn of the 20th century. (113 min.) In VHS and DVD formats.

Daughters of the dust

Dash, Julie. (Dutton, c1997)
PS 3554 .A823 D3 1997

"African-American filmmaker Dash turns her award-winning movie of the same title celebrating the Gullah people of South Carolina into a first novel that's often fascinating but rarely gripping. Unlike most fiction derived from or aiming for the screen, Dash's story is slow-moving and rich in description. In moderation, such qualities are productive, but there's overmuch of a good thing here. Though the lengthy monologues imitate tales told in the legendary fashion of griots, West African storytellers, they too often obstruct rather than advance the narrative. And characters seem more vehicles for cultural commentary than people of flesh and blood. Set in the 1920s, when the old rituals and traditions of African life are dying as the young move away to seek easier lives, the people and the place are described by Amelia, a graduate student raised in Harlem. A descendant of Nan, a former slave and the matriarch of the Peazant clan, who still live on Dawtah Island, she's come to stay with her kin while she collects data for an anthropological thesis she's writing on the Gullahs. And while she does this, she learns family secrets (like why her harsh grandmother Haagar ran away from her abusive father); meets colorful characters and kin (like her Aunt Iona, who defied her mother to marry Julien, a Native American who lives deep within the local swamp); notes how African beliefs and customs are still observed; hears the legend of Ibo Landing, the point from which Ibo slaves started walking back to Africa across the water; and becomes close to her cousin Elizabeth, a healer and teacher. Enough material in hand, Amelia goes back to New York but soon returns to care for her ailing mother. It seems likely she'll stay for good. More docu-fiction than the real thing, but, still, a loving tribute to a distinctive people, exotic place, and now-vanished way of life." (Kirkus Reviews).

Gullah; Negro life in the Carolina Sea Islands

Crum, Mason. (Duke University Press, 1940)
McNichols Campus Library
E 185.93 .S7 C85

Gullah culture in America

Cross, Wilbur. (Praeger, 2008)
McNichols Campus Library
E 185.93 .S7 C76 2008

Contents: "Welcome home!" -- Catching the learning -- A quantum leap -- Growing up Gullah -- Hallelujah! -- Healing and folk music -- The mellifluous Gullah tongue -- Geography -- Feasting the stomach -- Festivals and celebrations -- Music, song, and dance -- Roots.

GullahNet

Gullah Net Overview: "In the past, people have described the Gullah culture as quaint and the language as unintelligible. A closer look reveals a complex history and language with direct links to West Africa that survived slavery and thrived on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullah experience has many variables that make it unique to each family and community. Gullah Net was designed to introduce Gullah culture and language to children on the Web."

Gullah statesman : Robert Smalls from slavery to Congress

Miller, Edward A.. (University Of South Carolina Press, 2008)
McNichols Campus Library
E 185.97 .S6 M55 2008

How did American slavery begin? : readings

Countryman, Edward (ed.). (Bedford/St. Martin's, c1999)
McNichols Campus Library
E 446 .H85 1999

Contains a chapter entitled "Gullah roots, from 'A peculiar people': slave religion and community-culture among the Gullahs" by Margaret Washington.

Language you cry in

(California Newsreel, 1998)
DT 516.45 .M45 L35 1998

Notes: This disc is a DVD-R and may fail to play on some DVD equipment. In English and Mende with English subtitles. Summary: Traces the history of a burial song of the Mende people brought by slaves to the rice plantations of the Southeast coast of the United States over two hundred years ago, and preserved among the Gullah people there. In the 1930s a pioneering Black linguist, Lorenzo Turner, recognized its origin, and in the 1990s scholars Joe Opala and Cynthia Schmidt discovered that the song was still remembered in a remote village in Sierra Leone. Dramatically demonstrates how African Americans retained links with their African past, and concludes with the visit of the Gullah family which had preserved the song to the Mende village, where villagers re-enact the ancient burial rites for them. (53 min.)

legacy of Ibo landing: Gullah roots of African American culture

(Clarity Press, c1998)
McNichols Campus Library
E 185.93 .S7 L43 1998

Contents: Introduction: Rebuilding the African American community by returning to traditions / Marquetta L. Goodwine -- ibo landing / fiction by Ihsan Bracy -- The Gullah War: 1739-1858 / Y.N. Kly -- The relationship of the Gullah-speaking people of coastal South Carolina and Georgia to their African ancestors / William S. Pollitzer -- De ones ya'll kno' bout: we faymus peepol an' we ancestas -- Gawd dun smile ‘pun we: reflections on the ancestors, family, and the Gullah heritage -- The beatitudes from De good nyews bout Jedus Christ wa Luke write / translation by Sea Island Literary Team -- Gud yus fo olman: di nyu testament / Krio translation, 17th century Sierra Leone -- The inspiration of Gullah culture / Jonathan Green -- Plates: paintings by Jonathan Green -- to prepare a way / fiction by Ihsan Bracy -- old man's sport / fiction by Ihsan Bracy -- Mistuh Adam en' Mis' Ebe / Gullah tale translated by Virginia Mixson Geraty -- About hard work & perseverance / Joseph Pinckney -- Plates: paintings by Joseph Pinckney & Leroy Campbell: Basketweaving ; Sea Island cuisine -- We got our way of cooking things: women, food, and preservation of cultural identity / Josephine Beoku-Betts -- Hoppin' John / recipe from Kimberley B. Thomas -- Down home bread pudding / recipe from Carolee Holmes Brown -- Benne seed wafers / a Charleston favorite -- Low country boil / recipe from Jackie Edwards -- Sweet potato pone / recipe from Catherine Carr -- restin' in / fiction by Ihsan Bracy -- Destructionment: treddin' een we ancestas' teahs / Marquetta L. Goodwine -- The ecology of Gullah's survival / Salikoko S. Mufwene -- Holdin' pun we culcha: sites, individuals and organizations preserving the Gullah and Geechee heritage / compiled by Marquetta L. Goodwine -- Excavating Gullah seed: guidelines on conducting research on the Gullah / Marquetta L. Goodwine -- Appendix: UN declaration on the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious & linguistic minorities.

Tales from the land of Gullah

(Matrix Media, c1999)
GR 111 .A47 T3 1999

Summary: Gullah is the genesis of African-American culture, and songs and stories from this folk literature are presented in an enchanting and uplifting program. (58 min.)

Rebecca Tull

Assistant Librarian
Reference Services
McNichols Campus Library

tullrs@udmercy.edu
313-993-1077

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