"The Geechee Lady"

Author: Carmen Uter
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1481708031
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
"The Geechee Lady", subtitled, "Grandma and the Secret Castas ", is an adaptation from the poem, "Miss Willamina", written by the same author. The true story, written in rhythmic pattern, tells of how a wizened older woman, born in 1885 on one of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, relates to a much younger female in the 1950s/1960s' setting of Harlem, New York. Divisive tactics, taught in previous generations to the black slaves by their white "masters", somehow seep their way into the lives of these two people, causing an awkward relationship between the old woman and the young girl. It is an awkwardness which stems from the most sensitive human-dynamic of that post-slavery era;...a dynamic manifested in myriad ways in regard to skin-tones, hair-types, facial features, and other physical traits...bringing about the creation of a very subtle, yet highly sensitive "caste-system" among people of color. This caste-system though well-known among all inhabitants of the colonies in the Americas, ...as well as among its European progenitors,...is rarely discussed openly, even nowadays in 2010/2011, as it is still kept "hush-hush" as a topic to be discussed "secretively" behind closed doors. Therefore, an exciting,"must-see" section of this book, is Part 4-"Grandma and the Secret Castas", which shows copies of 16th and 17th century paintings which still hang today on the walls of the world's greatest museums. These great revolutionary works of art, in a genre called "La pintura de Casta", or "Casta Paintings", depict the lives of the people who represented the original population and who were contributors to the formation of this dominant, and highly-structured Latin-American "caste-system". This social system, called "Mestizaje", created by the royal monarchy of Spain and Portugal,...(out of their desire to bring some semblance of order to the new colonies in the Americas),,,, originally existed as an accepted form of concubinage in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies of the Americas,... then it caught on,...though not quite as successfully, in the British-owned, 13-original USA colonies, ...and then concurrently in all the English-speaking, Caribbean territorities including Jamaica, Trinidad-Tobago, the Bahamas, Antigua, Barbados, British Honduras, and Bermuda;... in French-speaking Louisiana (USA), and the French-speaking islands of Martinique,Guadalupe, and Haiti;... in the Spanish-speaking islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, ...in Spanish Honduras, and on Roatan Island and Spanish-owned Belize (before it was annexed to the British Empire in the 1800s as British Honduras), ...in the German-speaking / Old-Dutch-speaking islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. ...in the Portuguese-owned colonies of the Azores, Cape Verde, and Brazil, and also on all the smaller islands, such as Nevis, St. Croix, the French, St Martin and the Dutch, Maarten, Grenada, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Monserrat, Tortola, and Dominica, etc.

"The Geechee Lady"

Author: Carmen Uter
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1481708031
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 135

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The Geechee Lady", subtitled, "Grandma and the Secret Castas ", is an adaptation from the poem, "Miss Willamina", written by the same author. The true story, written in rhythmic pattern, tells of how a wizened older woman, born in 1885 on one of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, relates to a much younger female in the 1950s/1960s' setting of Harlem, New York. Divisive tactics, taught in previous generations to the black slaves by their white "masters", somehow seep their way into the lives of these two people, causing an awkward relationship between the old woman and the young girl. It is an awkwardness which stems from the most sensitive human-dynamic of that post-slavery era;...a dynamic manifested in myriad ways in regard to skin-tones, hair-types, facial features, and other physical traits...bringing about the creation of a very subtle, yet highly sensitive "caste-system" among people of color. This caste-system though well-known among all inhabitants of the colonies in the Americas, ...as well as among its European progenitors,...is rarely discussed openly, even nowadays in 2010/2011, as it is still kept "hush-hush" as a topic to be discussed "secretively" behind closed doors. Therefore, an exciting,"must-see" section of this book, is Part 4-"Grandma and the Secret Castas", which shows copies of 16th and 17th century paintings which still hang today on the walls of the world's greatest museums. These great revolutionary works of art, in a genre called "La pintura de Casta", or "Casta Paintings", depict the lives of the people who represented the original population and who were contributors to the formation of this dominant, and highly-structured Latin-American "caste-system". This social system, called "Mestizaje", created by the royal monarchy of Spain and Portugal,...(out of their desire to bring some semblance of order to the new colonies in the Americas),,,, originally existed as an accepted form of concubinage in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies of the Americas,... then it caught on,...though not quite as successfully, in the British-owned, 13-original USA colonies, ...and then concurrently in all the English-speaking, Caribbean territorities including Jamaica, Trinidad-Tobago, the Bahamas, Antigua, Barbados, British Honduras, and Bermuda;... in French-speaking Louisiana (USA), and the French-speaking islands of Martinique,Guadalupe, and Haiti;... in the Spanish-speaking islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, ...in Spanish Honduras, and on Roatan Island and Spanish-owned Belize (before it was annexed to the British Empire in the 1800s as British Honduras), ...in the German-speaking / Old-Dutch-speaking islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. ...in the Portuguese-owned colonies of the Azores, Cape Verde, and Brazil, and also on all the smaller islands, such as Nevis, St. Croix, the French, St Martin and the Dutch, Maarten, Grenada, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Monserrat, Tortola, and Dominica, etc.

Vibration Cooking

Vibration Cooking PDF Author: Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820339598
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Vibration Cooking was first published in 1970, not long after the term “soul food” gained common use. While critics were quick to categorize her as a proponent of soul food, Smart-Grosvenor wanted to keep the discussion of her cookbook/memoir focused on its message of food as a source of pride and validation of black womanhood and black “consciousness raising.” In 1959, at the age of nineteen, Smart-Grosvenor sailed to Europe, “where the bohemians lived and let live.” Among the cosmopolites of radical Paris, the Gullah girl from the South Carolina low country quickly realized that the most universal lingua franca is a well-cooked meal. As she recounts a cool cat’s nine lives as chanter, dancer, costume designer, and member of the Sun Ra Solar-Myth Arkestra, Smart-Grosvenor introduces us to a rich cast of characters. We meet Estella Smart, Vertamae’s grandmother and connoisseur of mountain oysters; Uncle Costen, who lived to be 112 and knew how to make Harriet Tubman Ragout; and Archie Shepp, responsible for Collard Greens à la Shepp, to name a few. She also tells us how poundcake got her a marriage proposal (she didn’t accept) and how she perfected omelettes in Paris, enchiladas in New Mexico, biscuits in Mississippi, and feijoida in Brazil. “When I cook, I never measure or weigh anything,” writes Smart-Grosvenor. “I cook by vibration.” This edition features a foreword by Psyche Williams-Forson placing the book in historical context and discussing Smart-Grosvenor’s approach to food and culture. A new preface by the author details how she came to write Vibration Cooking.

Gullah Geechee Home Cooking

Gullah Geechee Home Cooking PDF Author: Emily Meggett
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1647006902
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
The first major Gullah Geechee cookbook from “the matriarch of Edisto Island,” who provides delicious recipes and the history of an overlooked American community The history of the Gullah and Geechee people stretches back centuries, when enslaved members of this community were historically isolated from the rest of the South because of their location on the Sea Islands of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Today, this Lowcountry community represents the most direct living link to the traditional culture, language, and foodways of their West African ancestors. Gullah Geechee Home Cooking, written by Emily Meggett, the matriarch of Edisto Island, is the preeminent Gullah cookbook. At 89 years old, and with more than 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Meggett is a respected elder in the Gullah community of South Carolina. She has lived on the island all her life, and even at her age, still cooks for hundreds of people out of her hallowed home kitchen. Her house is a place of pilgrimage for anyone with an interest in Gullah Geechee food. Meggett’s Gullah food is rich and flavorful, though it is also often lighter and more seasonal than other types of Southern cooking. Heirloom rice, fresh-caught seafood, local game, and vegetables are key to her recipes for regional delicacies like fried oysters, collard greens, and stone-ground grits. This cookbook includes not only delicious and accessible recipes, but also snippets of the Meggett family history on Edisto Island, which stretches back into the 19th century. Rich in both flavor and history, Meggett’s Gullah Geechee Home Cooking is a testament to the syncretism of West African and American cultures that makes her home of Edisto Island so unique.

Talking to the Dead

Talking to the Dead PDF Author: LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822376709
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Talking to the Dead is an ethnography of seven Gullah/Geechee women from the South Carolina lowcountry. These women communicate with their ancestors through dreams, prayer, and visions and traditional crafts and customs, such as storytelling, basket making, and ecstatic singing in their churches. Like other Gullah/Geechee women of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, these women, through their active communication with the deceased, make choices and receive guidance about how to live out their faith and engage with the living. LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant emphasizes that this communication affirms the women's spiritual faith—which seamlessly integrates Christian and folk traditions—and reinforces their position as powerful culture keepers within Gullah/Geechee society. By looking in depth at this long-standing spiritual practice, Manigault-Bryant highlights the subversive ingenuity that lowcountry inhabitants use to thrive spiritually and to maintain a sense of continuity with the past.

Rice

Rice PDF Author: Michael W. Twitty
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469660253
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
Among the staple foods most welcomed on southern tables—and on tables around the world—rice is without question the most versatile. As Michael W. Twitty observes, depending on regional tastes, rice may be enjoyed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; as main dish, side dish, and snack; in dishes savory and sweet. Filling and delicious, rice comes in numerous botanical varieties and offers a vast range of scents, tastes, and textures depending on how it is cooked. In some dishes, it is crunchingly crispy; in others, soothingly smooth; in still others, somewhere right in between. Commingled or paired with other foods, rice is indispensable to the foodways of the South. As Twitty's fifty-one recipes deliciously demonstrate, rice stars in Creole, Acadian, soul food, Low Country, and Gulf Coast kitchens, as well as in the kitchens of cooks from around the world who are now at home in the South. Exploring rice's culinary history and African diasporic identity, Twitty shows how to make the southern classics as well as international dishes—everything from Savannah Rice Waffles to Ghanaian Crab Stew. As Twitty gratefully sums up, "Rice connects me to every other person, southern and global, who is nourished by rice's traditions and customs."

Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer

Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer PDF Author: Matthew Raiford
Publisher: The Countryman Press
ISBN: 1682686051
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
More than 100 heirloom recipes from a dynamic chef and farmer working the lands of his great-great-great grandfather. From Hot Buttermilk Biscuits and Sweet Potato Pie to Salmon Cakes on Pepper Rice and Gullah Fish Stew, Gullah Geechee food is an essential cuisine of American history. It is the culinary representation of the ocean, rivers, and rich fertile loam in and around the coastal South. From the Carolinas to Georgia and Florida, this is where descendants of enslaved Africans came together to make extraordinary food, speaking the African Creole language called Gullah Geechee. In this groundbreaking and beautiful cookbook, Matthew Raiford pays homage to this cuisine that nurtured his family for seven generations. In 2010, Raiford’s Nana handed over the deed to the family farm to him and his sister, and Raiford rose to the occasion, nurturing the farm that his great-great-great grandfather, a freed slave, purchased in 1874. In this collection of heritage and updated recipes, he traces a history of community and family brought together by food.

WEBE Gullah/Geechee

WEBE Gullah/Geechee PDF Author: Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781507506769
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
WEBE Gullah/Geechee Cultural Capital & Collaboration Anthology is the second anthology compiled by Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation (www.QueenQuet.com). This historic work details interdisciplinary research within the Gullah/Geechee Nation. Ethnography, anthropology, science, history, and literary contributions and analysis all come to life within these pages. This book not only provides the history of the evolution of the Gullah/Geechee culture, but also focuses on the issues of leveraging cultural capital in the current human rights movement of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. This anthology tells the living story of the Gullah/Geechee. Disya da who webe!

Daughters of the Dust

Daughters of the Dust PDF Author: Julie Dash
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593185560
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Drawing from the magical world of her iconic Sundance award-winning film, Julie Dash’s stand-alone novel tells another rich, historical tale of the Gullah-Geechee people: a multigenerational story about a Brooklyn College anthropology student who finds an unexpected homecoming when she heads to the South Carolina Sea Islands to study her ancestors. Set in the 1920s in the Sea Islands off the Carolina coast where the Gullah-Geechee people have preserved much of their African heritage and language, Daughters of the Dust chronicles the lives of the Peazants, a large, proud family who trace their origins to the Ibo, who were enslaved and brought to the islands more than one hundred years earlier. Native New Yorker and anthropology student Amelia Peazant has always known about her grandmother and mother’s homeland of Dawtuh Island, though she’s never understood why her family remains there, cut off from modern society. But when an opportunity arises for Amelia to head to the island to study her ancestry for her thesis, she is surprised by what she discovers. From her multigenerational clan she gathers colorful stories, learning about "the first man and woman," the slaves who walked across the water back home to Africa, the ways men and women need each other, and the intermingling of African and Native American cultures. The more she learns, the more Amelia comes to treasure her family and their traditions, discovering an especially strong kinship with her fiercely independent cousin, Elizabeth. Eyes opened to an entirely new world, Amelia must decide what’s next for her and find her role in the powerful legacy of her people. Daughters of the Dust is a vivid novel that blends folktales, history, and anthropology to tell a powerful and emotional story of homecoming, the reclamation of cultural heritage, and the enduring bonds of family.

God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man

God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man PDF Author: Cornelia Bailey
Publisher: Doubleday Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
"In this memoir, Sapelo Island native Cornelia Walker Bailey tells the history of her threatened Georgia homeland." "Off the coast of Georgia, a small close-knit community of African Americans traces their lineage to enslaved West Africans. Living on a barrier island in almost total isolation the people of Sapelo have been able to do what most others could not: They have preserved many of the folkways of their forebears in West Africa, believing in "signs and spirits and all kinds of magic."" "Cornelia Walker Bailey, a direct descendant of Bilali, the most famous and powerful enslaved African to inhabit the island, is the keeper of cultural secrets and the sage of Sapelo. In words that are poetic and straight to the point, she tells the story of Sapelo - including the Geechee belief in the equal power of God, "Dr. Buzzard" (voodoo), and the "Bolito Man" (luck)." "But her tale is not without peril, for the old folkways are quickly slipping away. The elders are dying, the young must leave the island to go to school and to find work, and the community's ability to live on the land is in jeopardy. The State of Georgia owns nine-tenths of the land and the pressure on the inhabitants is ever-increasing." "Cornelia Walker Bailey is determined to save the community, but time will tell whether the people of Sapelo will be able to retain the land, and the treasured culture which their forebears bestowed upon them more than two hundred years ago."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect

Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect PDF Author: Lorenzo Dow Turner
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781570034527
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
A unique creole language spoken on the coastal islands and adjacent mainland of South Carolina and Georgia, Gullah existed as an isolated and largely ignored linguistic phenomenon until the publication of Lorenzo Dow Turner's landmark volume Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. In his classic treatise, Turner, the first professionally trained African American linguist, focused on a people whose language had long been misunderstood, lifted a shroud that had obscured the true history of Gullah, and demonstrated that it drew important linguistic features directly from the languages of West Africa. Initially published in 1949, this groundbreaking work of Afrocentric scholarship opened American minds to a little-known culture while initiating a means for the Gullah people to reclaim and value their past. The book presents a reference point for today's discussions about ever-present language varieties, Ebonics, and education, offering important reminders about the subtleties and power of racial and cultural prejudice. In their introduction to the volume, Katherine Wyly Mille and Michael B. Montgomery set the text in its sociolinguistic context, explore recent developments in the celebratio