Book

Drums and shadows: survival studies among the Georgia coastal Negroes

University of Georgia Press • Athens • Published In 1986 • Pages:

By: Georgia Writers' Project. Savannah Unit, Joyner, Charles W., Bell, Muriel Barrow, Bell, Malcolm.

Abstract

This is a pioneering study in demonstrating the continuing influence of African folklore among Georgian coastal Negroes as it existed in the latter part of the 1930s. The research was undertaken by members of the Federal Writers' Project -- unemployed novelists, poets, Ph.D.'s, journalists and free-lance writers -- who operated as an agency of the New Deal's Work Projects Administration. These fieldworkers interviewed sharecroppers and ex-slaves, studied court records, inventoried cemetaries, and collected oral histories and folklore. The major bulk of the material in this source focuses on interviews with informants in a number of small Sea Island communities (e. g., Old Fort, Tin City, Yamacraw, etc.). Most of the questions asked of the informants are particularly concerned with various aspects of religious customs, such as conjuring (sorcery), death practices, belief in spirits, magic and curing, and baptism, but there is also information here on naming practices, music and musical instruments (particularly drums), dance, and knowledge and beliefs about the Sea Islanders African ancestors. The comments of the informants are recorded in the dialect of the Coastal Blacks of Georgia and South Carolina, a form of creole language which played an important part in shaping the culture of the area. Notes in the text refer to the appendix at the end of this source and to specific African parallels described therein (see Category 'Comparative Evidence' (171), pp. 195-249).

HRAF PubDate

2000

Region

North America

Sub Region

Regional, Ethnic and Diaspora Cultures

Document Type

Book

Evaluation

Creator Types

Organization Document

Report

Document Rating

5: Excellent Primary Data

Analyst

John Beierle ; 1990-1991

Field Date

no date

Coverage Date

1936-1940

Coverage Place

Georgia, United States

Notes

[by] the Savannah Unit, Georgia Writer's Project, Work Projects Administration, introduction by Charles Joyner, photographs by Muriel and Malcolm Bell, Jr.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-263) and index

LCCN

86003370

LCSH

Sea Islands/Gullahs