Charleston Gullah Culture
Those who are visiting Charleston for the first time will be struck by the charms of the old South surely, and find much to enjoy and explore in this vastly rich city. It will surely be considered somewhat striking if not overwhelming that the influences from African culture inform so much of what happens here. It’s deeply embedded in the history and is deeply touching its present, which is rather lively and endlessly intriguing.
From the glories of the first-class accommodations to the streets of Charleston, there are many worlds that get crossed and cultures that meet and form the fabric of the place. It’s impossible to forget once it’s experienced, and so richly in place in the mythical imaginary, that it’s delightful and complex all at the same time.
Movie buffs may be familiar with Julie Dash ‘s brilliant and provocative film, Daughters of the Dust. This film is entirely infused with cosmology and symbolism that come directly from Gullah culture, and although the setting is Georgia rather than South Carolina, the culture has the same roots, and the same language, more or less. It would take another dozen works of scholarship to unpack all the subtle and overt touches in the film, and it bears repeated viewings.
Like most cultures, it’s perhaps easier for first-time guests to visit it first through the cuisine before attempting to excavate the philosophy and history. For this, then, a visit to the Gullah Gourmet might serve as a magnificent introduction, where the tastes of the culture are on display and made available for carrying in bags.
Here, the food serves an apt illustration, because its process and evolution are running along similar developments. Gullah language is a combination of multiple Western and Central African tongues, mixed with an English dialect that was spoken in the 17th century. One of the more profoundly exciting things about the language and the culture is that it developed for a time in deep isolation. The slave populations were kept apart, because of the rate of disease that prevailed, a colonial inheritance that made for a deeper isolation than was already brought upon them. This meant that the language had to develop in the communities, and still strikes linguists as a remarkable way of looking into how culture modifies language over time, and how thinking develops in conjunction with the way words are used to signify.
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