The Gullah Culture

Although the Gullah does not have any one tie to a certain African nation, you can generalize their location and cultural background to that of West Africa and Western Sudan. Like many other cultures throughout history, the Gullah was influenced by those who watched over them, in this case the whites. Christianity was probably one of the major influences from the whites. However, the Gullah people went a different way about praising; they did it in the form of ring shouts. Gullah culture is vibrantly similar to that of Western African, language, arts, crafts, and the way that ceremonies are conducted. I can also notice some similarities between song and dance with other African countries that we have studied before. There is a strong influence of drums in the Gullah music culture. I also notice from one of the video posts that there are sometimes individuals that are “taken away” into a kind of trance. Repetition of rhythm help those who are dancing or singing stay on beat. I could not tell entirely but it appears that some of the instruments the Gullah use are indeed the same instruments that their roots in Africa use.