Refuting the myth that Black American music/culture is "Europeanized".

[Supper]

Now compare to Caperira!!


This is why we NEED more K&K practitioners to go beast mode like our Afro-Brazilian cousins...

Yep, it's strange that just about every aspect of Afro-Diaspora culture that has an African-American counter part, is most popularly represented by said African-American counterpart. Well, not in this case. Knocking and Kicking is a very secretive part of the culture for some Geechie families in Georgia and South Carolina. Whereas Capoeira is one of Brazil's most mainstream international cultural contributions.

Though the JailHouse rock/52 block system of the Northern Tri-State area prisons is said to have origins in Knocking and Kicking in the SE atlantic sea islands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jailhouse_rock_(fighting_style)

 

[Supper]

This thread is great....






a chick (i think) posted some of supper's post on an anthro forum i frequented... h star i think her name was... she posted on nairaland... small world

Small world indeed and yes I remember H-star being one of the main contributors to that thread on nairaland I made on this. She said she was from Houston, like me. And I see you are as well. lol I be damned.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

BTW guys that was the last one in that series. lol

Good job breh. I never knew how much influence blacks in America had that much influence on certain architecture in America. I only heard about slaves building the white house.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Yep, it's strange that just about every aspect of Afro-Diaspora culture that has an African-American counter part, is most popularly represented by said African-American counterpart. Well, not in this case. Knocking and Kicking is a very secretive part of the culture for some Geechie families in Georgia and South Carolina. Whereas Capoeira is one of Brazil's most mainstream international cultural contributions.

Though the JailHouse rock/52 block system of the Northern Tri-State area prisons is said to have origins in Knocking and Kicking in the SE atlantic sea islands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jailhouse_rock_(fighting_style)

The bolded is also kinda sad, because people ignorantly believe Capoeira is the only style of its own in the diaspora. So much they believe it has no connections to Africa and only began in Brazil. I was debating against some ignorant person in the comment sections of the video, who believed Capoeira has no roots in Africa, but more importantly also has native influence. Me and others had to correct him.

Not only does the style of Capoeira PRE-DATE its arrival ti Brazil, but the style is found throughout the diaspora. Most people do not know that.

And yeah I heard of Jailhouse Rock.

 

[Supper]

The bolded is also kinda sad, because people ignorantly believe Capoeira is the only style of its own in the diaspora. So much they believe it has no connections to Africa and only began in Brazil. I was debating against some ignorant person in the comment sections of the video, who believed Capoeira has no roots in Africa, but more importantly also has native influence. Me and others had to correct him.

Not only does the style of Capoeira PRE-DATE its arrival ti Brazil, but the style is found throughout the diaspora. Most people do not know that.

And yeah I heard of Jailhouse Rock.

Well, whether for not it has amerindian influences I'm not a liberty to comment on, but to deny it's obvious connections to the Angolan N'golo style is just asinine.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Well, whether for not it has amerindian influences I'm not a liberty to comment on, but to deny it's obvious connections to the Angolan N'golo style is just asinine.

Indeed.


IMO N'Golo looks less like a dance. Obviously due to Capoeira having to look like a dance to fool slave masters.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

More info on Knocking and Kicking and it actually being used in the Gullah Wars.

Interesting...

@IllmaticDelta @Supper @Poitier @K.O.N.Y

Lets go beyond music...

Lets talk about African American fighting styles/Martial Arts. YES African American MARTIAL ARTS! The most common one being known as "knocking and kicking" or sometimes "Teke" or "Kugonga Na MaTeke" founded in low county South Carolina and Georgia. Its very similar to Brazilian Capoeira, but unlike Capoeira it utilizes more body parts such as head, knees and elbows.

A good video.


05:07-He highlights about knocking and kicking.

36:20-He even highlights the black influence on modern boxing!

Some stuff on Knocking and Kicking from his book:

Knocking and Kicking influence on modern day boxing?

 

[Blessings]

subssssssssssss.....will read through later

 

[IllmaticDelta]

@KidStranglehold I see we're going to have to get serious, now. lol

Southern US symbol of an African past!


"The African-American headwrap holds a distinctive position in the history of American dress both for its longevity and for its potent signification's. It endured the travail of slavery and never passed out of fashion. The headwrap represents far more than a piece of fabric wound around the head.
This distinct cloth head covering has been called variously "head rag," "head-tie," "head handkerchief," "turban," or "headwrap." I use the latter term here. The headwrap usually completely covers the hair, being held in place by tying the ends into knots close to the skull. As a form of apparel in the United States, the headwrap has been exclusive to women of African descent.The headwrap originated in sub-Saharan Africa, and serves similar functions for both African and African American women. In style, the African American woman's headwrap exhibits the features of sub-Saharan aesthetics and worldview. In the United States, however, the headwrap acquired a paradox of meaning not customary on the ancestral continent. During slavery, white overlords imposed its wear as a badge of enslavement! Later it evolved into the stereotype that whites held of the "Black Mammy" servant."
(Read more here)

African-American woman in Charleston, SC working as a street vendor in the 1900s.

I'm sure many of us African-Americans who grew up in the south have had great aunts & grand mothers who wore this type of down home country(but really African) apparel.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/feature6.html

few more examples

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Face Jugs: African- American Art and Ritual in 19th-Century

“Face jug” is a term coined by decorative arts historians to refer to an African American pottery type created in the second half of the nineteenth century, in the midst of slavery, in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. The small vessel is turned stoneware with facial features—wide eyes and bared teeth—made of kaolin, a locally sourced clay.
Historians originally believed that the face jug was utilitarian and used to store water. Multiple theories later surfaced involving its function as a container of magical materials and its ritualistic use. New research has shown that the vessel was likely multipurpose—and a coded object meant to be misunderstood.

White potters appropriated the face jug design around 1880. They mainly discontinued the use of kaolin, a sacred material in West Africa, and produced the objects mostly as whimsies. The face jug thus lost the symbolic power of its original form.

Face Jugs celebrates the formative African American vessels and their aesthetic power, while discussing their cultural meanings within a community of Americans that lived within challenging circumstances. Faces that have long stood silent here regain a voice.

http://mam.org/exhibitions/details/face-jugs.php

Georgia Museum of Art to show 19th-century African American face jugs

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will present the exhibition “Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th-Century South Carolina” May 4 to July 7, 2013. This exhibition draws from the collections of face vessels from the Edgefield District of South Carolina and is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and by the Chipstone Foundation, a decorative arts foundation in Milwaukee, Wisc., committed to fostering education and continual research in the decorative arts. “Face Jugs” presents these vessels as a celebration of their formative and aesthetic power in conjunction with discussions of their cultural meanings to the African Americans in Edgefield. Claudia Mooney, assistant curator at the Chipstone Foundation, served as curator for the exhibition.

The face jug form originated in the pottery created by enslaved African Americans during the second half of the 19th century in Edgefield. Made of turned stoneware, they include facial features crafted from kaolin, a locally sourced clay and a material considered sacred in West Africa. Art historians originally viewed these vessels as mere utilitarian water storage jugs. Others later proposed the jugs served a ritualistic purpose as storage for what were thought to be magical materials. More recent research indicates that they had multiple uses and have most likely been misunderstood by outsiders. White potters appropriated the design, discontinued the use of kaolin and made their face jugs more whimsical, resulting in a loss of the symbolic power intrinsic to the original form.

A History of American Face Jugs

The tradition of pottery with faces dates back to Egyptian and Mesopotamian times and appears in many other cultures thoughout history. There are conflicting accounts, multiple stories, and varying theories about the 1st face jugs in the US. One account lists an unknown potter in Massachusetts as the creator of the 1st face jug in the US. Another account traces the 1st face jugs in the US to African slaves who worked on American plantations. One theory suggests that these early face jugs were used as grave markers by slaves. These jugs were supposed to ward off evil spirits. A South Carolina potter, who can trace his ancestors to slavery, states that "the idea was that the face jug would be ugly enough to scare the devil away from your grave so your soul could go to heaven."




Though there are many gaps in historical data regarding the making, use, and meaning of the face jug pottery, there is no doubt that the vessels were original, functional artistic expressions of the African slave culture of the time. This all adds to the mystery of possible deeper meaning of the face jugs in the slave culture. Few of the skilled potters who made face jugs have been identified by name and their inspiration for making face vessels is really unknown. Researchers speculate that the vessels may have had religious or burial significance, or that they reflect the complex responses of people attempting to live and maintain their personal identities under cruel and often difficult conditions. Face jugs have been found along the routes of the Underground Railroad and on gravesites, both indicating how highly they were valued and how closely connected they were with the enslaved African American's own culture.

In the early part of the 19th century the form was adopted by white potters. The practice of making face jugs spread thoughout South Carolina and into Georgia, North Carolina and other states. This can be attributed to the downturn in profit for the white potters from the everyday items such as churns and storage jars. This was probably due to the major influx of cheaper mass produced ware being imported from the northern factories. To avoid going out of business the potters started making unique items such as miniatures and face jugs. These items helped to keep the potters from closing down since they appealed to the tourist trade. The purpose of the jugs also evolved. The face jug became known as ugly jugs in the 1920's and was often used to store alcohol. The jugs became uglier in an attempt to identify the contents and frighten children.

http://river.chattanoogastate.edu/orientations/ex-learn-obj/Face_Jugs/Face_Jugs_print.html


A Brief and General History of the Face Jug

Face jug history is surrounded in mystery. Stories vary about who created face jugs and the reasons for their creation range from the 1700s to the present.

One version is that an unknown potter in Massachusetts created the first face jug in or around 1810. This is inconsistent with the theory that face jugs originated with African slaves who worked on American plantations. A great many slaves brought to the United States were processed in the Caribbean where they acquired a belief in Voodoo. The exposure to Voodoo, along with their own beliefs brought with them from Africa and the introduction to Christianity must have created extraordinary confusion to people from an entirely different culture.


Jug shards have been found on grave sites and along underground railroads. This might imply that the face jugs were very important to the escaping slaves. Speculation is that slaves who were not allowed to have tomb stones. So they developed face jugs as grave markers designed to scare and keep the devil away.


In the 1800's, many people were becoming ill and dying from the lead glazes used to seal the low-fire pottery that was being used by the settlers of the southern USA. In response, Dr. Abner Landrum founded Pottersville, a group of about 16 or 17 houses with families in the area within 1.5 miles from the Edgefield court house in South Carolina (now AikenCounty). It grew into a village of about 150 people, mostly slaves. David Drake is the most notable. They produced lead-free pottery and face jugs until the beginning of civil war. This pottery is now known as Edgefield Pottery. It is the only form of pottery that was made entirely by American tradition. Alkaline glazed stoneware was a re-discovery by Dr.Landrum and his two brothers. (It originated from theHan Dynasty in China over 2000 years ago.) When the civil war started in 1861 Pottersville was abandoned but alkaline glazed pottery continued to be produced in the south.


In the 1820's the practice of making face jugs spread throughout South Carolina and into Georgia, North Carolina and other states. In the 1830s about seventy folk potters operated pottery shops within a four mile area of Mossy Creek in White County, Georgia. This became one of the largest pottery communities in the South. Names like Dorsey, Meaders, Craven, Davidson, Pitchford, Brownlow, Warwick, Chandler and Anderson became known, at that time, for their pottery.




The purpose of the jug evolved. The face jug also became known as the ugly jug in the 1920's and was used to store alcohol. The jugs became uglier in an attempt to identify the contents and frighten children. Parents warned the youngsters to stay away from them.


Lanier Meaders (1917-1998) is the most famous Georgia folk potter who made face jugs. The Meaders family was famous in Georgia for their stoneware pottery. Lanier was the face jug maker who kept folk art pottery alive in the south almost on his own!


Today, a few family-operated potteries are still making face jugs in the traditional way. They start with the local clay and fire their work in a wood-burning kiln. The traditional way of making a face jug would often incorporate the use of porcelain teeth and eyes. At the end of a long the day of production, scrap clay is frequently used to make face jugs just for fun.


Recently, quite a few independent potters living throughout the world have taken up the art of making face jugs, Some of these face jugs are crafted in a traditional fashion while other potters are creating far out, highly complex and unique face jugs using a variety of firing techniques

http://www.kuehnpottery.com/facejughistory.htm



Kongo in the Americas Workshop: Face Jugs in South Carolina

In the winter of 2011-2012, Mark Newell and April Hynes, archaeologists working on the remains of a pottery works at Edgefield, South Carolina unearthed substantial remains of a pottery tradition started by local potters of African origin, working as slaves. The archaeologists extended their project to include an interesting history of some of the potters, who could be identified through records as survivors from one of the last ships to make slave trading visits to the African ports and left their unwilling cargo in Charleston. These enslaved potters ultimately hailed from the region around the mouth of the Congo River in West Central Africa, and contemporary biographies occasionally mentioned rivers and villages that were probably located in the Kingdom of Kongo.

This Kongo to South Carolina connection was an old one, in the eighteenth century the founding generation of Afro-South Carolinians came frequently from the West Central African region, in fact the largest single group before 1740, and over half the imports in what was at the time the most Africanized region of English North America. The slave trade, which continued in the region right into the early nineteenth century was frequently dominated by West Central Africans and so that region and its culture is foundational to much of South Carolina’s African population, and through them to much of the cultural and biological heritage of African Americans elsewhere as well.

In light of these discoveries, the African American Studies program is holding a workshop on September 27, 2012 to discuss the connection between Kongo and North America and Kongo’s role in shaping American culture.

Boston University’s African American Studies program is uniquely situated to undertake this workshop as two of our faculty (Linda Heywood and John Thornton) are internationally known experts on Kongo and West Central Africa, and Boston University has a long standing and excellent African Studies Program.

In addition to the two archaeologists, and two Boston University faculty, the workshop includes art historian Cécile Fromont, Professor of University of Chicago, whose work has been devoted to the Kingdom of Kongo’s Christian art.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@IllmaticDelta

Thanks for keeping this thread alive...

Anyways do you have any info on African American martial arts like Knocking and Kicking. Been looking for additional info since the subject has interested me.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

@IllmaticDelta

Thanks for keeping this thread alive...

Anyways do you have any info on African American martial arts like Knocking and Kicking. Been looking for additional info since the subject has interested me.

I'll see. I remember reading up on it like 10 years ago.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

I'll see. I remember reading up on it like 10 years ago.

I asked you, because you stated your of Gullah/Geechee descent.

 

[Supper]

African American Quilting Tradition:

Pearlie Johnson

The growing phenomenon of globalization includes a unique intra-diasporic exchange of ideas in textile making between Africans and African Americans. Traditional West African textile techniques, particularly narrow-strip weaving has influenced 19th and 20th century African American strip quilting in North America. As a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Africans brought unique skills in textile making with them to North America. Over time, one area of their textile making traditions developed into what has become distinctly known as African American strip quilts. Hundreds of years later, the return travels of African Americans to reconnect with their homeland are now impacting textiles in West Africa. As 21st century, African American patchwork quilting techniques influence quilt making in West Africa, a tradition has come full circle.

Some scholars have written that due to the hot climate in sub-Sahara region, quilting for bedding is not practiced. This may have been true when John Picton gave us one of the greatest volumes written on textiles, African Textiles: Looms, Weaving and Design,1979, however, since that time, cultures have changed. While conducting research in Ghana in summer 2011, I discovered first-hand, Ghanaian peoples making quilts for bedding and wall hangings using the patchwork and strip quilting techniques seen in African American quilts. The patchwork technique is not new to West African cultures, as patchwork was used in traditional West African societies to stitch together quilted armour. What is new, however, is how contemporary West African textile artists, Ghanaians in particular, having been influenced by African Americans have readapted this technique and use it in making quilts for bedding. Today, because cosmopolitan Ghana uses air-conditioning in their homes and hotels, there is a definite need for quilts as bedcovers.

Link

Asked to describe a "typical" African-American quilt, many people envision ones like those shown at right. They may point to characteristics they say are aesthetic choices inherited from the quilter's African ancestors. Called "Africanisms," these are commonly said to include

• vertical strip organization
• bold color
• large design elements
• asymmetry or "spontaniety" of design; "rhythmic" composition
• multiple patterns

For evidence of these Africanisms, Maude Wahlman, Eli Leon and others find similarities in the dramatic, "spontaneous" or "rhythmic" ways in which Africans and African-Americans combine color and pattern and the fabrics used today in Africa.


It is often assumed that the style of 20th century African-American quilts derives from African sources. (From Wahlman's book Signs & Symbols.).

The flyleaf on Eli Leon's recent Accidentally on Purpose: The Aesthetic Management of Irregularities in African Textiles and African-American Quilts goes even farther, proclaiming that "Afro-traditional attitudes and methods are antithetical to the standard American quiltmaking tradition - practiced by both whites and blacks - in which great value is placed on precise measurement and exact pattern replication. Instead they bear a keen likeness to the improvisatory practices of the textile-makers of Kongo and West Africa, regions from which American slaves were taken. These antipathies and affinities suggest an enduring African influence on the Afro-traditional quilt."

Link

Harriet Powers' Quilts:

Born a slave in Athens, GA, she married Armstead Powers; her first daughter Amanda was born when she was 18. In time, eight more children were born to Harriet and Armstead; the last, a son named Marshall, census records suggest, born in 1872. Some historians speculate she spent her early years on a plantation owned by John and Nancy Lester northeast of Athens near Danielsville in Madison County. Powers more than likely learned the art of quilt making embroidered with appliqué work from her plantation mistress or from other slaves.

Blacks did fancy needlework for their owners during the daylight hours and labored to provide practical clothing and bed covers for their own families by candlelight. Textile historians also note great similarities between Powers' work and the technique mastered by the Fon people of Dahomey, West Africa. Immediately following the close of the Civil War, in April 1865, life was extremely difficult for both the white and Black populations in Clarke County. Armstead Powers identified himself as a "farmhand" in the 1870 census; Harriet is listed as "keeping house"; their three children Amanda, Leon Joe (Alonzo), and Nancy lived at home.

That year, records show, the family owned no land in Clarke County but claimed $300 in personal property. The Powers family lived in the Buck Branch District of Clarke County by 1873, but alternated between Buck Branch and Sandy Creek districts of Clarke County beginning in 1870. By the 1880s, they had four acres of land of their own. In the 1890s, however, Armstead and Harriet Powers' short-lived prosperity dwindled. Armstead sold off parcels of land, eventually defaulted on taxes, and, after 1894, left Harriet and the farm.

Link

 

[IllmaticDelta]

The Origin of Sweetgrass Baskets

Sweetgrass baskets are almost identical in style to the shukublay baskets of Sierra Leone, where learning to coil baskets "so tightly they could hold water" was an important rite of passage in West African tribes like the Mende and the Temne.

This basket-making tradition came to South Carolina in the 17th century by way of West African slaves who were brought to America to work on plantations. West Africa resembles South Carolina in both climate and landscape, and rice had long been cultivated there. In slaves, plantation owners gained not only free labor but also a wealth of knowledge and skill.

One such skill was basketry. Using a type of marsh grass known as bulrush, slaves coiled sturdy, intricate work baskets called fanners. Fanners were used for winnowing, the process of tossing hulls into the air to separate the chaff from the rice. Other work baskets held vegetables, shellfish, and later, cotton.

http://www.sciway.net/facts/sweetgrass-baskets.html

http://videos.hgtv.com/video/coil-baskets-weave-history-62512