What culture/country in the diaspora has the most African cultural retention?
- Thread starter yardman
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AlainLocke
Banned
Blacks in the Caribbean have the most African cultural retention...
The Gullah-Geechee are African Americans and for whatever reason people assume that African Americans have not retained much cultural influence from Africa. However, it is pretty clear that African Americans retained a great amount of cultural influence from Sahelian people, especially the Mande. Consider these things:
1. The Blues. That genre music is right out of Mali and it came to the USA with the slaves. The Blues is the root music of all other American music (Country; Bluegrass; Gospel; Funk; Soul; Rock and Roll; Jazz; Rap, etc.) and the slaves from the Sahel are responsible for all of that music being in the USA; especially the Mande slaves.
2. The Southern Accent. Project MUSE - Bound to Africa: the Mandinka Legacy in the New World
3. Rice. That is why Mande people were brought to the USA and they are responsible for many rice dishes that are credited to Europeans. The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection | The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
4. Playing the dozens: Aka Sanankuya is from Mali and it was considered part of a civic duty in Kurukan Fuga in 1236.
Sanankuya | Revolvy
There is other stuff like Islam in African American Christian Churches and names like Malik, Jamal, Rasheed, Rashida, Omar, Fatima, Kadeshia, etc., but I don't have time to write it all out right now.
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A lot of traditions are hidden in plain site. When you do research its often easy to put 2 and 2 together. I think people on all sides (Diaspora and the continent) make these assumptions because many are disconnected with the past, so they can't identify things that are natural to them, even though they practice it.
The strangest part though is that White people in the USA have always know exactly where these cultural elements are influencing their socieites are from, which is why the Mandingos and the Empire of Mali are pretty well known in the USA. White Americans know about Timbuktu, Sundiata Keita (in fact the "Lion King" cartoon is about his life); Mansa Musa; Griots; the Kora, Balafon, Banjo and the djembe drum. Probably more White people bought the book "Roots" änd watched the miniseries than Black people.
So I am always confused when people don't notice the massive amount of African cultural influence that African Americans retained.
lmfao. We are so destroyed that we will debate each other about who is who, mean while whites are sitting back laughing and continuing to get rich because Black culture is a global commodity
At this point anyone who wants to deny their African roots and that Black = African and we are all Africans dispersed globally is someone I don't even want to engage in convo.
People think so little and lack so much understanding that it's impossible for Africans (Black People) to be different yet of the same race
the only thing I will say when it comes to 'losing' the African elements is that often times when Blacks move to cities (not just America but anywhere on earth) they begin to think their roots are inferior and end up not valuing it. You have Continental Africans who grow up in the Major Cities and dont even know their mother tongues, and look down on rural Africans the same way Black people in Major Cities of America look down on rural blacks and clown them about being 'Country'.
LeVraiPapi
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Dude was just unique.
Secure Da Bag
Veteran
I know. Nowhere in my post did I indicate otherwise.
The question is: What culture/country in the diaspora has the most African cultural retention?
I answered the question. How did you go from that answer to your post? It is informative but the intro is misleading.
I think that you are misunderstanding what I am stating. I am actually agreeing with what what you are stating, which is that African Americans (Gullah-Geechee) probably retained just as much if not more cultural influence than some of the other Black people in the diaspora, but a lot of people don't know that. I actually listed some of the other cultural influences that African Americans retained (I mentioned the Blues for African Americans, because other musics were mentioned for other countries (Haiti, Cuba) in the diaspora. Also stuff like shouting in church among African Americans is likely out of ring shout.
The interesting thing about you mentioning the Gullah-Geechee is that many of the words spoken by them actually come back to the Mende (another Mande people) of Sierra Leone.
Gullah Connection To Sierra Leone
https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Gullah Language.pdf
https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Gullah Song.pdf
9 Interesting Facts About the Origins, Culture and People of the Gullah-Geechee
But would you say that the Gullahs are representative of the majority or even near majority of African Americans?
I think not. As a matter of fact i would say many African Americans may not even know what Gullahs are.
I would guess Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil
As far as the Gullah/Geechie topic is concerned in this thread, I’ve noticed a lot of people have a tendency to over exaggerate the gap between Gullah/Geechie people and “regular” African Americans. There’s more overlap culturally than not, I’m sure that’s what @Akan is trying to get at.
As far as the Gullah/Geechie topic is concerned in this thread, I’ve noticed a lot of people have a tendency to over exaggerate the gap between Gullah/Geechie people and “regular” African Americans. There’s more overlap culturally than not, I’m sure that’s what @Akan is trying to get at.
Actually I think that most African Americans are going to be related to Gullah and Geechee people, because about 80% of African Americans can trace an ancestors that arrived in Charleston, South Carolina.
Slavery in The Lowcountry - International African American Museum
African Americans - South Carolina Encyclopedia
African American Heritage - Charleston SC
So just because an African American does not know about the Gullah Geechee people; that does not mean that they are not descended from them.
Case in point is my mother. She and I did some genetic testing on AncestyDNA; 23andme and African Ancestry. We learned that her maternal line is Mende from Sierra Leone, which is one of the ethnic groups from the Rice Coast of West Africa that was brought to the USA. One of her genetic communities on AncestryDNA is South Carolina (which includes Georgia and North Carolina), while one of mine is Coastal North Carolina.
My mother's DNA lines up with the oral family history that her mother and her aunt gave us while they were alive, which is that our family moved to West Tennessee after the Civil War from an area on the North Carolina/South Carolina border by the ocean. DNA testing shows that my mother still has 4th cousins that live in South Carolina and coastal North Carolina.
I would guess Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil
As far as the Gullah/Geechie topic is concerned in this thread, I’ve noticed a lot of people have a tendency to over exaggerate the gap between Gullah/Geechie people and “regular” African Americans. There’s more overlap culturally than not, I’m sure that’s what @Akan is trying to get at.
All that people have to do is talk to their parents or grandparents and ask them about the old people. The first thing that most people are going to learn is that their people moved from those regions at some point. Another thing that they are going to find out is that a lot of their grandparents sounded like James Brown. You literally couldn't understand a lot of what they were saying; until they got a switch and then somehow your ass focused.
get these nets
Veteran
That's not the same thing, though. Gullah refers to the people in the coastal and sea island areas .
Arriving to this country through the ports in that region (BEFORE 1808) is not the same thing as being Gullah or being descended from those folks.
That group of folks lived in relative isolation on the coasts and sea islands, which is partially why they were able to retain so much of their heritage(s). Also...when the international slave trade was abolished.....I'd imagine that out of the the enslaved Africans who were smuggled in after that, that some ended up there which replenished the African cultures being blended there.
Your dna tests show that connection, but it's a stretch to say that majority of Black folks in America are related to the Gullah people.
Because of location, I believe that Au Cap (Cap Haitien) (formerly Cap Francios) was the busiest arrival port for Africans in what is now Haiti.
Because of the nature of the slave trade, and people being moved around.....in an area a fraction the size of what the US was in 1808., how likely is it that majority of Haitians would be be directly related to people from Au Cap region.
What you're writing doesn't seem to add up.