Ever heard of Gullah Culture of America

It all started with a press release from travel writers.com about Gullah culture of America. I had never heard about it and the release got me curious to know more. Apparently the Gullah culture is an antiquated African culture which existed in America some time ago. With its colourful past, rich history, a language of its own and intriguing heritage of arts, music, cooking, weaving, and entertainment, language, design, health, agriculture, fishing, hunting , and family traditions.

No doubt there are reams of newspaper articles and hundreds of books on native-American cultures and Indian lore. But the Gullah and Geechee cultures have been almost totally overlooked by everyone except a few hardcore research-oriented historians whose findings have been published only in niche journals and scholarly books. This is what makes the Gullah people and spaces where its culture have thrieved all the more intriguing for me. Considering their colourful festivals, enchanting music, enticing dances, captivating arts, palatable food culture, etc should have been popular among travellers and adventurers. But this is still relatively unknown.

I googled and found a few sites giving information about the Gullah culture.

Gullah Pride is a website which contains quite a lot of information about the history of this unique and colourful culture. I copied this picture and am quoting this passage about their history from the website: "The Gullah culture started with the transportation of African slaves to the Sea Islands of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The Sea Islands served as an excellent location for the Gullah culture because of its separation from the mainland. The African slaves, who came from different regions in African, brought with them their language, culture and traditions. Collectively these traditions and languages have merged into one to form Gullah. The Gullah culture has survived over the years by Gullah elders passing down the language and traditions to their children."

American Gullah researcher, author and editorial consultant has recently released a book titled Gullah Culture in America and says that February is GULLAH CULTURE MONTH and he hopes to open a door to this remarkable world of the Gullah and its potential for travelers through his book, which according to the publishers is the first major book on this subject.

Gullah Culture in America by Wilbur Cross features a foreword by one of the most noted Gullahs in the Sea Islands and Lowcountry, Dr. Emory Campbell. This new, thoroughly researched, book explores what very few yet know as a direct link to the African continent, an almost lost culture which exists in the Sea Islands of the United States, along what is known as The Gullah Corridor, stretching from the northeast coast of Florida along the Georgia and South Carolina coastal shores to the lower reaches of North Carolina -- and little more than 30 miles inland at any point.

Currently there are over 300,000 Gullah people, many of whom speak little or no English living in isolated remote areas of the sea islands including St. Helena, Edisto, Coosaw, Ossabaw, Sapelo, Daufuskie, and Cumberland.

The book deals with all the facets of the Gullah culture in great detail, including, the History of the Gullah culture; Geography of the Gullah Corridor; Gullah tongue; Religious beliefs and places of worship; Folk medicine; Festivals and celebrations; Music, song, and dance; food etc.