Lowcountry Voices: Gullah Tricksters, Storytelling, and Song.

Here's a dance song in the Charleston rhythm from the Geechee country in South Carolina, learned in Florida from a Geechee woman: 

About 7 minutes

or click here to hear it in QuickTime on your smart phone, iPad, etc.

As part of our new series we're calling "Lowcountry Voices," CityTrex is scouring the region in search of local, "real deal" Gullah storytellers and tales.

Although we're looking for original and compelling Gullah voices to feature in the series, you don't have to be (or pretend to be) Gullah to help us document them, just someone with their discerning ear to the ground.

This project is motivated by the realization that most Gullah stories known to the larger American public have been filtered through the literary imaginations of non-Gullah writers and that actual audio recordings of these tales in local Gullah vernacular are few and far between.
We're calling on you to help us begin reversing this trend.
Whether you are a Gullah storyteller yourself or whether you have been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time when a Gullah friend or neighbor shared a story, we want to hear from you.

Who knows, perhaps some of the Gullah folks who where were around when Lydia Parrish, Zora Neale Hurston, Mary Granger and others were collecting stories, songs, and recipes are still out there somewhere today. If they are, one thing is for sure, they're not getting any younger!
Help us find them so that we can begin documenting and preserving their voices for future generations.

 by Kenneth Routon, PhD,  Cultural Anthropologist