Elements
What makes up a ring shout?
The ring shout primarily took place following a prayer meeting either among enslaved peoples themselves or after a Christian worship service in a church. While shouting in its verbal elements could take place in front of the white plantation-owning community, it was often an insular and hidden ritual taking place in buildings far removed from both the church and plantation house, called praise houses.
This reason for obscuring the ritual and its components from the eyes and ears of the ruling class was twofold – Gullah people synchronized protestant Christian traditions into their surviving ones from different West African religions, yet they often faced disapproval and obstruction from white American missionaries. Thus the ability to create a centralized body of traditions both spiritual and secular gave enslaved people a community outside of plantation society.
As instruments such as drums were explicitly forbidden for enslaved peoples during gatherings due to the belief it could inspiring insurrection, Gullah people found other means to express and communicate their rituals.
Through stylized dance in a circle, synchronised stomping and shuffling of feet and clapping cadence, as well as using physical items such as a broomstick and board to keep the pace of the dance and the call-and-response of the song.
Since the post-American Civil War period, the need for ritual performance within a praise house of the ring shout has diminished, however as with many other traditional aspects of the ring shout, praise houses are still employed in acts honoring the connection with ancestors and their endurance during slavery.
A few praise houses, such as the Mary Jenkins Community Praise House on Saint Helena Island in South Carolina are part of the National Register of Historic Places for their significance of still being in use for their communities.
