Origins
Where did the ring shout originate?
Why was the Gullah Geechee community able to create a ritual such as the ring shout, a blend of African and Protestant Christian traditions?
The ring shout is considered one of the oldest known African American ritual performances for spiritual worship and communal expression surviving today. Its development as a mixture of different West African spiritual traditions and protestant Christianity reflects the experiences of the Gullah Geechee community who created it for both community and space during a time in American history when they had neither as enslaved peoples. The Gullah Geechee people live today in what is known as the Gullah Geechee Corridor – the sea islands and coastlines stretching from southern North Carolina to northern Florida.
The ability to maintain their unique cultural heritage and community through the centuries is due in part to their geographic location and the structure of early plantation society. “The isolation of the islands and coastal area, the numerous African-born slaves, and the limited presence of European Americans resulted in the continuation of African ways of life. […] Gullah/Geechee people were able to maintain arts, crafts, religious beliefs, rituals, foodways, and linguistic traditions that are born directly of their West African roots.” (Ray 2007)
This corridor also was one of the main ports of entry into the United States for enslaved Africans. While they may not have always remained in the area, they still had connections to the immaterial and communal aspects of the emerging Gullah Geechee culture. “[…] it is estimated that 75% of all African Americans can trace their ancestral roots to these shores.” (Small and Singleton-Prather 2014)
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While the ring shout was created by and remains integral to the Gullah Geechee culture, its elements are evident in modern Afro-Baptist congregations and church services, especially in the gospel music tradition and its high context rituals within the Baptist church. “By the 1830s, they had established their own distinct religious life that was not a simple replication of some West African religious traditions or of European Protestant piety. […] Rather it was a part of a developing African American religious tradition, rooted in West and West Central Africa and also in a transatlantic Protestant tradition.” (Morgan 2010)
