Gullah Culture

Historic Southern Inspiration

Gullah is a culture unlike any other in the world.  It is a manner of living, working, story telling and beliefs that trace roots to the first slaves arriving in the Low Country of South Carolina in the early 17th century.

These original African immigrants were the primary builders of the lucrative rice trade of early colonial America.  The skills they had utilized while developing a flourishing culture in Sierra Leone and other Western African countries gave them the know how to adapt these agricultural talents to the marshlands of coastal South Carolina. 

Still surviving in communities around Charleston, Hilton Head and Georgetown the Gullah lifestyle is simple in practice, but rich in heritage.  It is a way of life that is being threatened by the ever-increasing coastal development around these areas.

It is here, on these barrier islands among the Gullah communities, that traditional storytelling, cooking and crafts thrive and intrigue visitors to the Charleston area.   The world famous Charleston sweet grass basket, a thousand year old art form, still survives and a visitor to Charleston’s Market can watch the basket ladies as they use weaving tools made of bone and old silver utensils to preserve this millennium old craft.  The Gullah people are known for their superstitious nature and their most interesting dialect.

The Gullah dialect is a manner of speaking which was at one time common among the people of South Carolina; it is part Elizabethan English and part African.  It is spoken in a rhythm and most times spoken rapidly which makes it difficult to understand for even those who grew up around it.  The language also still lingers in the unique “geechie” accents carried by many descendants of these original settling plantation families.

As time has passed, the use of the language has almost disappeared.  We are attempting to keep it alive by using it in the instruction of our products.  Of course, if it were true Gullah, very few people would be able to understand it.  Therefore, we have modified it somewhat for easy interpretation. Today if you were to visit some of the barrier islands of the Coastal Carolinas and Georgia, you could still hear it spoken among the locals. 

In providing these Gullah Gourmet products, we are attempting to preserve a small piece of this unique and valuable part of our history and share it with the world. 

To find out more about the Gullah culture, please check out the Links on our website.