Cynthia Porcher has completed a five-year study of the Gullah
culture in South Carolina and Georgia at the request of the
National Park Service. She concentrated on the five counties of
Beaufort, Charleston and Georgetown in South Carolina and Glenn
and McIntosh in Georgia, trying to learn all she could about the
culture and to also dispense with the multitude of myths
surrounding these people and their past history of slavery. As a
white woman in a black culture, Porcher had to first gain the
trust of those she wanted to interview. Once that was
accomplished, she was able to learn about their beliefs,
language, and the crafts of net-making and basketry that have
sustained these peoples for generations. The National Parks
System, local and State governments are trying to protect these
peoples from land development, which would rob them of the
natural environment they are so dependent on. Read more about
this basketry topic in the Island Packet, December 26, 2005
issue online newspaper at http://www.islandpack