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SUPERSTITIONS FROM GEORGIA
by Ruby Andrews MooreFrom the Journal of American Folk-Lore
Vol. 7, No. 27, Oct. - Dec., 1894
In 1894, Ruby Andrews Moore, a racist white woman living in Cocoa, Florida, submitted an article to "The Journal of American Folk-Lore" in which she reminisced about the folklore of the Gullah people of the Georgia Sea Islands. She had observed these beliefs and omens -- which she titled "superstitions" -- when she was a child growing up at the home of her grandfather, a white enslaver of Congo-born people and their descendants in Liberty County, Georgia around 1860.
Ms. Moore's condescending attitude toward those whom she considered her inferiors -- both black and white -- is appalling, but the unnamed people whose words she preserved should not be overlooked. We can be thankful that even though she was a horrid person, she went out of her way to give us a rare glimpse into the many omens and cultural practices that she had observed first-hand before the Civil War and Emancipation.
I have lightly edited this article to bring order to Ms. Moore's random list of Gullah-Geechie beliefs and practices, and i have moved her conclusion to the beginning, to provide context. Because this author used terms unfamiliar to modern readers, a few explanatory notes have been added [in brackets].
WARNING: The material on this page includes contemporary racist or race-derogatory language that may be grossly offensive. However, the text is included in full because it accurately describes practices and customs of the African-American South during the 19th century (albeit not always with complete understanding) -- and it also serves as a political reminder of how far we have some in our struggle for race equality and respect in the ensuing years. View with caution and compassion.
THE GULLAH-GEECHIE PEOPLE OF THE GEORGIA SEA ISLANDS
In the Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. V. 1892, pp. 318 - 320, appeared an article on "Folk-Lore from Maine," by Gertrude Decrow, in which were enumerated various superstitions and traditions of the folk in that state. I find a great similarity between these and the lore current in the South, particularly among the lower whites and negroes.[The "lower whites" would have been European-Americans who were not land-owners. Ms. Moore looked down on people below her own presumed station, but she also opens a door here to the fact that while much much black American folklore is African in origin, a great deal is derived from cultural mingling with the English, Irish, and Scottish immigrants to America who were known as "poor whites"]
Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, [The Georgia author of "Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation"], has immortalized himself by working up into literary shape the current fables and stories. Most of them are fables told me by my grandfather's sometime slaves when I was a child.
[The reference to her grandfather's "sometime slaves" would seem to imply that the family continued to employ former slaves after the Emancipation.]
Many of these negroes had been brought over in 1858 from the Galla [Gullah, Angola] district in the Congo country of Africa, and as soon as they could make themselves understood by a gibberish that was a mixture of our language and theirs, their stories, fables, traditions, etc., began to be circulated among the other darkies.
["The other darkies" -- whom she later refers to as the "domesticated slaves" -- would be those whose forebears had been brought from Africa in earlier decades and whose families had been kept in captivity for several generations.]
It is a question with many how the folk-lore of Africa, Asia, India, and Ceylon ever became current in the United States. It is a problem easily disposed of. Legends of those foreign countries were interchanged by emigrants and refugees. They were brought to the United States by the slaves themselves, as has just been demonstrated, perhaps by spreading even to the Indians [Native Americans] in the same way.
Transportation of newly arrived slaves; 19th century engraving, artist unknown
A cargo [of captured and enslaved people] from Congo was brought to Liberty County, Georgia, only a few years before the abolition of slavery, and their descendants of the second generation are finer specimens of physical manhood, though inferior intellectually to the descendants of six generations of slaves.
[I told you this would be rough; the woman is a unregenerate Southern racist; but she will provide us with some pre-Emancipation black folk-lore, so hang in there.]
One cargo of these negroes, numbering six hundred, were purchased by one man, and placed upon Ossaba [Ossabaw]] Island off the Georgia coast to cultivate Sea Island cotton. There they lived almost in their native style, practicing many of their native superstitious customs, domesticated slaves watching the performance and naturally imbibing many ideas and habits demonstrated by the savages.
[Let's get away from Ms. Moore's offensive bullshit about "domesticated slaves" for a minute and have a look around at where she was raised. She mentioned a ship that transported captive Gullah Congo people to coastal Liberty County, Georgia, in 1858, and then she told us of a second ship that brought 600 Gullah Congo people to Ossabaw Island, which borders on Liberty County, where they too were held captive. Ossabaw Island is located 20 miles south of Savannah, Georgia. It is only accessible by boat, and it is among the largest of Georgia's barrier islands. It is 10 miles long and 7 miles wide, with an official area of 26,000 acres, but only about 10,000 acres are high ground; the rest consists of tidal wetlands and marshes. It is bordered by the Ogeechee River and the Atlantic Ocean. The Native Yuchi people, from whom the name Ogeechee probably derives, were exterminated by white colonists, and the island's natural woodlands, consisting of oaks, pines, cedars, palmettos, and palms, were logged off in the 1700s and 1800s in favour of raising cotton, rice, and free-range donkeys and swine under Congo slave-labour. These Gullah people, living along the Ogeechee river, became known as the Gullah-Geechies. Since the late 1900s, the island has been managed by the Ossabaw Island Foundation, through a public-private partnership with the State of Georgia. Low-impact tourism is permitted and the natural ecology of the area is being restored.]
The woodlands of Ossabaw Island, Georgia;
photo by the Ossabaw Island Foundation, circa 2020.
[Okay, only two more paragraphs of racist trash-talk to go ...]
So the question as to how the traditions of other countries ever found a footing in this need no longer worry and mystify the anthropologists. They came over on the slave ships, with the very first emigration, and have remained with us ever since. But American folk-lore is as composite as the people itself, coming from the identical number of sources.
I append the sayings, beliefs, and traditions, superstitions, or what you will, that find place in the lore of this people. These and many others form a long list that still holds good among the superstitiously inclined.
[There. That was that. Now on to what we came here for, the actual folklore of the Gullah-Geechie people of Liberty County and Ossabaw Island, Georgia, as collected by Ruby Andrews Moore before the Ciil War.]
OMENS OF DEATH AND THE DEAD
• When a dog howls, it's a sign of death.
• If a person comes into your presence while you are talking about him, and puts his hands upon you anyhow or anywhere, you will die.
• To kill a ghost, it must be shot with a bullet made of a silver quarter-dollar.
• Silver nails or screws in a coffin will prevent the dead haunting the scenes of its existence in the flesh.
• No person who touches a dead body will be haunted by its spirit.
INFANT OMENS
• An infant, measured, will die before its growing time is over. My mother once started to measure her sleeping baby-boy, when the nurse, an old negress, sprang forward crying: "Dat chile ain't dead yet, ter be measured." Explanations ensued, and the measuring was deferred.
• To cut a baby's finger-nails deform it.
• If the baby is a month old, to cut its finger-nails will cause the child to have fits.
• To allow a child to look into a mirror before it is a month old will cause it trouble in teething.
• Tickling a baby causes stuttering.
• A child will have a nature and disposition similar to that of the person who first takes it out of doors.
ANIMAL OMENS
• Cut a dog's "dew-claws," and it will not die from poisonous snakebite.
• To cut off a pup's tail causes him to grow "smart."
• To hear a screech-owl is a sign of bad luck. To prevent their cry, turn the pockets [inside out], and set the shoes soles upward.
• If you kill frogs, your cows will "go dry." [Unspoken here is the underlying reason for this: Frogs live in moist environments and they croak to bring rain, hence killing them causes the cows (and the land) to go dry.]
• If you kill "grandaddies" [ also known as harvestmen or daddy longlegs], the cows will die.
Enslaved African-Americans plowing and planting sweet potatoes on the plantation
of James Hopkinson, Cassina Point, Edisto Island, South Carolina, circa 1862;
albumen print photo by Henry P. Moore (1833-1911).
OMENS FROM THE MOON
• To see the new moon through clouds or treetops means trouble; if the disc is clear, good luck.
• To see the new moon over the right shoulder, joy; to see it over the left shoulder, anger and disappointment.
• Plant all seeds, make soap, and kill meat, on the increase of the moon. If done on the decrease, the seeds will not grow, the soap will not lather, and the meat will shrink.
OMENS FROM DAILY LIFE
• Stir jellies, butter, sauce, etc., to the right [clockwise]; also soap. Otherwise it will not "make."
• Never begin a task or journey on Friday.
• To throw hair combings out of a window is bad luck.
• To thank a person for combing your hair will bring bad luck.
• If one lets fall the dish-cloth, some one is coming.
• To spill the salt is a sign of anger.
• Itching palms are a sign of money.
OMENS FROM DREAMS
• To dream of a live snake signifies enemies at large; to dream of a dead snake means your enemies are dead or powerless.
• To dream of unbroken eggs signifies trouble to come; if the eggs are broken in your dream, your trouble is past.
Ruby Andrews Moore.
Cocoa, FloridaThis material is reprinted from The Journal of American Folk-Lore
Vol. 7, 1894Thanks to Eoghan Ballard for bringing it to my attention. Thanks also to my husband and partner nagasiva yronwode for sourcing the images.
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