How Fannuh Baskets Connect Liberia to the US Lowcountry
Gullah Geechee basket-weaving is rooted in an oral tradition carried by enslaved people from Liberia’s Windward Coast.
This article explores the connection between Fannuh Baskets, a craft tradition of Gullah Geechee culture on the US Lowcountry, and Liberia. The author, born in Liberia, notes the similarities between the rhythm of Gullah speech and the singing way people speak in Liberia. On St. Helena Island, South Carolina, the author discovered an image of two women fanning rice using woven baskets, which reminded her of women in Liberia separating rice from chaff.
These baskets, made from local grasses, palmetto, and other plant materials, have become a defining craft tradition of Gullah Geechee culture. The author highlights the importance of tracing cultural lineages, as indicated by Saidiya Hartman's quote in "Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route." In Liberia, the author has observed refugees and migrants who created a new culture in America, similar to the way they did in the hostile world of the Americas.
The author, along with dancer and anthropologist Pearl Primus, has found these connections between Liberia and the US South through language, dance, food, and material traditions.
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