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Ring shout

The ring shout is a sacred, ecstatic religious ritual derived from West and Central African traditions, practiced primarily by enslaved Africans and their Gullah/Geechee descendants in the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina, in which participants form a counterclockwise circle, shuffle their feet without crossing them in a manner resembling dance, clap hands in rhythmic patterns, and engage in call-and-response spiritual singing to invoke communal transcendence and divine presence. Emerging in the mid-19th century among Sea Island communities isolated by geography and language, the practice blended African rhythmic and circular movement cosmologies—such as those from Bantu, Yoruba, and Akan influences—with Christian elements adopted under enslavement, serving as a covert form of cultural retention and resistance against prohibitions on overt African expressions. Performed in "praise houses" following church services or on weeknights, it emphasized holistic embodiment over individualistic piety, with leaders intoning lined-out hymns while the group responded in unison, often culminating in heightened spiritual fervor without instrumental accompaniment to adhere to scriptural interpretations against "dancing." Though suppressed by mainstream denominations in the early 20th century for perceived paganism, isolated groups like the McIntosh County Shouters preserved it into modern times, influencing broader African American musical forms such as gospel and blues while highlighting the enduring agency of enslaved peoples in forging syncretic spiritual practices amid systemic erasure.

Definition and Core Elements

Physical and Ritual Components

The ring shout involves participants forming a tight counterclockwise circle, typically in a such as a praise house, while maintaining continuous motion through a distinctive that keeps the feet close to the ground and prohibits lifting or crossing them. This , often described as a forward hitching step, ensures the body remains in perpetual contact with the earth, reflecting a avoidance of "dancing" under prohibitions imposed by enslavers who banned overt African-derived dances, reclassifying the practice as a "shout" to align with norms. Rhythmic hand clapping accompanies the , with participants striking palms together in syncopated patterns that intensify as the progresses, often interspersing stamping of the feet to generate percussive propulsion. The counterclockwise direction holds significance, mirroring West African circular formations believed to channel spiritual energy and communal , while the unbroken circle symbolizes unity and the eternal cycle of life and spirit. Ritually, the shout commences with a leader initiating call-and-response vocals, prompting entrants to join the one by one, building collective fervor through escalating speed and volume until participants may enter ecstatic states, though physical contact between individuals is avoided to preserve the circle's sanctity. Prohibitions against speaking, laughing, or extraneous gestures during the shout enforce focus on , with the ritual concluding when exhaustion or divine culmination halts the motion, reinforcing its role as a structured conduit for transcendent experience in Gullah-Geechee communities.

Accompaniment and Structure

The ring shout follows a communal circular formation in which participants, typically in single file, shuffle counterclockwise around the perimeter of the ring with feet kept close to the ground and never crossed, a movement derived from West African traditions and adapted to align with prohibitions against secular dancing in some Christian contexts. This shuffling step, often performed in a crouched or bent posture, maintains continuous motion without pauses or lifts, emphasizing rhythmic propulsion over individual flair. Accompaniment relies exclusively on vocals and , eschewing external instruments to sustain the practice's sanctity amid historical restrictions on enslaved people's access to tools or associations with profane music. Hand claps and foot stomps or pats generate the core rhythm, commonly structured as a + 2 polyrhythmic pattern that interlocks clapping (on beats 1-2-3 and 4-5-6) with stamping (on 7-8), creating a propulsive, layered akin to African-derived cross-rhythms. Vocal elements incorporate call-and-response , where a leader intones improvised or spiritual-based phrases—often hollers, cries, or lines from hymns—met by the group's choral replies, fostering collective intensity that builds through repetition and variation. The overall structure unfolds in phases: an initial processional entry into the , escalation via intensified and stamping synced to accelerating shuffles, and potential climaxes of ecstatic shouts or "holy possession" marked by spontaneous vocal eruptions, before resolving into quieter reflection or dispersal. This format, documented in coastal praise houses as early as the 1860s, underscores the shout's role as an integrated of motion, sound, and devotion rather than segmented performance.

Historical Origins

African Cultural Antecedents

The ring shout traces its primary cultural antecedents to Central African traditions of the Bakongo people in the Kongo-Angola region, where circular rituals encoded cosmological beliefs. The Bakongo dikenga or yowa cosmogram—a cross within a circle symbolizing the sun's cyclical path through four phases of life, maturity, decline, and rebirth—provided a ritual blueprint for communal movement. In these traditions, participants traversed the cosmogram counterclockwise to honor the continuous bond between the living, ancestors, and spiritual forces, a pattern directly echoed in the ring shout's shuffling procession. Enslaved Africans from , predominantly Bakongo, comprised approximately 39% of imports to between 1716 and 1807, facilitating the transmission of these practices to the southeastern U.S. . This demographic influx sustained elements like the prohibition on lifting feet during circular dances, interpreted as respecting the kalunga ( waters separating realms) and avoiding disruption of ancestral paths. Call-and-response vocals and rhythmic , integral to , parallel Bakongo burial and possession rites that invoked communal ecstasy without instrumental accompaniment. While West ring dances contributed broader influences such as communal and , the ring shout's structured counterclockwise and grounded distinguish it as a retention of Bantu cosmological mapping, as analyzed in scholarly examinations of Gullah-Geechee survivals. These antecedents persisted despite suppression, embedding spiritual agency in expressions.

Development in

Enslaved transported to the , particularly from Central African regions like the basin, carried traditions of circular communal dances and counterclockwise processions rooted in cosmologies, which formed the basis for the shout's physical form. These elements adapted within the system, where overt African rituals faced suppression by enslavers and Christian missionaries seeking to eradicate "" practices. By the early , the shout emerged in isolated Lowcountry rice and Sea Island cotton plantations of and , where high concentrations of Kongo-descended laborers—numbering in the tens of thousands on rice estates alone—fostered enclaves with minimal white interference, allowing cultural retention. The practice developed as part of the "invisible institution" of slave religion, conducted in praise houses or cabins to evade planter patrols, with participants shuffling feet in a ring to comply with biblical injunctions against lifting feet in while preserving African-derived motion and . Call-and-response , led by designated "brothers" or "sisters," accompanied hand-clapping and vocal improvisation, merging African spirit invocation with Protestant hymnody during the Second Great Awakening's influence on slave conversions from the 1790s onward. This enabled communal bonding and subtle resistance, as the counterclockwise motion echoed dikenga symbols of cyclical life and ancestry, undisclosed to outsiders. Intensified during seasonal lulls like harvest ends or holidays from to (December 31), the ring shout served as a vital mechanism for spiritual sustenance amid , with evangelical tolerating it sporadically to encourage docility, though many white condemned it as disorderly or pagan. Historical analyses of slave narratives and traveler accounts indicate its prevalence in these settings by the –1850s, predating formal documentation, as a counter to assimilationist pressures in the tightening grip of proslavery ideology post-1831 rebellion.

Practice in Historical Context

Communities and Settings

The ring shout was predominantly practiced by enslaved Africans and their descendants in and Geechee communities along the coastal regions of and , particularly in the Sea Islands and lowcountry areas such as . These isolated communities preserved African cultural elements due to limited interaction with mainland populations, fostering continuity in rituals like the shout amid the isolation of rice and Sea Island cotton plantations. Primary settings for the included praise houses—modest, wooden structures built by enslaved people on plantations for secretive nighttime worship gatherings, distinct from larger white-supervised churches. These venues allowed for uninhibited expression through counterclockwise shuffling circles, rhythmic clapping, and stamping, often under the cover of darkness to evade overseer scrutiny during antebellum slavery. Additional locations encompassed slave cabins, barns, clearings, and urban slave quarters, where participants formed rings to invoke spiritual fervor without formal altars or seating. By the mid-19th century, observers documented the practice in these coastal enclaves, noting its role in communal bonding during events like Watch Night services on . Post-emancipation, it persisted in Gullah-Geechee settlements, such as those near , though community-based shouts largely faded by the 1930s outside preserved groups like the McIntosh County Shouters.

Integration into Worship Services

The ring shout was incorporated into worship services primarily within the informal structures of praise houses during the period, where enslaved conducted gatherings supervised by elected spiritual leaders known as "deacons" or "watchmen." These services typically opened with collective , personal testimonies of , and the "lining out" of hymns—wherein a leader recited lines for the congregation to repeat—followed by brief exhortations or sermons. The then emerged as the ecstatic climax, with participants shuffling in a counterclockwise circle while rhythms and chanting , maintaining feet near the ground to align with Christian prohibitions on dancing derived from interpretations of biblical texts like Exodus 32:19. This sequence fostered communal spiritual intensity, blending vocal and kinetic elements to express devotion amid oppression. Following , the practice integrated into formal African American Baptist and Methodist church services, particularly in isolated /Geechee communities of coastal Georgia and South Carolina's , where cultural retention was strong due to limited external influence. In these settings, ring shouts often occurred during extended evening or night vigils, such as Watch Night services on December 31, commemorating the 1863 read on January 1, 1863. At Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in , for example, shouters perform from approximately 10 p.m. through dawn, incorporating the ritual after hymns and prayers as a planned communal rite led by a songster initiating call-and-response , with a "baser" directing refrains and a "stickman" providing percussion by beating a broomstick on the wooden floor. This integration persisted as a distinct ritual segment rather than a constant feature of standard Sunday services, often in church annexes or adjacent spaces to accommodate movement, reflecting adaptations to denominational norms while preserving African-derived ecstatic worship. Historical accounts indicate shouts extended house-to-house during holiday observances like , blending service elements with processional mobility, though formal church leadership sometimes viewed them separately from preaching to mitigate critiques of "unseemly" expression. Continuity into the and beyond, as documented in traditions, underscores the shout's role in sustaining spiritual resilience, with groups like the McIntosh County Shouters reviving public performances since 1980 while maintaining ties to Baptist liturgical calendars.

Religious and Spiritual Dimensions

Syncretic Elements with Christianity

The ring shout incorporated elements primarily through the adaptation of Protestant and hymns into its call-and-response structure, allowing enslaved s to express biblical narratives of and while preserving rhythmic and kinetic precedents. Participants sang lines from songs such as "Move, " or "Blow, ," which drew on stories like to symbolize escape from bondage, reframing communal circling as a form of worship directed toward and the . This fusion enabled compliance with scriptural prohibitions against dancing—interpreted by some slaveholders and ministers as lifting the feet—by restricting movement to counterclockwise shuffles and hand-clapping, thus aligning the ritual outwardly with evangelical norms while retaining ecstatic, possession-like intensity akin to West spirit invocation reinterpreted as descent of the Holy Ghost. Syncretism manifested in the "invisible " of slave , where ring shouts occurred in praise houses or secluded gatherings, blending polyrhythms and with to foster communal spiritual experiences. Spirituals like "" or "Guide My Feet," performed during shouts, emphasized personal salvation and eschatological hope, adapting ancestor into petitions to Christian saints or , as observed in evangelical Protestant adaptations that tolerated bodily expression under the guise of religious fervor. Historical accounts from the , including communities, document how these sessions unified diverse ethnic groups under a shared Christian veneer, with leaders intoning scriptural phrases that elicited responsive chants, thereby encoding resistance and resilience in biblically sanctioned forms. This integration reflected pragmatic accommodation rather than wholesale replacement of cosmologies, as evidenced by the persistence of counterclockwise motion—symbolizing cycles of life and spirit in Central African traditions—now oriented toward , though some contemporary scholarly analyses caution against overemphasizing concealment of non-Christian elements, noting instead mutual reinforcement in the ritual's emotional and theological depth. By the mid-19th century, Methodist and Baptist influences had further embedded hymns into shouts, with rhythms driving collective trance states described in observer records as akin to biblical glossolalia, underscoring the shout's role in forging a distinct sacred praxis.

Participant Experiences and Testimonies

Participants in the described it as a profoundly ecstatic communal that bridged the physical and spiritual realms, often evoking sensations of divine and emotional . Ex-slaves interviewed in the 1930s WPA narratives recounted shuffling counterclockwise in a tight circle while clapping hands, stamping feet, and singing repetitive led by a caller, building to trance-like intensities where individuals felt "filled with the " or "shouting till the come." This movement adhered strictly to religious taboos against dancing by never lifting the feet, which participants viewed as a pious distinction that preserved the practice's sanctity amid white Christian prohibitions. Testimonies highlight the shout's role in fostering resilience and covert resistance; former slave Fannie Moore recalled gatherings after prayer meetings where "they would gather in the center" for the ring, emphasizing the shared rhythm as a means to transcend daily hardships and connect with ancestral spirits syncretized into Christian worship. Similarly, South Carolina ex-slave accounts, such as those compiled in Remembering Slavery, noted the shout's capacity to induce "loose he haid" states of abandon, which whites misinterpreted as recklessness warranting punishment, yet participants experienced it as liberating union with the divine, reinforcing communal bonds severed by enslavement. These firsthand recollections, drawn from over 2,300 interviews across 17 states, underscore the shout's function as a visceral affirmation of agency and hope, distinct from observer accounts that often pathologized its fervor.

Decline and External Perceptions

Factors Contributing to Suppression

The suppression of the ring shout accelerated after the (1861–1865), as newly emancipated established independent churches and sought social elevation through assimilation into prevailing white Protestant norms. Black religious leaders, emphasizing decorum and rationality in worship to counter stereotypes of savagery, actively discouraged the practice; for instance, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, who served from 1863 onward, condemned shouting and ring shouts as "heathenish" and disruptive, advocating instead for structured hymns and sermons modeled on European traditions. This clerical opposition aligned with broader respectability politics, where ring shouts were disparaged as remnants of enslavement's degradations or as "backward" expressions unfit for a free populace aspiring to and moral parity. Communities in urbanizing areas, influenced by formal and efforts from white denominations, further eroded the tradition by merging sacred elements with secular ones, reducing its occurrence to occasional harvest festivals by the early . Socioeconomic shifts, including northward migration during the (1916–1970) and the rise of literacy-driven worship, marginalized the communal, embodied ritual in favor of individualistic, text-based services, though isolated rural enclaves like those among Gullah-Geechee populations preserved it longer due to geographic insulation.

Contemporary Observer Accounts and Critiques

, a Union colonel overseeing freedmen in South Carolina's during the , provided one of the most detailed early accounts of the ring shout in his 1869 memoir Army Life in a Black Regiment. He observed gatherings in praise houses where participants formed a circle, shuffled their feet counterclockwise without lifting them—adhering to biblical prohibitions on dancing—while clapping hands and engaging in call-and-response singing of led by a songster. Higginson described the mounting fervor, with bodies swaying rhythmically and some participants falling into ecstatic trances, interpreting the practice as a profound expression of that blended African-derived counterclock wise motion with Christian hymnody. Higginson's portrayal emphasized the shout's communal intensity and spiritual authenticity, noting how it unified participants in a "weird, wild" yet reverent manner, distinct from standard revivals, and served as a vehicle for preserving amid enslavement. Similarly, diarist Charlotte Forten, a free educator in the same around , recorded shouts as vibrant sessions featuring repetitive chants and shuffling steps, which she viewed sympathetically as evidence of the people's deep despite . Critiques from contemporaneous white missionaries and reformers, however, often framed the ring shout as excessively physical and reminiscent of pre-Christian African rituals, incompatible with disciplined Protestant worship. American Missionary Association workers in the postbellum South, including those on Georgia's coast in the 1860s–1880s, reported shouts as "wild" and "disorderly," advocating suppression of the shuffling and clapping to promote seated, sermon-focused services modeled on Northern norms, viewing the embodied elements as hindrances to moral uplift. Some observers, like prior to , dismissed shouts as noisy disturbances or superstitious holdovers, enforcing curfews or patrols to limit nocturnal gatherings that evaded oversight. These perspectives reflected broader tensions over , with critics attributing the practice's persistence to incomplete rather than recognizing its syncretic adaptations.

Cultural Influence and Legacy

Impact on African American Music Forms

The ring shout's call-and-response structure and polyrhythmic patterns, derived from West African traditions, formed a foundational element of early African American , where participants chanted lyrics against rhythms generated by shuffling feet and hand claps, as documented in 19th-century accounts of slave praise meetings. These , often performed within ring shouts, preserved communal singing and heterophonic textures, influencing the melodic shapes and repetitive phrasing observed in collections like William Francis Allen's 1867 Slave Songs of the . This tradition extended into , where the ring shout's emphasis on emotional release through vocal moans, groans, and shaped the genre's interactive dynamics and rhythmic drive, as ethnomusicologist Southern identified the practice as "the most obvious example of the influence of traditions on the early ." Gospel composers like in the 1930s adapted these elements by merging ' call-and-response with structures, creating "" that retained the shout's participatory fervor in urban church settings. In secular forms, the ring shout contributed to through off-beat phrasing, polyrhythms from and stamping, and persistent call-and-response, which musicologist Samuel A. Floyd traced as cultural retentions in post-emancipation music, linking sacred circle rituals to individual expression in early 20th-century recordings. These rhythmic innovations also informed , particularly via stride piano pioneers like in the 1920s, who incorporated shout-derived and layered beats into styles, bridging communal worship rhythms to improvisational ensemble playing in New Orleans and beyond.

Broader Artistic and Symbolic Echoes

The ring shout's counterclockwise circular procession embodies the Bakongo dikenga cosmogram, a foundational Central African symbol delineating the sun's path through four phases—dawn (birth), noon (maturity), sunset (death), and midnight (afterlife and rebirth)—representing the soul's eternal cycle across the kalunga divide between physical and spiritual realms. This diagrammatic cross, often rendered as intersecting lines within a circle, persisted among enslaved Africans from Kongo regions in the American South, where the shout's formation ritually reenacted cosmogonic traversal, invoking ancestral communion and spiritual potency without violating Christian proscriptions against dancing. Scholarly analysis traces these motifs to Gullah-Geechee enclaves, where the shout's geometry directly correlates with documented Bakongo ritual formations. Such extends into African American visual and material arts, manifesting in quilts, , and grave adornments that encode the cosmogram's pattern as a veiled retention of pre-Christian amid syncretic adaptation. For instance, Edgefield district from Carolina features incised crosses akin to the dikenga, interpreted as markers of cosmological rather than mere Christian , with parallels drawn to practices in proximate coastal communities. sweetgrass baskets, coiled in spiral patterns evoking circular procession, similarly reflect encoded African geometries, though direct causal links to symbolism remain inferential from ethnographic patterns rather than explicit documentation. In literary depictions, the ring shout's echoes appear in works chronicling Gullah spiritual resilience, such as Julie Dash's 1991 film , which integrates shout-derived movements and motifs to symbolize intergenerational ancestral dialogue and cultural survival, drawing on historical shout descriptions for authenticity. These broader resonances underscore the shout's role as a diagrammatic , influencing artistic expressions that prioritize relational cosmology over individualistic narrative, with the cosmogram's latent presence challenging linear Western temporalities in favor of cyclic renewal.

Preservation and Modern Adaptations

20th-Century Documentation Efforts

In the early 1930s, anthropologist documented the ring shout during her fieldwork among Gullah-Geechee communities in and , describing it as a involving circular movement, call-and-response singing, and ecstatic akin to African rituals, which she observed in praise houses and church services. In her 1934 essay "Characteristics of Negro Expression," Hurston characterized shouting as a direct survival of African "possession by the gods," emphasizing its role in Black expressive culture through firsthand accounts of participants shuffling counterclockwise without crossing their feet, accompanied by hand-clapping and spiritual chants. Folklorists John A. Lomax and advanced audio documentation in 1934 by recording "Run, Old Jeremiah" (also known as "Good Lord") performed by Joe Washington Brown, Austin Coleman, and others in , capturing the core elements of the ring shout including rhythmic foot-shuffling, body-percussive clapping, and improvised spiritual responses that preserved oral traditions from rural Black congregations. This field recording, one of the earliest surviving audio examples, highlighted the practice's endurance in isolated Southern communities despite suppression by mainstream churches. Alan Lomax extended these efforts in the mid-20th century, recording Gullah ring shouts on St. Simons Island, , in 1959–1960 with groups like the Georgia Sea Island Singers, who performed unaccompanied such as "Eli, You Can't Stand" in shuffle-step circles, documenting the fusion of West African counterclockwise procession with Christian lyrics in Sea Island praise meetings. These sessions, archived by the Association for Cultural Equity, provided ethnographic evidence of the shout's role in communal worship and resistance, with participants maintaining strict no-dancing prohibitions by keeping one foot planted. By the 1970s and 1980s, institutional preservation intensified through recordings of the McIntosh County Shouters, a -based group descended from traditions, who demonstrated authentic ring shouts on albums like Spirituals and Shout Songs from the Georgia Coast (1986), featuring leaders like Big John Davis guiding shuffles, claps, and chants in wooden-floored praise houses to safeguard the form against cultural erosion. These efforts, building on Lomax's foundational work, included field notes on performance protocols—such as men and women forming separate rings—and contributed to academic analyses affirming the shout's African-derived cosmology over purely Christian interpretations.

21st-Century Revivals and Performances

The McIntosh County Shouters, a Gullah-Geechee ensemble formed in 1980 in coastal to sustain the ring shout amid declining practice in praise houses, have maintained performances through the , including a 2010 concert at the and a New Year's Eve shout at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in 2023. The group, which employs unaccompanied vocals, rhythmic handclaps, and counterclockwise shuffling without crossing the feet—a prohibition rooted in biblical interpretations of —received a grant in 2024 to support ongoing preservation. Likewise, the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters, established around 1980 to revive ancestral ring shout elements from West African ring dances adapted during enslavement, have presented the form at educational events, festivals, and tours, such as a 2022 performance at the Averitt Center for the Arts and the Afro-Descendant's Southern Road Tour in 2025. In 2011, they achieved a for the largest during a Gullah-Geechee cultural gathering in Riceboro, , involving hundreds of participants in synchronized movement and song. These ensembles have shifted the from insular sacred contexts to public stages, fostering awareness of its role in African American resistance, while adhering to core elements like call-and-response lyrics in dialect and prohibitions on instrumental accompaniment to evoke divine presence. Contemporary adaptations extend the tradition into experimental formats, as seen in "The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout," a 2022 concert at Harlem's featuring artists like and , which blended ring shout rhythms with modern composition to address Black cultural resilience; the production sold out and was renewed for 2024. Such works demonstrate the ring shout's adaptability, influencing orchestral pieces like Carlos Simon's "Ring Shout" from Four Black American Dances, premiered in various U.S. venues during the 2020s.

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