By Queen Quet
“Wok togedda chillun doncha git weary. Wok togedda chillun doncha git weary. I kin yeddi ta disya day.
E likka we da sit pun de wood we ancestas put een de praise house whey we da sway While ebeebodee jayn een and sing een harmony.
Yeah, hunnuh chillun, disya da de tru way ob de Gullah/Geechee.”
St. Helena Island in the Gullah/Geechee Nation has been rightfully deemed “the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee culture.” I can personally assure you that you will not find another Sea Island from Jacksonville, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla., wherein the living culture of native Gullah/Geechees thrives throughout the entire island as it does on St. Helena.
This place has held its serenity and our cultural legacy since the 1500s when our African ancestors set their feet on its soil and the first tear fell into this Sea Island sand. When their blood drained down from the cotton boils sticking their fingers and the midwives buried the placenta of the first babies of African and indigenous ancestry, the Gullah/Geechee souls became rooted to this place.
As I have said for decades, “Hunnuh must tek cyare of de root fa heal de tree.” Our Gullah/Geechee tree is planted by the rivers of the waters and we shall NOT be moved!
The movement to ensure that Gullah/Geechee culture would not simply be “preserved” as if it was being placed in a jar to sit on a shelf, but to actually be continued, … I started longer than four decades ago. I continue to work daily with people throughout the Gullah/Geechee Nation from Jacksonville, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla., to ensure that long after we depart this earth in the physical realm and our bodies become part of the earth’s physical essence once again, that the Gullah/Geechee culture will authentically be intact. That has been and continues to be accomplished by collective efforts not those of deceit.
Deception is always a tool of genocide. People that look like other people (Not meaning that they live like the people they look like.) are brought in to divide the people with misinformation and propaganda under the guise of some benefit like “economic development.”
The psychological attempts to confuse people and distract from the real issues come into play and then an entire cultural community can be divided and each one picked off like the deer that are not running with their pack this season are slain by those hunting them down to only eat of their flesh. Aaaah, as I pause and pray for the many slain animals that I see along the roadsides, I also pray for these folks whose minds and souls would allow them to be a part of such efforts – “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” I am also reminded that “When my enemies came to eat of my flesh, they stumbled and fell,” too.
As I pray, I find myself, no matter where I am in the world, being spiritually transported back into the praise house on my beloved St. Helena singing with family, my elders and my ancestors. I recall the teachings of how we must keep our land and we must take care of one another. We must hold to God’s unchanging hand, which is easy to do on God’s blessed land called “St. Helena.”
St. Helena Island’s beauty that allures so many is adorned with togetherness that exists due to the continuation of native Gullah/Geechee traditions of family love and community unity. We have a balance, respect and appreciation for the open and natural spaces that exist throughout the island. The few fences that are there are often only closed if there are animals within that we want to see corralled so that they don’t run into the roads and get hit or go over and eat other folks crops and such.
We are not animals. We do not need to be fenced in nor gated out of spaces. We are stewards of ancestral lands from which the blood, sweat and tears speak of the brutality that our ancestors went through and also sing songs of victory because they endured.
The endurance of St. Helena Island’s native Gullah/Geechee culture is studied and celebrated by people of indigenous and African ancestry the world over. Many of them stand with St. Helena Island natives and our allies that are fighting to continue to protect our Gullah/Geechee culture and the strengthening of the Cultural Protection Overlay District.
We appreciate those that come to our island and respect it as a rural place of open space for everyone. We support having a healthy environment that sustains our quality of life. This can only be done by continuing to prevent rapid infill destructionment that accompanies gated areas and golf courses. These places also harken me back to what my ancestors went through given that the first golf course in the Motherland was at Bunce Island where Africans were chained up to be transported to North America.
While folks played, my people suffered. My people still suffer after working at these places of leisure in subservient positions catering to those that would again enslave and this time via wage. Remodeling the plantocracy is hypocrisy! Ef hunnuh Gullah/Geechee, e time fa be free!
We owe it to our indigenous and African ancestors to continue to take a stand and to work together to fight for our land. Our allies of today see this too and on behalf of my ancestors, I thank you.
Some may never get to take a journey to physically walk this Sea Island sand with me or to sit in the praise house and sing along. So, I invite you wherever you may be to go to www.SaintHelenaGullahGeechee.com and learn more about the rich legacy of historic St. Helena Island and know in your heart truly why this place of historic legacy is the epicenter for the Gullah/Geechee.
I rest assured that if you have a Godly spirit and soul, you too will find a song in your heart and will also want to work together to protect the Gullah/Geechee legacy. Den hunnuh gwine no fa tru why disya anointed people gladdee WEBE Gullah/Geechee!
GAWD please keep smilin pun we and bless up de Gullah/Geechee Famlee!
Queen Quet, Marquetta L. Goodwine, was selected and elected to be the first Queen Mother and official spokesperson for the Gullah/Geechee Nation. She is respectfully referred to as “Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation.”
