On the last Saturday in July, William Rouse sat under a shaded tent doing something he has done for the past 73 years since he first learned it from his mother: weaving a sweetgrass basket. Rouse, a fourth-generation weaver, was focused on his craft, pulling dried strands into intricate braids. Only on occasion would he glance up at the patrons who wandered into his stall.
At the 20th annual Sweetgrass Festival in South Carolina, Rouse and 27 other sweetgrass artisans gathered to demonstrate their craft and sell their wares. The festival, held in Mount Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston and home to 14 Gullah Geechee communities, aims to promote and preserve the tradition of sweetgrass weaving, a centuries-long tradition started by enslaved people in the region and passed down to future generations.
Founded in 2004 by the late Thomasena Stokes-Marshall, Mount Pleasant’s only Black town council member, the annual festival has brought together artisans, people from Gullah Geechee communities and tourists from around the nation. Reaching the anniversary milestone without Stokes-Marshall felt “melancholic” for Michael Allen, a Gullah Geechee co-founder of the event, but he was proud to see her legacy continued.
“We started at her kitchen table from an angle of just wanting to highlight, educate and bring awareness,” said Allen, who was selling Gullah Geechee food items at the festival with his family. That early idea “has blossomed to something that sustained itself or 20 years. For individuals that are here today that are being made aware of the deepness and richness of Gullah culture, the importance of sweetgrass baskets in our nation’s history, in our colonial journey, in our quest for democracy – I think it’s important.”
The tradition of Gullah Geechee sweetgrass basket weaving has been passed down from generation to generation since the 1700s. South Carolina’s colonial and antebellum wealth was built from the labor of enslaved people, and sweetgrass baskets were historically associated with their use as a tool for rice production. Today the baskets are primarily considered highly intricate, often expensive decorative art.
Basket weaving, while a common practice for the Gullah Geechee, is not uniform. Each family has their own unique way of weaving, a talent or design specific to their lineage that is preserved throughout the years.
“They all have their own special twist,” Tracy Richter, Mount Pleasant’s events coordinator, said. “You can look at a basket and tell – ‘Oh, that’s so and so’s basket.’ They all do their own special things in their designs, so it’s unique.’
Sweetgrass and other cultural events such as Gullah Festival, in Beaufort, or Penn Center’s Heritage Days Celebration, on St Helena Island, that ensure the preservation and promotion of Gullah culture are vital, Allen said. Earlier this year, South Carolina implemented one of the nation’s most restrictive book bans, and followed Florida and Arkansas in eliminating college credit and statewide funding for AP African American Studies in high schools. Even if the way Gullah Geechee and Black history is taught in school changes, festivals like Sweetgrass ensure families can continue to culturally enrich their children.
“Unfortunately there are elements of our nation that have taken a stand that history and culture are not important, this should not be taught, should not be introduced; that this is irrelevant,” Allen said. “And so the work that we do now is even more steadfast because we have to really share with the nation and the world that this matters today as it mattered three centuries ago.”
Elsewhere in the festival, history came to life.
Bruce A Ingram, a folk artist, storyteller and re-enactor from Conway, South Carolina, created a display that included troves, similar to the ones enslaved children would have been forced to eat from; original metal shackles worn by enslaved children; a wanted poster for Harriet Tubman; and other historic items and information.
As attendees gathered, Ingram invited them to feel cotton, noting the seeds and how light the plant was. Then he would ask them to hold metal pounds, equivalent in weight to the amount of cotton that enslaved people were required to pick on a daily basis.
“This is Sea Island cotton,” Ingram said as he held the crop. “Cotton made South Carolina the richest state in the United States … Before Eli Whitney created the cotton gin, they had to separate seeds to sell it. They took young slave girls and boys and each child had to separate 30lb of seeds a day.”
A few booths down, Ireka Jelani and her son Beruti highlighted the Barbadian and Gullah Geechee connection with demonstrations of Barbadian basket weaving, which, while similar to the Gullah Geechee tradition, uses khus khus grass and other locally available natural materials, instead of sweetgrass.
“It speaks of heritage,” Jelani, who was at the festival through the Barbadian ministry of culture, said about the connection between Barbadian and Gullah Geechee basketweaving. “It speaks of legacy and it speaks of … generations after generations after generations of persons involved [in ensuring that] knowledge of the tradition of basket weaving is passed on.”
The next generation
Many of the sweetgrass vendors operated multigenerational tents, where their children and in some cases grandchildren and great-grandchildren, joined them in weaving and selling their products. This intergenerational knowledge is key not only to the festival’s longevity, but also to the sellers themselves, who want to ensure that the tradition is passed down.
Allen, along with his wife, Latanya, and his daughter Shaelyn, sold the family’s butters, Gullah seasoning, honey, jams and other preserves through their business, Tastee Treats. Allen said that interacting with his family’s products evoked memories of his childhood, which was fully immersed in Gullah culture.
“My wife and I, we’ve been married for 36 years, so we have an understanding [of] history and culture. Now we’re bringing [our daughter] into the fold, so that she can see it, understand it and appreciate it in the same capacity,” Allen said. “It’s not that we’re hoisting this on her, but we’re crafting this in a way that she can see herself in this, that she can pass on to her daughter.”
Adeline Mazyck, who has been weaving sweetgrass for more than six decades, said she was hopeful that the tradition would be maintained by future generations.
“You have to make them sit down and learn,” she said, reflecting on other Gullah Geechee and Black southern traditions that are dying out, like quilting and canning. “When they get much older, they look back and try.”
