Sweetgrass Festival 2009

Fifth annual event a rousing celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture

Those recognizable sweetgrass baskets have been around for as long as the first Charlestonians toiled under the Lowcountry sun. And these roots in the past are what make these baskets more than just baskets, more than just sweetgrass tied up in neat patterns.

Sweetgrass baskets are woven intricacies of Charleston's history, Gullah-Geechee culture and a story of a people.

Celebrating this part of Charleston's heritage is the fifth annual Sweetgrass Festival at Laing Middle School on Friday and Saturday. In addition to the most extensive showcase of sweetgrass baskets in the Lowcountry, this festival will be paying tribute to the Gullah-Geechee culture through storytelling, demonstrations, dance performances, exhibits, art and song.

"This event is to provide an opportunity for our visitors and tourists, as well as our local residents, to experience the Gullah-Geechee culture through its art forms, traditions, stories, folklore, gospel, music, dance," said Sweetgrass Festival Project Director Thomasena Stokes-Marshall.

"It's also held for the purpose of making people aware of the Gullah-Geechee culture and its contributions to the domestic, social, political and economic development of the Lowcountry area — all the way back from the 1700s and 1800s. Much of that history still survives today in our community. So the festival is one way to help preserve and keep that history alive and tell the story of the Gullah-Geechee people."

Today, sweetgrass baskets are one of those cherished cultural and traditional art forms telling a story of a people. But they did not start out as such.

Stokes-Marshall explains that they served a purely utilitarian purpose by enslaved Africans in the past.

The most important sweetgrass basket was called the "fanner." In a time when rice was one of the most lucrative crops in the area, the fanner was used to winnow the rice. That is, when the rice was ready, it was in a shell, called a husk.

Needing to be separated from the husk, the rice was placed in the big, round basket. Then, a person would winnow the rice, a circular movement rotating the rice around the fanner. When the rice hit the bottom of the fanner, it would become separated from the husk.

"That's why that basket became extremely important in terms of the labor and making the labor as easy as possible," Stokes-Marshall said. "They were tools more than they were art. It's been through the years that baskets are now viewed as works of art. There is a tremendous amount of artistry and work that goes into the whole process."

This artistry, work and historical significance are what make up the beauty of the baskets. These elements give them a deeper meaning to the Lowcountry culture than just their elaborate and eye-catching designs.

"To be able to sit down and hold the various raw materials that are needed to create the piece of artwork and you have no pattern or anything that's drawn out. For an individual to sit down and start sewing the different materials together into patterns, many of them one of a kind, and to come out with the kind of beauty that they end up being," Stokes-Marshall explained.

"There has to be a lot of feelings and thoughts that go into it. I would say even on a spiritual level, I would imagine the basketmaker experiences some sense of tranquillity, peace, reflections on their past, on their parents and grandparents that taught them the art form. And then seeing how through the years what used to be something that may have been looked upon as hard work and slavery, but now it's a work of art. There has to be some sense of gratification, accomplishment, reflection and connection to the past - that's how I see it," she said.

Along with the sweetgrass baskets, one of the more prominent aspects of the Gullah-Geechee culture connecting the past to the present is its language.

Stokes-Marshall said that it derived from enslaved Africans who were brought from various parts of West Africa. In order to communicate, there was a blending of all of their different languages that eventually became streamlined into the Gullah-Geechee dialect.

This dialect, along with the craft of the sweetgrass baskets, is an important part of today's Gullah-Geechee culture.

"Part of the significance is that many of the traditions that date back to our ancestors' times are still practiced and passed on from one generation to the next, and that helps to keep that history alive within the Gullah-Geechee communities," she said.

"I think that plays a major factor. There are traditions within the culture that have been practiced for generations upon generations that are passed down and help to form the basic core values of the people on a family level, a community level, on a spiritual level, on a religious level," she said. "There are so many elements, not just in Gullah-Geechee culture, but in any culture. If the people that are indigenous to the culture don't make efforts to hold on to it, then it disappears."

Holding on to Charleston's history and culture is exactly what the Sweetgrass Festival aims to do. Drawing in 3,000 to 4,000 people every year, it has been more than successful.

It is elevating and celebrating not only local roots, but the Gullah-Geechee Corridor, which extends from Wilmington, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla. Preserving this history and culture in the region is vital to its descendants, she said.

"I'm a firm believer that the more you learn and the more you know about people — we're all different, we're all unique in our own way — we all bring something to the table," Stokes-Marshall said. "And if we are open-minded and learn about different people, different races, different cultures, it makes it a better world to live together, to live and help and work and share.

"The festival opens up the door for people to see a bird's-eye view into another culture and maybe take something away with them that they like about it," Stokes-Marshall said.

"This festival is for the young, the old, the in-between, the curious, those people that are looking for something new, some entertainment, some knowledge, some exposure to another way of life."