A shout or ring shout is an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual, first practiced by

African slaves Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean sl ...

in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Great ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, in which worshipers move in a circle while shuffling and stomping their feet and clapping their hands. Despite the name, shouting aloud is not an essential part of the ritual. The ring shout was Christianized and practiced in some

Black church The black church (sometimes termed Black Christianity or African American Christianity) is the faith and body of Christian congregations and denominations in the United States that minister predominantly to African Americans, as well as thei ...

es into the 20th century, and it continues to the present among the

Gullah The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and cul ...

people of the

Sea Islands The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the Southeastern United States. Numbering over 100, they are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of South Caroli ...

and in "singing and praying bands" associated with many African American

United Methodist The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelical ...

congregations in

Tidewater Tidewater may refer to: * Tidewater (region), a geographic area of southeast Virginia, southern Maryland, and northeast North Carolina. ** Tidewater accent, an accent of American English associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia * Tidewater ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

and

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacen ...

. A more modern form, known still as a " shout" (or "praise break"), is practiced in many Black churches and non-Black Pentecostal churches to the present day.

Description

"Shouting" often took place during or after a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

prayer meeting or worship service. Men and women moved in a circle in a counterclockwise direction, shuffling their feet, clapping, and often spontaneously singing or praying aloud. In

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispan ...

and

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

the shout was usually performed around a special second altar near the center of a church building. In the

of Georgia and South Carolina, shouters formed a circle outdoors, around the church building itself. In some cases, enslaved people retreated into the woods at night to perform shouts, often for hours at a time, with participants leaving the circle as they became exhausted. In the twentieth century, some

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

churchgoers in the United States performed shouts by forming a circle around the

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

, in the space in front of the altar, or around the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

. Ring shouts were sometimes held for the dead. This custom has been practiced by traditional bands of carnival revelers in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

The origins of the ring shout are usually assumed to be derived from African dance, and scholars usually point out the presence of melodic elements such as call-and-response singing and heterophony, as well as rhythmic elements such as tresillo and "hamboned" rhythm, and aesthetic elements such as counter-clockwise dancing and ecstasy, which makes ring shouts similar to ceremonies among people like the Ibos, Yorubas, Ibibios, Efiks,

Bahumono The Bahumono (Ehumono, Kohumono) people are the ethnic group in Nigeria located primarily in the Abi local government area of Cross River State. They are the largest ethnic group in the region. They speak the Kohumono language. History The E ...

and

Bakongo The Kongo people ( kg, Bisi Kongo, , singular: ; also , singular: ) are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others. They have liv ...

. Some scholars have suggested that the ritual may have originated among enslaved Muslims from

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...

as an imitation of ''

tawaf The Kaaba (, ), also spelled Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah ( ar, ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة, lit=Honored Ka'bah, links=no, translit=al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah), is a building at the c ...

'', the mass procession around the

Kaaba The Kaaba (, ), also spelled Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah ( ar, ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة, lit=Honored Ka'bah, links=no, translit=al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah), is a building at the c ...

that is an essential part of the Hajj. If so, the word "shout" may come from

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

''shawṭ'', meaning "a single run", such as a single circumambulation of the Kaaba, or an open space of ground for running. According to musicologist

Robert Palmer Robert Allen Palmer (19 January 1949 – 26 September 2003) was an English singer and songwriter. He was known for his powerful, soulful voice and wikt:sartorial, sartorial elegance, and his stylistic explorations, combining Soul music, so ...

, the first written accounts of the ring shout date from the 1840s. The stamping and clapping in a circle was described as a kind of "drumming," and 19th-century observers associated it with the conversion of slaves to Christianity..

Influence

Sterling Stuckey in his book, ''Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory & the Foundations of Black America'' (1987, ) argues that ring shout was a unifying element of Africans in American colonies, from which

field holler The field holler or field call is mostly a historical type of vocal work song sung by field slaves in the United States (and later by African American forced laborers accused of violating vagrancy laws) to accompany their tasked work, to commun ...

work song A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Definitions and ...

s, and

spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the ...

evolved, followed by blues and jazz. In his article, "Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry", Samuel A. Floyd Jr. argues that many of the stylistic elements observed during the ring shout later laid the foundations of various black music styles developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. According to Floyd, "...all of the defining elements of black music are present in the ring...". These basic elements of ring shouts included calls, cries, and hollers;

blue note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical c ...

call-and-response Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...

; and various rhythmic aspects. Examples of black music that would evolve from the ring include, but are not limited to, Afro-American burial music of New Orleans, the Blues, the

Afro-American Symphony ''Afro-American Symphony'', also known as Symphony No. 1 ''"Afro-American"'' and ''Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major'', is a 1930 composition by William Grant Still, the first symphony written by an African American and performed for a United States ...

, as well as the music that has accompanied various dance forms also present in Afro-American culture. The ring shout has developed into the modern " shout" (or "praise break") tradition now seen across the globe. Though augmented and interracialized by the Pentecostal tradition in the early 1900s and spreading to various denominations and churches thereafter, it is still primarily practiced among Christians of West African descent. The ring shout continues today in Georgia with th
McIntosh County Shouters

Footnotes

References

*Diouf, Sylviane. ''Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas.'' New York: New York University Press, 1998. *Floyd Jr., Samuel A. "Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry." ''Black Music Research Journal,'' Vol. 22 (2002): 49-70. *Parrish Lydia. ''Slave Songs of the Georgia Islands.'' 1942. Reprint, Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1992. *Turner, Lorenzo Dow. ''Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect.'' 1949. Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969.

External links

McIntosh County Shouters
in ''New Georgia Encyclopedia''
"Run Old Jeremiah": Echoes of the Ring Shout
* {{Gullah topics, state=collapsed African-American cultural history African Americans and religion Caribbean culture Gullah mythology Circle dances African-American dance Gullah culture