Description |
1 videodisc (52 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. |
System Details |
DVD-R. |
Performer |
Narrated by Vertamae Grosvenor. |
Credits |
Camera, Ambal Landazuri ; editors, A. Landazuri, A. Serrano, A. Toepke ; original music, Leandro Sevilla & Marcelo Masciadri. |
Summary |
Traces the history of a burial song of the Mende people brought by slaves to the rice plantations of the Southeast coast of the United States over two hundred years ago, and preserved among the Gullah people there. In the 1930s a pioneering Black linguist, Lorenzo Turner, recognized its origin, and in the 1990s scholars Joe Opala and Cynthia Schmidt discovered that the song was still remembered in a remote village in Sierra Leone. Dramatically demonstrates how African Americans retained links with their African past, and concludes with the visit of the Gullah family which had preserved the song to the Mende village, where villagers re-enact the ancient burial rites for them. |
Note |
This disc is a recorded DVD (DVD-R) and may not play in all DVD players or drives. |
Language |
In English and Mende with English subtitles. |
Note |
GMD: videorecording. |
Subject |
Mende (African people)
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Folk songs, Mende.
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Gullahs -- Music.
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African Americans -- Georgia.
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African Americans -- Race identity.
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Sierra Leone -- Music.
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Ethnomusicology -- Sierra Leone.
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Burial -- Sierra Leone.
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Genre/Form |
Documentary films.
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Added Author |
Toepke, Alvaro.
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Serrano, Angel.
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Smart-Grosvenor, Vertamae.
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Inko Producciones.
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Universidad de Alicante. Taller de Imagen.
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California Newsreel (Firm)
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