Product Description

The ancient African art of sweetgrass basket making has been practiced for more than 300 years in the Christ Church Parish of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Seen on the roadways of Charleston County and in museums and galleries worldwide, these unique handmade baskets are crafted from sweetgrass, bullrush, pine needles, and palm leaves. Traditionally, artisans use a piece of the rib bone of a cow and a pair of scissors as their only tools for construction. When English settlers founded Christ Church Parish in the late 1600s, they saw a place rich in natural beauty and ideal for harvesting rice, cotton, and indigo. Skilled agricultural laborers were needed, and consequently, South Carolina became the top importer of enslaved West Africans. Finding a landscape similar to their homeland, those who came kept many of their traditional practices. Today, the richness of the West African presence can be seen in Charleston’s architecture, basketry, and ironworks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #637531 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-11
• Released on: 2006-01-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author
Author Joyce V. Coakley presents this remarkable pictorial history of a fascinating art and people. She is a Mount Pleasant native, expert basket maker, writer, and historian.

Customer Reviews

a bargain
"Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition" may suffer from being misnamed (a faulty title) because it is much more of a sociological and anthropological investigation of Gullah culture than a close study of sweetgrass basketry itself. For that reason though I consider it a bargain. Anyone who visits the Charleston area and Mt. Pleasant (Rt. 17 or the Charleston Market) in particular will be pulled into the beauty of the sweetgrass baskets. This book takes you into the complex lives lead by those creating the baskets and those around them living in Mt. Pleasant in a particular time of the past, giving a well-rounded view of a disappearing culture. Still, you see the people through the eyes of one of their own, not romanticized but as real flesh and blood people. I really appreciate what Joyce Coakley shared in these pages and I think you will too.

Great Pictorial Essay
I really appreciate Joyce Coakley's very personal photo essay book on Gullah culture. Many authors of books like this just go to resource centers like historical libraries for photographs but you can tell by the names that many of these people are her own family members and people from her neighborhood. "Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition," goes right into the heart of a particular neighborhood where sweetgrass baskets flourish but also shows so many other facets of the Gullah culture you won't find anywhere else. Well done Ms. Coakley!! I highly recommend this book for those not only interested in sweetgrass basket history but those seeking a more indepth visual analysis of Gullah people.

a nice book
This book was interesting, but not quite as interesting as I hoped. The writing could have had a little more flair. I am interested in Gullah culture, but it was only so so in promoting ongoing interest. Pictures would be better. Good resource though for information.