Truth is Revolution
Dr. Umar Johnson
The beautiful Sierra Leone History
Gullah Homecoming - Sierra Leone & Gullah People Reunite (1989)
His excellency, the Honorable Ernest Bai Koroma, president of Sierra Leone
The role of Paramount Chiefs in Sierra Leone
The view of the People
The Paramount Chieftaincy system was introduced
during the colonial era in Sierra Leone, giving
rise to an alternative governance structure to that
of the ‘kings and queens system’, which was in
place prior to colonialism. Before the system of
Paramount Chieftaincy was introduced leadership
was acquired through wisdom, conquest and
the finding of new settlements. As such, those
community leaders were not voted for but were
respected and honored as kings and queens,
given the right to lead through a social contract
Welcome Home Message from a Temne Paramount Chief of Sierra Leone
Interview with Hon. Paramount Chief Bai Kurr Kanagbaro III
The Rich Sierra Leone Culture
The Rural People Of Kapete, Sierra Leone, West Africa, 1987
Sierra Leone's Women Network
Educating Girls Changes Everything
Sierra Leone Women's Cooking Demonstration
What does being a "Krio Woman" mean?
Uploaded on Sep 6, 2011
Krios are an ethnic group in Sierra Leone. And during the Krio Descendants Union Global "Family Reunion" Weekend (http://www.kriodescendants.org) - I asked woman of all ages what does being a "Krio Woman" means to them. See pictures from the weekend here: http://on.fb.me/rrFJXQ
Sierra Leone Palm Wine Guitar Woman
Dieman Noba Smoke Tafee
Streets & People of Freetown. SIERRA LEONE. West Africa
Sowei mask: spirit of Sierra Leone
Bundu (Sowei) Helmet Mask
Sierra Leone Central Union Presentation by Sorie Ibrahim Kargbo
Sierra Leone The Richest Nation On Earth
The Gullah Language Derived from Sierra Leone
The Gullah language is what linguists call
an English-based creole language. Creoles
arise in the context of trade, colonialism,
and slavery when people of diverse
backgrounds are thrown together and must
forge a common means of communication.
According to one view, creole languages
are essentially hybrids that blend linguistic
influences from a variety of different
sources. In the case of Gullah, the
vocabulary is largely from the English
"target language," the speech of the
socially and economically dominant group;
but the African "substrate languages" have
altered the pronunciation of almost all the
English words, influenced the grammar
and sentence structure, and provided a
sizable minority of the vocabulary. Many
early scholars made the mistake of viewing
the Gullah language as "broken English,"
because they failed to recognize the strong
underlying influence of African languages.
But linguists today view Gullah, and other
creoles, as full and complete languages
with their own systematic grammatical
structures.
The British dominated the slave trade in
the 18th century, and during that period an
English-based creole spread along the
West African coast from Senegal to Sea Island Gullahs, about 1930.
Nigeria. This hybrid language served as a means of communication between British
slave traders and local African traders, but it also served as a lingua franca, or
common language, among Africans of different tribes. Some of the slaves taken to
America must have known creole English before they left Africa, and on the
plantations their speech seems to have served as a model for the other slaves.
Many linguists argue that this early West African Creole English was the ancestral
language that gave rise to the modern English-based creoles in West Africa (Sierra
Leone Krio, Nigerian Pidgin, etc.) as well as to the English-based creoles spoken by
black populations in the Americas (Gullah, Jamaican Creole, Guyana Creole, etc.).
All of these modern creole languages would, thus, fall into the same broad family
group, which linguist Ian Hancock has called the "English-based Atlantic Creoles."
This theory explains the striking similarities found among these many languages
spoken in scattered areas on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It also shows that the
slaves brought the rudiments of the Gullah language directly from Africa.
The first scholar to make a serious study of the Gullah language was the late Dr.
Lorenzo Turner, who published his findings in 1949. As a Black American, Dr.
Turner was able to win the confidence of the Gullah people, and he revealed many
aspects of their language that were previously unknown. Dr. Turner found that
Gullah men and women all have African nicknames or "basket names" in addition to
their English names for official use; and he showed that the Gullah language, like
other Atlantic Creoles, contains a substantial minority of vocabulary words borrowed
directly from African substrate languages. Altogether, Dr. Turner was able to identify
more than four thousand words and personal names of African origin and to assign
these, on an individual basis, to specific African languages. But Dr. Turner also
made the spectacular discovery that certain Gullah men and women, living in
isolated rural areas of South Carolina and Georgia in the 1940s, could still recall
simple texts in various African languages—texts passed from generation to
generation and still intelligible! He identified Mende and Vai phrases embedded in
Gullah songs; Mende passages in Gullah stories; and an entire Mende song,
apparently a funeral dirge. Dr. Turner also found some Gullah people who could
count from one of nineteen in the Guinea/Sierra Leone dialect of Fula. Although his
Gullah informants knew that these expressions were in African languages, and in
some cases knew the proper translation, they did not know which specific African
languages they were reciting.
P.E.H. Hair, a British historian, later published a review of Dr. Turner's work in which
he noted that Sierra Leone languages have made a "major contribution" to the
development of the Gullah language. Dr. Hair pointed to the "astonishing" fact
that all of the African texts known to be preserved by the Gullah are in languages
spoken in Sierra Leone. Mende, which accounts for most of the African passages
collected by Turner, is spoken almost entirely in Sierra Leone, while Vai and the
specific dialect of Fula are found on the borders with Liberia and Guinea. But Dr.
Hair also noted that a "remarkably large proportion" of the four thousand African
personal names and loanwords in the Gullah language come from Sierra Leone. He
calculated that twenty-five percent of the African names and twenty percent of the
African vocabulary words are from Sierra Leonean languages, principally Mende
and Vai. Dr. Hair concluded that South Carolina and Georgia is the only place in the
Americas where Sierra Leonean languages have exerted "anything like" this degree
of influence.
The Gullahs' African personal names and African vocabulary words include many
items that are familiar in Sierra Leone today. The Gullah have drawn their African
nicknames from various sources, including African first, or given, names; clan
names; and the African tribal names of their ancestors. They use the masculine
names Bala, Sorie, Salifu, Jah, and Lomboi; and the feminine names Mariama,
Fatu, Hawa, and Jilo. The Gullah also use as nicknames the clan names Bangura,
Kalawa, Sesay, Sankoh, Marah, Koroma, and Bah; and the Sierra Leonean tribal
names Limba, Loko, Yalunka, Susu, Kissi, and Kono. Gullah loanwords from Sierra
Leonean languages, used in everyday speech, include: joso, "witchcraft"
(Mende njoso, forest spirit); gafa, "evil spirit" (Mende ngafa, masked "devil"); wanga,
"charm" (Temne an-wanka, fetish or "swear");bento, "coffin" (Temne an-bento,
bier); defu, "rice flour" (Vai defu, rice flour); do, "child" (Mendendo, child); and kome,
"to gather" (Mende Kome, a meeting).
The Gullah language, considered as a whole, is also remarkably similar to Sierra
Leone Krio—so similar that the two languages are probably mutually intelligible. Krio
is, of course, the native language of the Krios, the descendants of freed slaves; but
it is also the national lingua franca, the most commonly spoken language in Sierra
Leone today. The West African Creole English of the slave trade era gave rise to
both Krio and Gullah, as well as to many other English-based Creoles in West Africa
and the West Indies. All of these languages, it must be said, share many common
elements of vocabulary and grammar. Sierra Leone Krio expressions such
as bigyai (greedy),pantap (on top of) udat (who?), and usai (where?) are found in
almost identical form in Gullah, as well as in many other related Creoles. But the
linguist Ian Hancock has also pointed to uniquesimilarities between Krio and
Gullah—features of vocabulary, grammar, and the sound system found in these two
languages, but in none of the other Atlantic Creoles. These common elements
include, among others, the Krio expressions bohboh (boy), titi (girl), enti (not so?),
and blant (a verb auxiliary) which appear in Gullah as buhbuh, tittuh, enty,
and blang. Dr. Hancock has argued, reasonably enough, that these unique
similarities, as well as the many loanwords in Gullah from Sierra Leonean
indigenous languages, must reflect a significant slave trade connection between
Sierra Leone and the Gullah area.
We are now in a position to draw a clear picture of the language connection
between Sierra Leone and South Carolina and Georgia. By about 1750 there was
probably a local creole dialect spoken in Sierra Leone and, perhaps, on neighboring
parts of the Rice Coast—a variant of the broader West African Creole English, but
with its own unique forms and expressions. Some of the Rice Coast slaves taken to
South Carolina and Georgia already spoke this Rice Coast dialect, and on the rice
plantations their creole speech became a model for the other slaves. The Gullah
language, thus, developed directly from this distinctive Rice Coast creole, acquiring
loanwords from the "substrate languages" of the African slaves from Sierra Leone
and elsewhere. In Sierra Leone, itself, the Rice Coast creole continued to flourish
throughout the late 1700s, so that when the freed slaves, ancestors of the Krios,
arrived at the end of the century, they found the language already widely spoken
among the indigenous peoples along the coast. Indeed, slave traders' accounts
from before the founding of Freetown make it clear that a form of creole English was
already being spoken in Sierra Leone. The emerging Krio community adopted the
local creole as its native speech, enriching it with new expressions reflecting the
diverse backgrounds of the freed slaves. So, Krio and Gullah both derive from an
early slave trade era Rice Coast creole dialect. Each language has gone its
separate way over the past two hundred and fifty years, but even now the
similarities are astonishing to linguists and laymen alike.
Finally, the word "Gullah," itself, seems to reflect the Rice Coast origins of many of
the slaves imported into South Carolina and Georgia. Lorenzo Turner attributed
"Gullah" to Gola, a small tribe on the Sierra Leone-Liberia border where the Mende
and Vai territories come together. But "Gullah" may also derive from Gallinas,
another name for the Vai, or from Galo, the Mende word for the Vai people. The
Gullah also call themselves "Geechee," which Dr. Turner attributed to the Kissi tribe
(pronounced geezee), which inhabits a large area adjoining the Mende, where
modern Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea converge. Given the Mende and Vai texts
preserved by the Gullah, and the significant percentages of Mende and Vai names
and loanwords in the Gullah, these interpretations seem to have
considerable merit.
African Divas - Sierra Leone - Heyden Adama - You And I
Blood diamonds in Sierra Leone
Uploaded on Apr 25, 2011
This short video summarizes the terrible war in Sierra Leone between 1991-2002. The 11 year war saw some of the most bloody and gruesome fighting techniques seen in any war. The video explains that diamonds were used to fund the war by rebels fighting the government.
Bleed the beast and Support the only solution to injustice, "Black African Pan Nationalism"
List of assured and recognized Nationalist fundraisers
Supporting all these worldwide fundraisers would cost about 50 U.S Dollars. Give as much as you can, it all goes to support infrastructure for African American communities.
Our main donation page at OyoTunji African Village. We are raising $15 dollars per month via 100, 000 brave lionesses and lions, who are ready to support a Black Nationalist economy. $127,000,000 million in 7 years, lets keep it going strong. Click here:
http://www.oyotunji.org/contribute.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help save Gullah Gee Chee land. Fighting hard for African liberation since the 17th century, descendants of Angola, the Gullah Gee Chee people, managed to preserve some of their native tongue, their ancestry culture and pride. From slave revolts to freeing other slaves, civil rights struggle, Pan-Africanism, many of the members of the famed, "Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church" of Charleston are Gullah Gee Chee descendants. Because of the low state of economy of South Carolina's Low Country, government seizure of their lands and vicious taxation, many Gullah people are losing their lands. But you can help them out with a small donation. Here is their GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/panafricanfamilyem
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Dr. Umar Johnson's fund me page. Click here: https://www.gofundme.com/DrUmar
He is raising $5 Million dollars for a high tech private school for our young boys. If we could reach 300,000 people this would give Dr. Johnson his $5 Million for the school. A girl's school would be the next ideal mark and also Queen's club where our women can gather for they are the leaders of the family's interest.
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Also support the Collect Black People Movement. They have a .27 a cent day, $8.10 fundraiser a month, they already have a thousand people signed up. Click here: http://www.cbpm.org/neweconomicplan.html
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Much love for my believers on the Nation of Islam they also have a fundraising that's set at .30 cents day, about $10.00 a month. They are shooting for 16 million people, trying to raise about 250 million in a year. Click here: http://www.economicblueprint.org/
For more info: http://noimoa.com/
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Empire Washitaw De Dugdahmoundyah. The Nation of ancient American Mound Builders they came before Columbus from Africa on Egyptian boats. Africans were sailing the seas for thousands of years. The Washitaw are ruled over, like the Gullah, by a Queen Mother, Her Highness Devine: Empress Wendy Farica Washitaw. Please show your support for their nation. We are only as strong as our weakest link as African Diaspora. The Washitaw donation page: http://empirewashitaw.org/index.php?p=1_15_Make-a-Donation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please support all these Black Nationalists efforts to provide true economic freedom and total liberation for all African Diaspora. The hand has five fingers and they all must be strong, work in coordination, to build a stronger Diaspora.
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Henry Garnett said, "If we are to bleed, then lets bleed all at once.
Those who have it to give should give large amounts. In the upper ranges of $250.00 one time. If we can get 10,000 people to give $250 that would be $2.5 Million to complete , His Royal Majesty Oba Adefunmi II's 7 year plan, all in month. So give now! Up you Mighty Nation-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Queen Mother of Africa, Her Royal Highness the Nnabagereka (Queen) of Buganda, Sylvia Nagginda Luswata. Please give $1.00 per household member and show your support for women and children of Africa. As we know women suffer the greatest on the weak political platform of Africa and children die in record numbers. The Queen Mother makes 3/4th of the Africa world, women and children, her first priority. Her example must be followed worldwide, Her Royal Highness the Nnabagereka (Queen) of Buganda, Sylvia Nagginda Luswata, is bringing is the change of Africa. Donate: http://www.nnabagereka.org/en/
Our goal is $1 Billion, raised by all Africans worldwide, all languages and all ethnic groups.
EGYPT
Late Lament
Egypt is an image of the Heavens,
And the whole Cosmos dwells here,
In this, Its sanctuary -
But the gods will desert the Earth
And return to heaven,
Abandoning this land
That was once the Home of Spirituality ...
Egypt will be forsaken and desolate,
Bereft of the presence of the gods.
It will be overrun by foreigners,
Who will neglect our Sacred Ways.
This Holy Land of Temples and Shrines
Will be filled with corpses and funerals...
The sacred Nile will be swollen with blood,
And her waters will rise,
Utterly fouled with gore ......
Does this make you weep ... ?
There is Worse to Follow ...
This land,
That was a spiritual teacher
to all Humankind,
Which loved the gods with such devotion
That they deigned to sojourn
Here on Earth ...
... This land will exceed all others in cruelty.
The dead will far outnumber the living,
And the survivors
Will be known as Egyptians
By their language alone,
For in their actions
They will be like men of another race.
Oh Egypt!
Nothing will remain of your religion
But an empty Tale,
Which even your own children
Will not believe ....
Nothing will be left
To tell of your wisdom
But old graven stones.
Men will be weary of life,
And will cease seeing the Universe
As worthy of reverent wonder.
Spirituality, the greatest of all blessings,
Will be threatened with extinction,
And believed a burden to be scorned.
The world will no longer be loved
As an incomparable work of A-tum ....
....A glorious monument
To Primal Goodness;
An instrument of Divine Will
To evoke veneration
And praise in the beholder.
Egypt will be widowed.
Every sacred voice will be silenced.
Darkness will be preferred to light.
No eyes will raise to heaven.
The pure will be thought insane .....
...... and the impure will be honoured as wise.
The madman will be believed brave .....
..... and the wicked esteemed as good.
Knowledge of the Immortal Soul
Will be laughed at and denied.
No reverent words Worthy of Heaven
will be heard or believed.......
So ... I, Thrice-Great Hermes,
The first to attain All-Knowledge,
Have inscribed the secrets of the gods,
In sacred symbols and holy hieroglyphs,
On these stone tablets,
Which I have concealed
For a future world
That may seek our Sacred Wisdom.
Through all-seeing Mind,
I myself have been the witness
of the invisible things of Heaven,
and through contemplation
come to Knowledge of the Truth.
This knowing I have set down in these
Writings. . .
Late Lament
Egypt is an image of the Heavens,
And the whole Cosmos dwells here,
In this, Its sanctuary -
But the gods will desert the Earth
And return to heaven,
Abandoning this land
That was once the Home of Spirituality ...
Egypt will be forsaken and desolate,
Bereft of the presence of the gods.
It will be overrun by foreigners,
Who will neglect our Sacred Ways.
This Holy Land of Temples and Shrines
Will be filled with corpses and funerals...
The sacred Nile will be swollen with blood,
And her waters will rise,
Utterly fouled with gore ......
Does this make you weep ... ?
There is Worse to Follow ...
This land,
That was a spiritual teacher
to all Humankind,
Which loved the gods with such devotion
That they deigned to sojourn
Here on Earth ...
... This land will exceed all others in cruelty.
The dead will far outnumber the living,
And the survivors
Will be known as Egyptians
By their language alone,
For in their actions
They will be like men of another race.
Oh Egypt!
Nothing will remain of your religion
But an empty Tale,
Which even your own children
Will not believe ....
Nothing will be left
To tell of your wisdom
But old graven stones.
Men will be weary of life,
And will cease seeing the Universe
As worthy of reverent wonder.
Spirituality, the greatest of all blessings,
Will be threatened with extinction,
And believed a burden to be scorned.
The world will no longer be loved
As an incomparable work of A-tum ....
....A glorious monument
To Primal Goodness;
An instrument of Divine Will
To evoke veneration
And praise in the beholder.
Egypt will be widowed.
Every sacred voice will be silenced.
Darkness will be preferred to light.
No eyes will raise to heaven.
The pure will be thought insane .....
...... and the impure will be honoured as wise.
The madman will be believed brave .....
..... and the wicked esteemed as good.
Knowledge of the Immortal Soul
Will be laughed at and denied.
No reverent words Worthy of Heaven
will be heard or believed.......
So ... I, Thrice-Great Hermes,
The first to attain All-Knowledge,
Have inscribed the secrets of the gods,
In sacred symbols and holy hieroglyphs,
On these stone tablets,
Which I have concealed
For a future world
That may seek our Sacred Wisdom.
Through all-seeing Mind,
I myself have been the witness
of the invisible things of Heaven,
and through contemplation
come to Knowledge of the Truth.
This knowing I have set down in these
Writings. . .
Hermes' Prophecy
There will come a time when it will have been in vain that Egyptians have honored the Godhead with heartfelt piety and service; and all our holy worship will be fruitless and ineffectual. The Gods will return from earth to heaven; Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its deities.
They will no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of God, this glorious structure which he has built, this sum of good made up of many diverse forms, this instrument whereby the will of God operates in that which he has made, ungrudgingly favoring man's welfare.
Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.
As for the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain to immortality, as I have taught you; all this they will mock, and even persuade themselves that it is false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven, will be heard or believed.
And so the Gods will depart from mankind - a grievous thing and only evil angels will remain, who will mingle with men, and drive the poor wretches into all manner of reckless crime, into wars, and robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of the soul.
Then will the earth tremble, and the sea bear no ships; heaven will not support the stars in their orbits, all voices of the Gods will be forced into silence; the fruits of the Earth will rot; the soil will turn barren, and the very air will sicken with sullen stagnation; all things will be disordered and awry, all good will disappear.
But when all this has befallen, then God the Creator of all things will look on that which has come to pass, and will stop the disorder by the counterforce of his will, which is the good. He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; he will cleanse the world of evil, washing it away with floods, burning it out with the fiercest fire, and expelling it with war and pestilence.
