Grass roots: African origins of an American art

Foreword / Elsie McCabe

Acknowledgments / Dale Rosengarten and Enid Schildkrout

Contributors

Introduction / Theodore Rosengarten

African origins: ancestors and analogues / Enid Schildkrout and Dale Rosengarten

They understand their business well: West Africans in early South Carolina / Peter H. Wood

Rice in the New World / Judith A. Carney

By the rivers of Babylon: the Lowcountry basket in slavery and freedom / Dale Rosengarten

Carolina's gold: three hundred years of rice and recipes in lowcountry kitchens / Jessica B. Harris

Missions and markets: Sea Island basketry and the sweetgrass revolution / Dale Rosengarten

Necessity and invention: the art of coiled basketry in Southern Africa / Sandra Klopper

Documentary images and devotional acts: plantation painting as propaganda / John Michael Vlach

The paradox of preservation: Gullah language, culture and imagery / Fath Davis Ruffins

Islands are not isolated: reconsidering the roots of Gullah distinctiveness / J. Lorand Matory.