Culture
The Settlers had dance nights called 'Koonking' or 'Koonken' or 'Konken,' where Settler maidens would sing songs they brought from Colonial America or songs originating in Sierra Leone satirizing Europeans. An analysis of extant letters written the settlers has shown a majority of Settlers spoke a variant of English, typical of American English as spoken by people drawn from the lower classes, regardless of whether White or Black. James Walker noted that Settler pronunciation and grammar originated in the American South and was "perpetuated as the language of their preachers and teachers, and was regarded, in the nineteenth century, as a distinct dialect." Many Nova Scotians drank alcohol heavily and David George and David Edmonds kept alehouses in the 1790s. Settle women were independent and some established schools and acted as schoolteachers. Extramarital affairs were also prominent in the community and some Settler men had mistresses and provided for their illegitimate children; many times they left land and property for them in their wills.
The majority of Nova Scotians were Methodist or members of the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion; a smaller minority were Baptist. One half to two thirds of the Nova Scotians were Methodist; the former Anglican settlers converted to Methodism and the Methodists incorporated Moses Wilkinson's congregation, Boston King's congregation, and Joseph Leonard's Anglican congregation which was openly Methodist.
Read more about this topic: Nova Scotian Settlers (Sierra Leone)
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Here in the U.S., culture is not that delicious panacea which we Europeans consume in a sacramental mental space and which has its own special columns in the newspapers—and in people’s minds. Culture is space, speed, cinema, technology. This culture is authentic, if anything can be said to be authentic.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)