Description
"Shouting" often took place during or after a Christian prayer meeting or worship service. Men and women moved in a circle in a counterclockwise direction, shuffling their feet, clapping, and often spontaneously singing or praying aloud. In Jamaica and Trinidad the shout was usually performed around a special second altar near the center of a church building. In the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, shouters formed a circle outdoors, around the church building itself. In some cases, slaves retreated into the woods at night to perform shouts, often for hours at a time, with participants leaving the circle as they became exhausted. In the twentieth century some African-American churchgoers in the United States performed shouts by forming a circle around the pulpit, in the space in front of the altar, or around the nave in churches with fixed, immobile pews.
Read more about this topic: Ring Shout
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