Talking to the Dead: Religion, Music, and Lived Memory among Gullah/Geechee Women

Talking to the Dead: Religion, Music, and Lived Memory among Gullah/Geechee Women. By LeRhonda S. ManigaultBryant. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 278, acknowledgements, prologue, introduction, illustrations, maps, epilogue, appendices, bibliography, index. $24.95 paperback.)

Beginning and ending with a Prologue and Epilogue that frame the study as an outgrowth of her own subjective experience as one who "talks to the dead," LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant's Talking to the Dead: Religion, Music, and Lived Memory among Gullah/Geechee Women includes an Introduction followed by six body chapters. In the Prologue, Manigault-Bryant's open acknowledgement of the difficulty she had navigating her identity as both an insider and outsider to the culture lends credibility to her observations about the seven women she focuses her ethnographic study on. Although provocatively titled Talking to the Dead, Manigault-Bryant's book actually explores a much broader set of religious and cultural practices evidenced by her interviews and observations with her collaborators.

In the Introduction, Manigault-Bryant informs the reader that her use of the phrase "talking to the dead" may correspond to one of three practices: experiences with the dead that low country residents perceive to be real, even if no apparition exists; participation in cultural and religious activities such as storytelling, singing, making sweetgrass baskets, etc. to invoke the memory...