Cultural Detective: Finding Artifacts Related to Rice Cultivation while in the Mano River Region Elaine Nichols South Carolina and the Mano River Region of West Africa share many cultural and historical connections. Most importantly, there is a major linkage between rice and the cultural legacy of the people. During the 18th century, the importation of rice into South Carolina and the enslavement of people from the Senegambia region of West Africa were essential to the economic survival of the Palmetto State. For thousands of years, African rice developed as wild species. Ultimately, villagers began to cultivate fields by flooding the rice plants during the growing season, which naturally eliminated weeds, maintained optimal temperatures, and increased its yield. West Africans began to develop more elaborate methods for growing rice through controlled irrigation.1 When South Carolina was established in 1670, the original English settlers from Barbados brought enslaved Africans with them. According to Charles Joyner, “the early technological knowledge [for cultivating rice] was supplied by African, not Europeans, as the Europeans had no knowledge or experience with rice culture… at all”2 Elizabeth Allston Pringle, daughter of Robert F.W. Allston wrote, “Only the African race could have made it possible or profitable to clear the dense cypress swamps and cultivate them in rice by a system of flooding the fields from the river by canals, ditches, or floodgates, drawing off the water when necessary, and leaving these wonderfully rice lands dry for cultivation.”3 In July 2007, I, along with 12 other scholars/educators, was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to visit Guinea and Sierra Leone between May 2008 and June 2008. My goals were to examine cultural connections (primarily related to material culture and rice) between the people of Sierra Leona, Guinea, and South Carolina and to establish relationships with museum professionals, scholars, institutional leaders and residents in Sierra Leona and Guinea for future exchange programs. My specific objectives were to find examples of artifacts related to rice cultivation, such as agricultural implements (hoes, flailing sticks, winnowing baskets, mortars and pestles, etc.) used in planting, processing, storing, cooking, and consuming rice. I wanted to explore the ways in which cultural traditions associated with rice in South Carolina were similar to or different from the traditions in Sierra Leone and Guinea. This included how the people used their agricultural implements, as well as the manner of processing, preparing, and eating rice. The search for artifacts and information was a circuitous route, and the following comments reflect the journey as well as the results of the search. My first opportunity to talk with anyone about rice, as well as to collect appropriate artifacts, occurred when we visited Bo, Sierra Leone. Bo, the second largest city in Sierra Leone, is about 140 miles south of Freetown, the capitol, and was one of the most memorable places that we visited. The people were extremely friendly and very generous towards us. On May 31, 2008, we left Freetown around 9 am. The drive was pleasant, even though we traveled on mostly unpaved roads, and it was extremely hot and humid. We arrived at the Sir Milton Hotel around 5 pm. My room was at the back end of the second floor hallway. There was no light either in the hallway or in the room, and there were only a few occupants on the floor. Karen Stewart-Cain and Lisa Randle graciously agreed to let me share their room, which had a queen-sized bed, was at the front of the hotel, and had lights. The following morning was spent visiting Bo (Njala) University. We returned to the hotel in the early afternoon, and several of us went to the market place looking for educational objects and souvenirs. I enjoyed the market place and all of the sights, sounds and smells, but I was not successful in finding any research objects. Later that day, Curtis Franks (Avery Research Center), Lisa Randle (College of Charleston), and I went with Doulce, a local resident and well-respected businesswoman, to find a place to purchase a mortar, pestle, and fanner basket. We walked to an area near the Methodist Church, but they had closed for the day. We walked down the main street in the area near a Lebanese grocery store, but none of the shops had either a mortar and pestle or a basket. We continued walking beyond the outskirts of town, stopping at several places along the way. We passed many stores that had signs advertising their goods or services. In Guinea and in Sierra Leone, vendors often used beautiful visual images to advertise their businesses, which made it easy and fun to identify a particular business. The hair salon had drawings of women with stylish micro-braids or fancy coifs, and the bridal shop had a life-sized image of a bride wearing a traditional, white European-style wedding gown. Finally, after about two hours of walking from one end of Bo to the other, Doulce took us to the place where she had recently purchased her own mortar and pestle. The person did not have any in stock. I asked Doulce if I could buy her mortar and pestle. She was very reluctant but eventually agreed to sell them to me. She described and then demonstrated how she used her mortar and pestle to pound rice. The method was the same as the historical accounts that I have read about enslaved Africans in South Carolina. In African homes and restaurants, rice was typically served with a meat or fish stew and could be eaten with the fingers or flatware. Today, it is cooked over a three-stone hearth or with modern cooking equipment, depending on the place and the individuals. We went to Doulce’s house, where we met her husband and daughter. Although she could not find the pestle, she sold me the mortar, which I took back to the hotel. She brought the pestle to the hotel later that evening. The wooden mortar, about 18” high and 12” wide, was made from a small, hollowed-out tree trunk. The mortar was held between the knees, and the pestle was inserted into the mortar to pound the rice to remove the husk from the grain. The next day, Victor, a young man who was in his late 20s or early 30s and the self-proclaimed concierge for our group, went to the market place and found a large fanner basket. I was able to photograph individuals pounding rice in a mortar and pestle. Although I observed several women and girls winnowing rice in Guinea and Sierra Leone, I was unable to photograph them. Their technique of tilting the basket back and forth with a slight bounce to allow the wind to blow away the chaff was similar to that of enslaved African Americans. The persons that I saw fanning the rice did not want to be photographed, and I respected their wishes. They stopped when I started observing them. I was unsure if they regarded my watching them as an invasion of their privacy, or if they simply could not understand why an everyday work activity provoked such attention from a stranger. My collecting experiences in Bo were just the beginning of the process. When we returned to Guinea, I saw similar practices and material examples in Conakry, in an upland Malinké village, in Labé, and in Kankan. These African people were processing rice in much the same as their African American ancestors did in the Palmetto State. 1 Alford, Jeffrey and Naomi Duguid Seductions of Rice, (New York: Artisan, 1998) 36, 37 2 Joyner, Charles. Down By the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984, 12 3 Joyner, 14 References Alford, Jeffrey and Naomi Duguid. Seductions of Rice. New York: Artisan, 1998. Joyner, Charles. Down By the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.