A dance-like form of group worship in the African American community. The shout
consists of singing, polyrhythmic clapping, and foot stomping, and is generally
performed in a ring formation. A syncretism of West and Central African rituals with
Christianity, the shout expresses intense religious devotion. Shouting is practiced by men
and women, young and old, all over the Southern United States and also in Northern
cities where Black migrants have settled. The shout was first recorded by White
observers in the mid-19th century and is still in evidence in the late 20th century.
Shouting is akin to spirit possession in African and African Caribbean religious
practices, but its imagery and language are those of Christianity. Its name may be derived
from the Islamic word saut, which means to walk or run around the Kaaba, a cubeshaped building in the Great Mosque of Mecca. The African antecedents of the ring shout
were probably the Bakongo and other cultures’ ring dances honoring ancestors. The
counterclockwise motion of the ring imitated the movement of the sun across the sky.
The shout is not considered a dance by most practitioners, and shouters are careful not
to cross their feet. This distinction is made because dancing is frowned upon by the
Baptist and Methodist faiths to which most shouters belong. Shouts are generally held in
churches, smaller “Praise Houses,” or the homes of elders. If possible, benches or chairs
are pushed to the wall to make room for the shouters. Ring shouts usually take place in
the evening and can follow a weekday prayer meeting or Sunday service. Christmas Eve
traditionally provided an opportunity for slaves and their descendants to hold an all-night
shout.
A shout may sometimes be accompanied by musical instruments, but the most vital
music comes from the voices, hands, and feet of the participants. The songs that carry the
shout are usually African American spirituals that allow for improvisation. A strong
singer or dancer starts the shout with his or her song and movement and the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. Four or five others stand back and act as “basers,” singing refrains over
and over, clapping, and stomping their feet to the beat. As others join in, the circular
movement begins, with shuffling feet, and increases in intensity and motion. Dancers
may retreat to the outskirts of the circle or outside the building to rest, rejoining the ring
later.
Fluidity and flexibility characterize the expression of the shout, with room for each
shouter to improvise and alternate among the various roles that keep the shout moving.
Participants and those on the sidelines can make comments such as “Sister Rosa can
shout!” and exhortations such as “Join, shouters!” The shout is an event that involves the
whole person and community in vigorous physical exercise, spiritual communion, and
artistic expression.
Monica M.Tetzlaff
References
Carawan, Guy, and Candie Carawan. 1989. “Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?” Rev. ed.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, pp. 64–74.
Christensen, Abigail M.Holmes. 1894. Spirituals and “Shouts” of Southern Negroes. Journal of
American Folklore 7:154–155.
David, Jonathan, and Michael Schlesinger, eds. 1992. “On One Accord”: The Singing and Praying
Bands of Tidewater Maryland and Delaware. Global Village Music.
Epstein, Dena. 1977. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, pp. 232–234.
Federal Writers’ Project, Georgia. [1940] 1986. Drums and Shadows. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, pp. 10–11.
Raboteau, Albert. 1978. Slave Religion: “The Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. New
York: Oxford University Press, pp. 66–73, 339–340.
Simpson, Robert. 1985. The Shout and Shouting in Slave Religion of the United States. Southern
Quarterly 23:34–37.
Stuckey, Sterling. 1987. Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America.
New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–97.