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Isaiah Scott on Birds in Gullah Geechee Culture
Expressing life, death, and liberation through birds.
© Courtesy of Isaiah Scott
Isaiah Scott is a twenty-year-old birder who already runs a popular Instagram account called Ike’s Birding Hikes. He has a passion for learning more about his Gullah Geechee heritage. The Gullah Geechee are the descendants of enslaved West Africans living on the coast of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida. Isaiah is working on a field guide to birds in Gullah Geechee culture, as birds are important cultural symbols to the Gullah Geechee.
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Isaiah Scott on Birds in Gullah Geechee Culture
This is BirdNote.
[North Carolina coastal soundscape]
Isaiah Scott is a twenty-year-old birder who already runs a popular Instagram account called Ike’s Birding Hikes. But despite how young he is, he’s got his eye on history, too.
Isaiah Scott: My heritage is Gullah Geechee. After I got into birding, I was just very interested in just learning more about my heritage and culture. Gullah Geechee are descendants of enslaved Africans who reside on the coast of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida. And a lot of their traditions were carried over from West Africa. So they're able to hold on to their ancestry even through the horrendous times of enslavement. One way that they're able to do this was connecting with the natural environment around them.
[Indigo Bunting song]
Isaiah received a fellowship to write a field guide to the birds of Gullah Geechee culture.
Isaiah Scott: I've been doing research and found a lot of birds in their culture, and how many feelings of life and death and freedom and beauty are expressed through birds. And so really this whole guide is just what birds in Gullah Geechee culture was a symbolic way of freedom and liberation for Gullah Geechee people.
[Indigo Bunting song]
Learn more about this rising Gen Z birding star on the Bring Birds Back Podcast. Listen in your favorite podcast app or at BirdNote dot org. I’m Tenijah Hamilton.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Environmental ML148026 recorded by Carnes Weeks, and Indigo Bunting ML534423 recorded by Wil Hershberger.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote July 2023
Narrator: Tenijah Hamilton
ID# PodBBB-27-2023-07-05 PodBBB-27