the MORAN FAMILY HOMECOMING 1997
Two women tied to a song. Baindu Jabati is the Sierra Leonean who knew the song Mary Moran learned from her mother, Amelia Dawley, sang in Harris Neck, GA. The longest text in an African language preserved by a black family…
The “Moran Family Homecoming” was the second visit by the Gullah Geechee people to their ancestral home in Sierra Leone. The Morans, from Harris Neck, Georgia, and their ancestors have preserved a funeral hymn in the Mende language, passing it down, mother-to-daughter for more than 200 years. Their five-line song is almost certainly the longest text in an African language preserved by an African American family of slavery descent. The Moran Family Homecoming in 1997 was also a national sensation, followed by Sierra Leoneans every day on radio and in the newspapers.
The Morans visited Bunce Island, the ruins of a British slave trading base that shipped thousands of African farmers to South Carolina and Georgia. They also visited a remote Mende village, called Senehun Ngola, where researchers had recently discovered an African family that has preserved the same funeral song for many generations. The Moran Family Homecoming was led by Mary Moran, the family matriarch, and was documented in a film, called The Language You Cry In, that has been purchased by hundreds of schools and universities.
Mary Moran and members of her family examine canons at Bunce Island
“Ah wakuh muh monuh kambay yah lee luh lay tambay
Ah wakuh muh monuh kambay yah lee luh lay kah.
Ha suh wileego seehai yuh gbangah lilly
Ha suh wileego dwelin duh kwen
Ha suh wileego seehi uh kwendaiyah.”
Mr. and Mrs. Moran, Townsend, GA
“This is a story of memory, how the memory of a family was pieced together through a song with legendary powers to connect those who sang it with their roots.” ”