As we drove along Honey Horn Drive in Hilton Head, South Carolina, I found myself staring out into the marshland, wondering if I might catch a glimpse of a gator. True to the competing duality that makes up my psyche, my anxiety made me both curious and terrified at the thought of seeing such an imposing creature. Even in the security of our tour bus, I thought of what it would be like to run into one of these prehistoric, imposing, and yet somehow still majestic animals.
“The gators have been here for thousands of years. We live with them, and they with us. We live together. Just be careful if you run into one. They are quick!”
Our esteemed Gullah Geechee expert and cultural historian, Emory Shaw Campbell, skillfully spoke of these gators with both a reverence and warning to “outsiders” who might not take their presence on the island as seriously as one should.
When we entered the museum and saw the skeleton of one of the gators, I imagined that he was atypical: one who was over 15 feet long and had lived past the typical seventy-year life span. I thought that imagined identity was befitting to a creature whose remains thousands of visitors would observe.
We drove past many marshlands on our journey. I stared intensely, looking for any ripple, any wake, any stirring beneath the calm waters of these murky wetlands.
I saw nothing but tranquil water, belying a peace that could be shaken at any moment by the emergence of an animal that had the potential to end the life of any human or animal that had the misfortune to cross its path.
I pushed past my wild imagination and thought about what these prehistoric creatures symbolized. I thought about the strength, perseverance, and wisdom they must embody to have survived in these lands for so many thousands of years.
I thought about the Gullah Geechee people who embodied the same: the strength, perseverance, and wisdom it must take to continue to fight for their history, their language, their culture, and their lands.
“We live with them, and they with us. We live together.”
I replayed the words in my mind, and in them I heard the strength, perseverance, and wisdom in the parable he uttered.
Them.
Us.
Together.
The collaboration, comradery, and community that was a necessary way of life.
The past, present, and future of a history, language, culture, and land of a people were dependent on these qualities.
I looked out one last time at the marshlands, knowing the gators were there, hidden from the naked eye but visible to the mind, who both revered and feared these prehistoric creatures.
I felt a strange sense of peace in knowing the unknown, seeing the unseen, and believing the unbelievable legacy these gators continue to leave on these lands.
“We live with them, and they with us. We live together.”
Them.
Us.
Together.
Selah.
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