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The ring shout is a spiritual expression in dance. It has its origins in a dance form, indigenous to much of Central and West Africa, in which the dancers move in a counterclockwise circle. “Wherever in Africa the counterclockwise dance ceremony was performed,” Sterling Stuckey wrote, “the dancing and singing were directed to the ancestors and gods, the tempo and revolution of the circle quickening during the course of the movement.”
Characteristics of ring shout include acoustic music, usually by clapping, stomping and body percussion, call and response singing, basic instrumentation through drums which could be real drums or just sticks and wooden objects beat against hard surfaces, a counter clockwise dance pattern and co-centric circles often with a center circle and an outer one.
Often the enslaved practiced the ring shout In private, after It was discovered to be a religious practice and outlawed by white slaveholders but It was also often used as a way to relay secret messages since white folks found It "Incoherent". One white observer described It as such:
The "shout" is a peculiar service in which a dozen or twenty jog slowly round a circle behind each other with a peculiar shuffle of the feet and shake of arms, keeping time to a droning chant and hand-clapping maintained by bystanders. As the exercise continues, the excitement increases, occasionally becomes hysterical. Some religious meaning is attributed to it
And yet another:
"Then the excitement spreads: inside and outside the enclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms … some "heel and toe" tumultuously … others whirl, others caper sideways … and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect cadence, goes steadily on."
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