Portrait Study, South Carolina or Louisiana

In Roll, Jordan, Roll, novelist Julia Peterkin's and Doris Ulmann's collaborative study of the vanishing Gullah culture of coastal blacks in the Southeastern United States, Peterkin described the pivotal age for a girl in Gullah folklore: Twelve is the age of responsibility, when the recording angel in heaven writes a child's name in a book and marks down every sin against it¿ . Under twelve a child is a 'young child,' and if he dies his soul will not fail to reach heaven, but twelve is the deadline age that changes a 'young child' to an 'old child.' This unnamed young girl, perhaps not yet twelve years old, stands within a shaft of shadow. The wall on either side of her is bathed in light, yet she is moored between, in darkness except for her left hip and arm, as if undecided about her path. Ulmann's photograph is a visual metaphor for this crucial period of development described by Peterkin.