Peter Espeut | Inheriting, and passing on

The week before National Heroes Day is called Heritage Week, when we Jamaicans are encouraged to reflect on what it means to be Jamaican – what we have received as our heritage, and what we pass on to those who come after us.

I was born in the British colonial period, about a decade before Jamaica’s political Independence. I studied British history in school – about the Picts and the Celts, the Angles and the Saxons; about the Plantagenets, the Tudors, the Stuarts, the Hanoverians, and the Windsors. That, I suppose, was supposed to be our heritage.

I was sent to study classical piano, but that was not the music I grew up singing, or heard blaring on the streets. At home we sang: “Donkey wah water, Hol im Joe”; “A shine-eye gal is a trouble to a man”. “Oh Cordelia Brown: wha mek you head so red”. “Hog inna mi coco, a root out mi minty”. “Judy drownded, Judy drownded! Whai Oh! Judy drownded”.

Later I learnt to play the guitar – classical at first, and then to play folk music. In the 1960s we introduced Jamaican folk rhythms into Roman Catholic worship, alongside European music, and I travelled all across Jamaica (and parts of the Caribbean) promoting it; I have lived to see it normalised as part of Jamaican Catholic culture.

I am fortunate to have called Louise and Eric Coverley my friends, and would visit them at their home in Enfield, Gordon Town, and later in Toronto, Canada. With the guitar I accompanied Louise on stage, and myself and a friend backed her live in the studios of JBC-TV for the first two episodes of Ring Ding. In cold Canada, there was much Jamaican joy and nostalgia singing with Eric and Louise in their living room with a borrowed guitar.

DISAPPOINTED

I am disappointed that many young people today – of the Gully and Gaza generation – do not know these songs. I suppose my generation is to blame.

As I worked in community development in the hills of Portland in the 1970s, I encountered Day-for-Day/Morning Sport, “getting out” peas-ground and yam-field: dozens of men in lines, singing in eight-part harmony a cappella as they swung their pickaxes as percussion, knocking them together in the air on the up-beat to dislodge the clods of moist earth. They always began with “God save the Queen”; but not the Queen of England; there was another faraway monarch of which they sang, some sable Queen of long ago. The song leader controlled the obligatory bottles of white rum, and the best singers got the largest dollops.

And at night there was Quadrille! In a rude zinc-roofed mountain hut, four pairs of dancers at a time pounded the sod-floor with first figure, second figure, third figure, promenade! Before they would play, the orchestra had to be paid, and they had a long line of couples waiting for their set.

I joined the band (without pay). At first I played guitar, but a more important instrument was the banjo, so I bought one and learnt to play it. The lead instrument was the “pekiloo” (piccolo), masterfully played by Baa-ba-loo. Cecil “humphed” into a long piece of two-inch PVC pipe – a very effective bass. Sometimes there was a drum, but the feet were percussion enough. The French cadences and twirls were patent, revealing the Haitian ancestry of so many of the residents of these hills.

I had many teachers for the dance, but I was not good enough. I had to buy the whole set – all four pairs – during a lull time to persuade others to slow down so I could learn.

LIVED AND CELEBRATED

Once I took Louise and Eric to one of these Quadrille dances, and they stayed well into the night. This was not Festival, or for show: this was Jamaican culture as lived and celebrated by persons proud of their heritage. Sadly, I do not believe Quadrille dancing still takes place in those hills; the musicians have passed on, taking the heritage with them. With electricity came the sound system. And dance hall. With gun lyrics.

When people died there was “Zella”, a version of “Dinki Mini” danced on the nights up to the nine-night. The ones I experienced were dominated by children, who danced suggestively in a ring; one of the games resembled bull-in-the-pen.

In those days nine-nights consisted of singing, chocolate tea and speeches. Then is where I first heard “Man duppy laugh Ha! Haa! Woman duppy laugh Ke-ke-keh-keh-keh!” Modern nine-nights in the area are dominated by performance bands, singing more modern music. The older culture is dying.

I did the fieldwork for my MPhil (on rural poverty) in the foothills of the John Crow Mountains in deep rural St Thomas. After living in the community for several months and interviewing all the adults several times with different socio-economic questionnaires, I thought I understood the community dynamic pretty well.

Until someone died, and then there was Kumina!

People that I knew to be adherents of various Christian denominations turned out to dance in a circle anti-clockwise to unbelievably complex drumming and ancillary percussion from the “kata-tick”. Kumina is a very enthusiastic, very sensual type of dancing, with a lot of close contact. The drumming drives many into a frenzy, until some “ketch up inna Myal”. The way such persons are led through their possession experience is illuminating, with accompanying rituals; and then they are eased back down.

Of course, Kumina is different to Puk-kumina (incorrectly called Pocomania), and both are different from Revival Zion. All Jamaican.

And so there is no one Jamaican culture, no one monolithic Jamaican heritage. The fabric of our folk forms have threads from different parts of Europe and Africa, woven finely (maybe inseparably) together. Our foodways with patties, curry goat, callaloo, pak choi, bammy, breadfruit, gizzada, ackee and salt fish, and rice and peas contain even more diverse threads. What has become traditionally Jamaican is more powerful than any of its components at source.

Yet what is uniquely Jamaican is dynamic – constantly changing. There is always an older culture and a youth culture. We lose stuff, and new forms emerge. We can choose which elements of our culture we wish to keep and pass on, and those we can do without. After all, it is ours!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com