Kumina workshop to explore African ancestral traditions

An immersive Kumina workshop is set to take over the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank (ACIJ/JMB) at 12 Ocean Boulevard, downtown Kingston, on Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m.

Hosted by the Gwarra Cherry African Kumina Group, the workshop will explore the rich traditions of Kumina through drumming, dance, spirituality and African ancestral practices in Jamaica.

“Patrons will be fully engaged through guided lessons and hands-on sessions in drumming, singing, and dance, while gaining deeper insight into the heritage and legacy of Kumina, both in Jamaica and Africa,” the ACIJ/JMB said.

The ACIJ/JMB is a division of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), an agency of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports.

Founded in 2019, the Gwarra Cherry African Kumina Group is a dynamic ensemble of young performers from Kingston and St Catherine, dedicated to preserving and promoting Kumina culture. Through drumming, singing and dance, the group seeks to inspire unity, honour African heritage, educate communities, and celebrate Jamaica’s cultural traditions both locally and internationally, according to group leader Janoy Barrett.

“Gawra is an African word that means dance, and Cherry is the name of our late group mother, named Cherry Brown. Her death in 2019 initiated the group’s creation of mainly young people between the ages of 15 and 36,” Barrett told The Gleaner.

Kumina is a cultural practice and folk religion that was brought to Jamaica in the early post-Emancipation era. Its music has a distinctive pulsating sound, often likened to a series of heartbeats. The rhythms are created primarily by two drums: the cast drum or repeater, and the kbandu, or bass drum. The accompanying dances and songs have their own distinct characteristics.

“The evidence points quite clearly to a central African background and a post-Emancipation origin in Jamaica. Monica Schuler [a historian] is on strong ground when she surmises that what is today known as Kumina developed during the mid-to-late 19th century among ‘voluntary’ African immigrants who came to work as indentured labourers on the ailing Jamaican sugar estates; nearly all of them were recruited from the population of ‘recaptive’ or ‘liberated’ Africans, former slaves who had been ‘liberated’ by British anti-slave trade patrols while en route to the Americas, and subsequently sent to Sierra Leone or St Helena,” Kenneth M. Bilby and Fu-Kiau Kia Bunseki write in African-Jamaican Music, Dance, Religion, edited by Markus Coester and Wolfgang Bender.

“In the eastern parishes, especially St Thomas, these agricultural labourers were primarily central Africans. Given this, it would not be unreasonable to expect that the present-day Kumina tradition (which is mostly represented in St Thomas) might, at a number of levels, show the stamp of central African culture.”

That culture has since been distinctly Jamaicanised. Kumina remains alive and well, continuing to be ritualised at funerals, births, weddings, commemorations and other significant occasions. In the early 2000s, Kumina was among four cultural and religious forms officially recognised by the Government of Jamaica as part of the island’s intangible cultural heritage. The others were Rastafarianism, Maroon cultural practices and Revivalism.

On May 28, 2009, the Port Morant Kumina Group in St Thomas was one of four cultural groups awarded the Gold Musgrave Medal by the IOJ for representing “the richness, vibrancy and dynamism of Jamaican culture”. The award recognises notable contributions to literature, science or the arts in Jamaica and the wider West Indies.

“Particularly prevalent in the Kumina tradition of today is a Kongo element, a cultural thread which runs through the entire fabric. The voices of all the Kumina devotees … resound with Kongo themes and Kongo concepts, often in the Kongo language itself. We have come a long way indeed since the days when the African reality embodied in Kumina could be summarily dismissed or doubted …,” Bilby and Bunseki write.

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