Sunday sauce; Duppy tourism cometh!

Oxy Moron, Contributor

Arise, oh duppies who walk! Dust off your burial frocks and suits, put on what is left of your hair and prepare to meet the hordes of visitors who are about to descend upon the land to meet and mingle with you. For it was announced only a few days ago by the doyenne of Jamaican tourism that there is a great interest in Jamaican duppies by people from abroad.

Duppy laugh

It's true, so don't let out one big duppy laugh, lest you scare the potential visitors away. I, Oxy Moron, want to exhale a big laugh too, but I have to keep it in. Let's give the goodly lady the benefit of the doubt, but she needs to tell them that you, the Jamaican duppies, are not easy to handle, and that if they had done their research, they would have found that you are quite formidable.

You are also known to be feisty and mischievous. So you need to be on your best behaviour in the presence of your guests. Can you imagine these tourists, who have absolutely nothing to do, travelling all the way from foreign to see you and you frighten them away? You can't do that. Your living relatives need the foreign exchange that would be generated from such a ghostly venture.

Then, where is Gemima Agatha Innerarity of May Pen Cemetery when I need her most? Gemima, we all know that May Pen Cemetery is the final resting place for many Jamaicans from all walks of life, including many of those who lived by the gun. So, it would be a good place to visit on the duppy tourism landscape. Thus, please inform those dead shottas that under no circumstance would tourist harassment be tolerated. This is not the time for thuggery. Donmanship is no longer fashionable, especially if you are behind bars or dead.

Gift of seeing duppies

And for those Jamaicans who have the much sought after gift of seeing duppies, here is an opportunity for you to become duppy tour guides. In the nooks and crannies of this fair isle, over rivers and streams, through hills and valleys, dew-bedecked guinea grass and burying grounds, you shall take the curious visitors.

I can just hear you say in that phoney accent that some tour guides adopt, "See a one-foot man ova there so, jooking food outta him teet dem wid macka. Yes, ma'am tourist, see him ova there so unda de cotton tree. Him ugly, eeh?"

"He's lovely!" she would beam, and the duppy man would respond, "A wha unoo a look pon mi fah? A drangcoh dead?"

Done dead aready

"No pay him no mine, nice lady, him done dead aready. See a whoman deh a come inna apron, a market she coming from dis time a night. Come outta de way, mine she push you dung. She was one terrible man-beater when she was alive ... All dat ole man deh. Though him dead him still sumoking. Bout him a roll jackass rope (tobacco) pon him leg. Him no hab no lot and part wid God. Him a de devil own riding horse ..."

Never to be outdone, the conmen would be out in full force, hiding in bushes at night, pretending to be duppies. Picture the grins on the faces as they toss pebbles at the unsuspecting visitors. There they are in the privacy of their homes, practising the duppy laughs, making sure that man duppy and woman duppy don't laugh the same. And for those who weren't born with pleasant faces, now is the time to let the lack of your beauty shine. One look and the visitors would be convinced.

Then, the obeah men and women of St Thomas, Portland, St Mary, Clarendon and Westmoreland would have a field day. They, who are skilled in the art of raising the dead, would have more duppies than they could control. These parishes would be overrun by sundry duppies, but one thing for sure, their economies would be booming. Soon, suffering people from Kingston and St Andrew would be moving to these rural places to seek employment in the duppy-seeing business.

So, duppies, while you await the Judgement Day, you can still play your part in the advancement of the welfare of the whole human race. Help us to help ourselves; make yourselves available for all the world to see. Rise to the occasion and be a sport. There is life after death, after all.

oxydmoron@gmail.com