CARIBE Vol. VI, No.

1
SPRING-SUMMER 1982

RETROSPECTIVE
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
From the Publisher
Congratulations to Marta Moreno Vega................................ 2
About This Issue
Visual Arts Research and Resource Center Duane L. Jones........................................ 3
Relating to the Caribbean Pre-Columbian Art in New York City
Marta Moreno Vega............................... 4
on 6 Years of Progress VARC Seminars in Retrospect............................. 5
Research Objectives in Caribbean Archeology
Irving Rouse.................................................... 8
Breath (poem)
Birago Diop............................................ 10
Coabey...Mountain of the Lord of Death
Rafael Morales........................................ 11
VARC Exhibitions in Retrospect......................... 12
Perspectives on the Diaspora
Definitions
Caribbean Culture
Cliff Lashley............................................ 14
African Diaspora in the Americas
Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte..................... 15
Articulating a Caribbean Aesthetic
Gordon Rohlehr.............................................. 16
Reggae A Musical Weapon
Garth White............................................ 21
Jamaica Music: A Select Bibliography
Gordon Rohlehr.............................................. 26

■I Quashie Aesthetics, Etc.

Cliff Lashley............................................
VARC Performances in Retrospect.....................
27
30

■ African Religions in the Caribbean

Henry Frank............................................
African Religions Traditions in Brazil
34

Michael J. Turner............................................ 37
On African Retentions
Ishmael Reed.......................................... 40

ON THE FRONT COVER

TOP LEFT TO RIGHT
1. Grupo Kubata - Alice Tully Hall,
1981
2. Marie Brooks Children's Dance
Theater - Henry Street Playhouse,
1980.
3. Ishmael Reed - New York University,
fj
I 1980
4. Kouidor - Lincoln Center, 1979 b
5. Olatunji and his African Dancers
v
b
and Drummers - Lincoln Center,
1979
6. Musicians of Ballet Folkloric de San­
to Domingo - Henry Street, 1980

ON THE BACK COVER

Acknowledging the appointment of Mr. Miguel Rosario
to the position of Assistant Vice President,
Branch 25, 1421 St. Nicholas Avenue, New York, N.Y.
1980- Puerto Rican Night, Damrosch
Park Lincoln Center, Second Annual
Caribbean Expressions Festival, LA
FAMILIA CEPEDA on Stage.
All cover photos by Marco Kalisch
 CflRIBE STAFF FROM THE PUBLISHER About This Issue Contributors to this Issuo
This is a very special issue! It is a celebration of the sixth year of operation of the (alphabetically)
publisher Upon becoming editor of CARIBE, it semed logical and advisable, before moving
Marta Moreno Vega Visual Arts Research and Resource Center Relating to the Caribbean, an affiliate forward, to assess and review what ground had already been covered. Out of that
program of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. The programs sponsored by the Center during Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte a native of
assessment generated the idea for this commorative issue, a retrospective CARIBE Panama, is Director of the Research In­
these last six years have provided audiences a wide range of cultural activities which "reader", covering some of the highlights of the last six years of this quarterly. stitute on Immigration and Ethnic
editor
have highlighted the aesthetic perceptions, creative expressions, and critical By design, the articles selected for reprint here display a vast cultural range —a Studies at the Smithsonian Institutions in
Duane L. Jones
criteria of people of color in the Americas and Africa. The visual art exhibitions, per­ diasporic range, if you will. Each writer, in addressing ideas specific to one cultural Washington, D.C.
formances, conferences, annual festivals and this guarterly have brought together group, deepens our understanding of the haunting "oneness" which seems to
administrator and
leading experts in varied disciplines to communicate and record our unigue cultural underlie all cultures of the Africa Diaspora—despite barriers of time, language, and Birago Diop internationally renown
archivist for this issue Senegalese poet, has had varying
contributions. As a conseguence of this exchange of information and resources, the geography.
Laura G. Moreno careers as a doctor of veterianary
establishment of an international communications and exchange net work has Cumulatively, these readings invite us to ponder the inherent dignity and worth of
begun, linking leading experts from five continents. CARIBE has increasingly sciences and ambassador to Tunisia. A
art director the cultures of all peoples throughout time. The "History of Man" and the history of venerable figure in African letters, Mr.
become an important vehicle of this vital exchange. man as descended from Africa need not be as divorced, one from the other, as
Vicente Morales Diop is one of the Negritude poets.
Of immediate concern are the millions of Caribbans, Latin Americans, and western academic "tradition" has traditionally, and all too often dogmatically, lead
typist African-Americans who comprise a significant portion of this country's population us to believe. Henry Frank was born in Haiti and cur­
Linda Rodriguez and who have been contributors to the overall cultural life of America. African reten­ Accompanying these reprinted articles from past issues of CARIBE is a special rently serves as Assistant Director of the
tions and continuities, the linkage between these cultures of people of color, are per­ photographic retrospective, 1976 to 1982, along with a complete listing of all Caribbean Department at the Museum of
vasive. It has been ourn position that the impact of these retentions on American festivals, seminars, conferences, and performances sponsored by the publisher, the Natural History in New York City.
staff photographer
Marco Kalisch civilization has not always been properly recognized or valued. This issue provides Visual Arts Research and Resource Center Relating to the Caribbean. This listing is
an overview of our efforts to promulgate cross-cultural understanding. In addition, Angela Jorge (translator) is Assistant
intended not so much as self congratulation, but more as an invitation to scholars, Professor at Ne\iw York State University at
this special retrospective issue of CARIBE consciously provides indication of areas researchers, and you—our readers—to share in the assessment of ground already Old Westbury where she is Convener of
Typesetting by which our experiences of the last six years have revealed are in need of much further covered and to actively participate in helping mold future exploration. the Bilingual and Bicultural Studies Pro­
Foundation Graphics investigation and research. From the many fine seminars presented by scholars andartists over the last six gram.
1982 introduces another significant phase of development for the Center. The in­ years, we have elected to transcribe and edit an address given by novelist and
printing creased interest and growing constituency attracted to the Center's programs have publisher Ishmael Reed in 1980. Its style and tone provide a useful departure from Cliff Lashley is a Jamaican who lives in
John Patane reguired that the organization develop structurally in keeping with our growth. the exclusively thematic format of past issues. In our efforts to "popularize" CARIBE New York and teaches at Rutgers
Therefore, we have invited Mr. Duane L. Jones, a long time associate of the Center, in the future, we plan to pursue this policy of combining the erudite with the enter­ University. He is a member of the Ad­
to become the Editor of CARIBE. This issue introduces the beginnings of his new, ex­ visory Board of VARRCRC and served
exchange advertising taining whenever possible without, of course, sacrificing any of the scholarly base as guest editor of CARJBE (Vol. IV, No.
Pamela Zapata and panded version designed to reach an even broader readership locally, nationally, upon which CARIBE has been founded. Occasionally, for the benefit of those
and internationally. In keeping with that goal, Mr. Jones has been ably assisted by 4; December 1980) West Indians at
Duane Jones readers outside New York City and those otherwise unable to attend all of our Home and Abroad, which has become a
Ms. Pamela Zapata in setting up an advertising and subscription campaign as well as seminars, we will continue to transcribe, edit, and publish some of the many tapes of collector's item.
a plan of distribution for the new CARIBE. This issue carries some of the first results seminar presentations from our archives.
of their effort. We gratefully acknowledge their assistance at this important step in Rafael Colon Morales born in Puerto
our development and we encourage our readers to subscribe to the sister publica­ Finally, in full recognition of our "connectedness to the work of those who have come
Rico, is a former faculty member of the
before, we are pleased to include as a special feature of this issue and through arrange­ City College of the City University of
tions being advertised for the first time in this issue.
In addition, we have recently acguired a building soon to house the Center's pro­ ment with the landmark journal Presence Africaine, the poem "Breath" by venerable New York, who now devotes himself ex­
grams at 408 West 58th Street. Once renovated, this building will enable us to better Senegalese poet Birago Diop. It speaks for itself most eloquently. There in the animism clusively to his work as an artist.
serve students, researchers, teachers, artists, traditional leaders and general au­ of Birago Diop's verse lies the real editorial for this retrospective. We invoke it here in
EDITORIAL POLICY
diences. In ordr to meet our objective, we have developed an annual membership dedication and homage to our ancestors. Ishmael Reed is a teacher, publisher
CARIBE is a quarterly publication of the Visual program which will provide you the opportunity to become contributors to the and novelist. Some of his works include
Arts Research and Resource Center Relating to the Duane L. Jones "The Free Lance Pallbearers, ” "Yellow
Center's future. Back Radio Broke Down," and "The Last
Caribbean, (VARC) an affiliate of the Phelps-Stokes This issue recounts for you what we have been able to accomplish to date. With Editor
Fund. VARC, a non-profit corporation, is financed Days of Louisiana Red."
by government and foundation support, member your support and continued participation, our horizons are limitless.
ship dues, subscriptions, and corporate as well as 1978 - Opening reception of "Caribbean Images", exhibition at VARC former offices on East Gordon Rohlehr native of Guyana, is
individual gifts. Marta Moreno Vega 54th. Street. Professor of English at the University of
CARIBE is dedicated to the exploration of the Publisher the West Indies, St. Augustine,
African Diaspora and the cultures of all of its Julito Collazo y su Groupo entertain friends and early VARC supporters. Photo: Tony Vazguez Trinidad.
descendants residing in the Americas, in the Carib­
bean, and around the world. We actively encour irag-
ed systematic scholarly investigation and original frving Rouse is professor of Anthropolo­
research supportive of the concept of an African gy at Yale University in New Haven,
continuum in the New World; we solicitit papers and Connecticut.
articles which uncover, identify, ano id chronicle
African cultural retentions; we consciouslyf promote
critical, serious writing which positively afdfirms an
African presence in the world.
11 Michael J. Turner is a researcher and
lecturer in the fields of African and Latin
Unsolicited manuscripts in English are welcome
but cannot be returned unless accompanied by a
|d American Studies. In addition to exten­
sive teaching and working experiences

r
stamped,self-addressed envelope. All translations
must be accompanied by a copy of the text in the in Africa, South America and the Carib­
original language’Writers are advised to adhere to bean, Mr. Turner has undertaken
the suggestions of the MLA Handbook. Neither the special research projects for the Ford
editors nor VARC can assume responsibility for Foundation and UNESCO. He currently
damage or loss of unsolicited manuscript
manuscripts. Opi­ VflRC BOARD resides in Brazil.
pressed in CARIBE are those of the in­
nions expressed
dividual writers and not necessarily of the OF DIRECTORS EDITORIAL
Marta Moreno Vega formerly director of
publisher, editor, or the Phelps-Stokes FutFund. ADVISORY BOARD El Museo del Barrio and of the Associa­
Subscript>tion rates for CARIBE: $7.00 yearly and Franklin H. Williams
$12.00 for twoo years within the United States; $10.00 tion of Hispanic Arts, Ms. Vega is
yearly and $1818.00 for two years for the United States Lawrence K. Chang Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte presently the publisher of CARIBE and
institutions; $14.00
$’ yearly and $26.00 for two years Lowery Sims ■2 Herschelle Challenor founder of The Visual Arts Research and
vidual; $17.00 yearly and $32.00 for two
foreign indivi Leandra Abbot Joel Dreyfuss Resource Center Relating to the Carib­
years for foreicign insitutions. Back issues are $3.00 Henry Frank bean (VARRCRC).
per copy, avail liable upon request. Miguel Rosario
,'l:ons and inquires should be address­
All subscriptior Hector J. Montes Cliff Lashley
to, CARIBE, c/o
ed ta c, VARC, 10 E. 87th Street, New Felipe Luciano Garth White lives and works in Jamaica
Laura G. Moreno where he is recognized as one of the
York, N.Y. 10028. Rex Nettleford
2 All rights reserved. Marta M. Vega Lowery Sims leading scholars on Jamaican music.
3

oir she:
mSK-COUIItlKIAH CARIBBEAN
HOV IS. SO I1OV 294976
PRE-COLUMBIAN ART IN
NEW YORK CITY By Marta Morano Vaga
Editor's Note: While compiling research
for a Senior Rockefeller fellowship on
Pre-Columbian Art in 1975, Marta
Moreno Vega first perceived the need
for a Visual Arts Research and Resource
Center Relating to the Caribbean. As
part of this special retrospective issue of
CARIBE we are reprinting part of that
original report along with her updated
listing of artifacts and resources
available in New York City on Pre-
Columbian Art relating specifically to
the Puerto Rican.
•The ability to set one's traditions into a
comprehensive progressional series re­
quires the linking together of the habits,
skills, art instruments, and institutions
4 which form the structure of a people, of a
L CT,
luStai,.
Design: GILBERTO HERNANDEZ
nation or of a period in history.
When a people have been exposed to the
process of the spread of cultural traits
and patterns from points of origin to
other areas, it becomes increasingly dif­
ficult to identify those characteristics
handed down from one's ancestors. This
is cultural diffusion.
One of the most informative and con­
crete means of focusing on one's
development is through the visual arts,
for they set forth the disposition and
modification of things by human skills, to
answer the purpose intended, clearly ar­
ticulating the concepts, mores and tradi­
tions of a given period.
• This project, The Orchestration of Art
Resources and Expertise Relating to the
Puerto Rican Experience has as one of
its objectives the identification and loca­
tion of visual art resources which can be
utilized as a means of focusing on the
development of Caribbean People,
specifically, Puertorriquenos.
The resources set forth in this newsletter
are limitless, and can be incorporated
into one's own individual, educational
development. It also lists programs in
educational and art institutions which
are interested in the art and lifestyle of a
people. Moreover, it serves to set forth a
continuous visual thread of the "percep­
tion of beauty" as viewed by our artists
through which we are provided a sense
of the Puerto Rican Aesthetic.
• Borinquen or Puerto Rico, like the
other islands which comprise the
Greater Antilles—Cuba, Jamaica,
Hispaniola, Haiti and Santo Dom­
ingo— was also predominantly
populated by Arawak-speaking natives
during the Pre-Columbian period.
The Tainos, The Arawak-speaking
natives of Borinquen, Hispaniola and
eastern Cuba, reflected distinct
similarities: permanent villages and a
well developed social system which em­
phasized cooperation, unity, shared
work, songs, dances, ceremonies and
religious beliefs.
The physical characteristics of the
Taino, indicate the following: a) medium
in stature; b) high cheekbones; c) high
brows; d) flat noses, wide nostrils; e) thin
to moderately thick lips; f) straight black
hair; g) copper skinned; h) staunch
body.
The Tainos developed an extensive liv­
ing system which met the needs of the
people. The cacique (chieftan) was
responsible for the governance of a
designated area. The responsibilities
were specifically designated (in order)
to meet the needs of the population.
Work- responsibility engaged both men
and women for the greatest benefit and
effective food and living systems. Hous­
ing was constructed in two forms: There
were rectangular homes, for the chiefs,
called coneys', a rounded style for the
rest of the population called bohios. The
homes were developed for multi­
dwellings, housing as many as a thou­
sand people. The farming system in­
dicated utilization of irrigation techni­
ques coupled with religious beliefs to in­
sure good harvest. Food products in­
cluded: corn, yautia, peanuts, peppers,
yuca, alligator pears (avocados),
guayaba, papaya. Hunting and fishing
added jutias, birds, snakes, iguanas,
crabs, manatees, shellfish, etc. Items not
produced on the island were obtained
through trade with the other islands.
Household furniture— a) hamaca (ham­
mocks)—for sleeping; b) dujos (carved
chairs of stone or wood)—used prin­
cipally during religious ceremonies by
cacique; c) cemi (carved idols of stone,
wood, gold, cotton, etc.)—idols used for
religious worship.
Dress and Adornment— a) naguas (cot­
ton or grass aprons)—used by women.
Length indicated status. Girls who had
passed puberty, wore aprons made of
netting, after marriage exchanged' for
cotton or grass aprons. The longer the
length of the apron the higher the rank of
the woman. Men did not wear any cover­
ing, until after the arrival of the
Spaniards to the Caribbean, b) Body
Decoration—both men and women
painted their bodies with designs and
symbols for festivals and preparation for
warfare. Men favored the color red,
while women favored white. Colors,
however, ranged and included, black,
yellow and other color combinations, c)
Deformation—head of children were
bound to create flatten foreheads, con­
sidered to be attractive, d) Pierc­
ing—ears and nasal septum were pierc­
ed for insertion of pendants made of
bone, gold, shell, etc. e) Or­
naments—the necklaces, earrings, nose
ornaments—were made from stone,
clay, feathers, gold, shell, etc. Decora­
tions were also made for the armlets and
ankles. Gold objects were a sign of high
status.
IDENTIFICATION OF ARTIFACTS
AND RESOURCES EXISTING
IN NEW YORK CITY
RELATING TO THE PUERTO RICAN
• The Brooklyn Museum
Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(212) 638-5000
.Department of Primitive Art and New
World Cultures—Michael Kan, Curator.
The museum houses three objects in
their collection from the Pre-Columbian
Period in Puerto Rico: a cemi, yoke and
ceremonial pestle, all of stone.
The museum also has visual resources:
Slides of the pieces in collection and a
bilingual catalogue from the exhibition,
A Glimpse of the Past/Una Imogen del
Pasado.
Arrangements for acquiring or taking
photographs of the collections would
be handled by the Photo Services
Department.
• The Museum of Primitive Art
15 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) CL 6-9493
The museum is presently in the process
of transferring to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and is closed to the
general public. The collection,
however, includes four pieces which
relate to the Caribbean Pre-Columbian
period. Photographs of the objects can
be obtained by written request. Contact
person is Ms. Julie Jones.
• The American Museum of
A RETROSPECTIVE
Natural History
79th Street and Central Park West
OF VARRC
■ New York, NY 10024 Conferences and
(212) 873-1300
Department of Anthropology-
Seminars 1976-1982
Dr. Gordon Ekholm—Curator Emeritus.
The collection of this museum is the
November 12, 1976 Pre-Columbian Art
of the Caribbean
Location: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 10 E.
largest in the city and includes Pre-
Columbian artifacts from all of the
87th St., NYC
Panelists: Professor Irving Rouse
Caribbean Islands. This significant col­
lection is not on exhibition. Ar­ Anthropology Dept., Yale University,
Fred Olsen, Author, "On the Trail of
rangements to view the collection,
photograph, or arrange for borrowing
must be done in writing.
the Arawaks"
Moderator: Dr. Ruth Njiiri, Phelps-
Stokes Fund
The museum also has visual resources:
Photographs and slides of part of the col­ February 17, 1977 Mythology and Art
lection are available for purchase in the of Pre-Hispanic Antilles at
Slide and Photography Department. The Leiderkranz, 6 E 87th St., NYC
photographs provide documentation of
the excavations at Capa, Puerto Rico.
Education Department—Dr. Malcolm
Arth
The education department has a Carib­
bean component. Inservice classes, lec­
tures and' special programs pertaining to
the history and mores of the Caribbean
are highlighted. Ms. Maria Uyehara, is
in charge of this division.
• Museum of the American Indian Lecturer: Professor Jose Juan Arrom
Heye Foundation
Broadway at 155th Street April 20, 1977 Aspects of Cultural Ex­
New York, NY 10032 change between the Arawaks and
(212) 283-2420 Africans in the Caribbean, John Jay
Dr. Frederick J. Dockstader—Director College
Panelists: Migdalia de Jesus Torres
The museum houses the second largest de Garcia, Asst. Prof. John Jay Col­
collection of Caribbean artifacts in the lege, Rafael Colon Morales, Artist-
city. There is a permanent exhibition on Educator
view describing the developmental pro­ Earl Grant, Ed. M., Researcher,
cess of the natives of the Caribbean. The Henry Frank, Asst. Coordinator,
objects on view include objects made of Caribbean Studies, The American
bone, stone and wood. (Dujos, cemis, Museum of Natural History
celts, and more).
May 21, 1977 Aspects of Cultural Ex­
Arrangements for photographing and change: Arawaks and Africans in the
borrowing must be done in writing. Caribbean Follow-up seminar by
Resources include an extensive library popular request held at: Phelps-
and slide collection. Slides are available Stokes Fund, 10 E. 87th St., NYC
for sale and number approximately
forty-five.
Panelists: Migdalia de Jesus Torres
de Garcia, Rafael Colon Morales,
Henry Frank, Earl Grant
• El Museo del Barrio
March 9 & 10, 1978 Conference on
1230 Fifth Avenue
Survival Techniques for the Eighties
New York, NY 10029
at VARC, 22 E. 54th St.
(212) 831-7272
Director—Jack Agueros Discussion Leaders: Mary Camp­
bell—Studio Museum in Harlem
Department of Visual Aides and Charles Shorter—Boone Young and
Resources Associates, George Aquirre—El
Museo del Barrio, Courtney Callen-
The museum has extensive visual
dar— Arts administrator' Byron
resources in its slide collection. The
Rushing—Museum of, Afro-American
slides include the collections of The
History, Barry Gaither—Museum of
American Museum of Natural History,
the National Center for Afro-
Museum of the American Indian, Museo American Artists, John
de la Universided en Puerto Rico,
Kinard—Anacostia Neighborhood
Utuado's batey, and much more.
Museum, Irvine MacManus—Arts
Arrangements for rental or purchase
Administrator, Board <?f Directors, El
should be made in writing.
Museo del Barrio, Lowery 5
 Sims—Asst. Curator of 20th Century
Art Metropolitan Museum of Art
Discussion Leaders: Marta Moreno
VARRCRC; Dr. Joseph Noble,
Museum of City of New York; Hazel
Bryant, National Arts Consortium;
Betty Blayton Taylor, Childres Art
Carnival
June 29, 1978 Pre-Columbian Arts at
VARRCRC, 22 E. 54th St.
Panelists: Prof. Jose Juan Arrom,
Author; Ovidio Davila, Archeologist,
Institute de Cultura Puertorriguena,
San Juan, Puerto Hico; Prof. Irving
Rouse, Chairman, Dept, of An­
thropology Yale University; Gus
Pantel, Archeologist, Foundation Ar-
queologica e Historica de Puerto
Rico, Antropologica
La Cultural Negra En El Caribe
Seminar Series
October 5, 1978 "Migration: Pre-
Columbian to Present" at
Leiderkranz, 6 E. 87th St. NYC
Ivan Van Sertima, Author "They
Came Before Columbus"; Dr. Roy
Simon Bryce Laporte, Research In­
stitute on Immigration and Ethnic
Studies, Smithsonian Institution
October 10, 1978 "Religious
Influences" at Leiderkranz, 6 E. 87th
St., NYC
Julito Collazo, Ethnomusicologist;
Angela Fontanez de Fleming, Film
Producer; Jose Juan Arrom,
Historian, author "Arte y Mitologia
de las Antilles Pre-Hispanicas";
Socorro Bayron, Traditional Leader
October 12, 1978 "African Influences
in Popular Music" at Leiderkranz, 6
E. 87th St., NYC
Dr. Manuel Sanchez Acosta, Com­
poser, arranger, musician; Graciela
Perez, Songstress; Mario Bauza,
Composer, arranger, musician;
Leopoldo Fleming, Musician
October 17, 1978 Racism, Discrimina­
tion, Prejudice at VARRCRC, 10 E.
87th St., NYC
Video tape presentation
Courtesy: Imagenes Latinas - New
Jersey; Soledad Romero, Queens
College Faculty; Jose Alicea; Diego
Echevarria, Media - NBC
Series 2 • SEPTEMBER 1980 FESTIVAL CON­
October 30, 1978 On Building Our
Arts and Cultural Organizations and
Institutions at VARRCRC, 10 E. 87thSt.
Dr. Antonia Pantoja, Graduate
School for Urban Resources & Social
Policy Inc., San Diego, California.
African Presence In the Caribbean
Seminar Series
February 7, 1979, Trinidad
"Black Presence in Trinidad", Dr.
Elliott Skinner, Prof, of An­
thropology, Columbia Univ.
February 14, 1979, Haiti
"The True Image of Voodoo", Henry
Frank, American Museum of Natural
History
February 21, 1979, Jamaica
"The Black Presence-The Jamaican
Attitude", Cliff Lashley, Director of
Information, Jamaica Agency for
Public Information.
February 28, 1979, Jamaica
"African Derived Ritual and Secular
Dances in the Caribbean", Lavinia
Williams, Director and Creator of
Folkloric Dance Companies in
Jamaica, Barbados, Jamaica and
Haiti.
SEPTEMBER 1979 FESTIVAL
CONFERENCES SERIES
September 11, 1979, African Presence
in the Caribbean, Co-Sponsor:
Teacher's College at Columbia Univ.
Emergence of African Culture in the
Carribbean.
Panelists: Robert Thompson - Yale
Univ., Ivan Van Sertime - Rutgers
Univ.; Abdias do Nascimento - Univ,
of Buffalo
Moderator: Dr. Roy Simon Bryce-
Laporte - Smithsonian Institution
September 12, 1979, African Societies
in the Americas
Panelists: Guerin Montilus - Wayne
Univ.; Ronald Smith - Indiana Univ.;
Anani Dzidzienyo - Brown Univ.
Moderator: J. Michael Turner
-Researcher Afro-Brazilian Culture
Articulating a Caribbean Aesthetic,
Boro of
Manhattan Community College,
NYC,
September 18, 1979, The Revolution of
Self Perception
Panelists: Leslie Manigat - Haiti;
Frank Moya Pons - Dominican
Republic; Gordon Rohler - Trinidad;
George Lamming - Barbados
Moderator: Cliff Lashley
September 19, 1979, The Emergence of
a Caribbean Aesthetic
Panelists: Merle Hodge - Trinidad;
Errol Hill, Trinidad; Louise Bennett
-Jamaica; Rene Belance - Haiti.
Moderator: Marta Moreno Vega,
Director, VARRCRC
Caribbean Perspectives in the World,
The City College of New York/Latin
American Studies Dept., New York
City
September 25, 1979, The Propagation
of a Caribbean Perspective
Panelists: David Videal, Puerto
Rico/N.Y.; Molly Ahye, Trinidad;
Mario Bauza, Cuba.
Moderator: Dr. Edythe Gaines,
Educator
September 25, 1979, Impact of the
Caribbean Aesthetic in the World
Panelists: Rex Nettleford, Jamaica;
Robert Marguez, Puerto
Rico/U.S.A.; Luis Nieves Falcon,
Puerto Rico; Mario Bauza, Cuba.
Moderator: Prof. Margarita Samad
Matias, Director of Latin American
Studies Program, CCNY.
February 28, 1980, African Diaspora in
the Americas: The Role of the Con­
temporary Artist
Panelists: Abdias do Nascimento, Ar­
tist, Director Puerto Rican Studies &
Research Center SUNY at Buffalo; Dr.
Robert Thompson, Professor of
African and Afro-American History,
Yale University; Jorge Soto, Artist, El
Taller Boricua, NYC
Moderator: Lowery Sims, Associate
Curator, 20th Century Art,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Location: Taller Boricua, 1 E. 104th
St., NYC
June 14, 1980, Mini Festival, Julia Rich­
mond High School, NYC
Speakers: Awilda Orta—Board of
Education, Bilingual-Bicultural Of­
fice; Cariota Maduro—Con Edison;
Marta Moreno Vega—VARRC; Aurea
Rodriguez—Board of Educ., Cur­
riculum Division
Demonstration: Ibo Dances of Haiti;
Rafael Cortijo y su Combo of Puerto
Rico
FERENCES SERIES
Ritual and Contemporary Society
September 9, 1980, Impact of African
Ritual in Contemporary Urban
Societies
Panelists: Wande Abimbola—Nigeria;
Descoredes do Santos—Brazil; Max
Beauvoir—Haiti
Moderators: Dr. Roy Simon Bryce-
Laporte; Julito Collazo
September 10, 1980, Social Change and
African Cosmology in the New World
Panelists: Prof. Franklin Knight—
Johns Hopkins University; Wande
Abimbola—Nigeria; Angelina Pollak
Eltz—Venezuela; Leslie
George—Panama
Moderator: Cliff Lashley
Location: John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, NYC
Aesthetic Retentions and Synthesis
September 16, 1980, Memory of Africa
in Afro New World Artistic Forms
T bean Theatre
1 1
Panelists: Leonard Goines—USA;
Isaura de Assis of Brazil; Fradique
Lizardo of the Dominican Republic;
Pearl Primus—USA
Moderator: Billy Taylor
Location: New York University,
Washington Square campus, NYC
Strategies for Change
September 23, 19880, Cultural Expres­
sions and Political Changes in Afro-
New World Societies
Panelists: Leon Hoffman—Haiti; Vic­
toria Santa Cruz—Peru
Moderator: John Henrik Clarke
September 24, 1980, Political Influence
and the Valorization of Artistic Ex­
pression
Panelists: Herman Badillo—Puerto
Rico; Gerard Maloney—Panama; Vic­
toria Santa Cruz—Peru
Moderator: Rex Nettleford
Location: Hunter College, NYC
February—May 1981, "The Seamless
Web"
February 17, 1981, Rastafari in the
African Worldview
Dr. Leachim Semaj, Cornell Univ.
February 24, 1980, Historical Back­
ground and Elements of Vodun in
Haiti
Henry Frank, American Museum of
Natural History
March 3, 1981, Anancy Survival of
Jamaica
Stafford Harrison, theatre student
NYU; Thomas Pinnock, dancer
March 10, 1981, African Religions in
the New World: Reinterpretation,
Syncretism, Symbiosis
Dr. Leonard Barrett, Prof, of Religion,
Temple Univ.
March 17, 1981, The Policies of Reggae
in Jamaica
Ewart Walters, Jamaican Consulate,
NY
March 24, 1981, The Multicultural
Situation in Surinam
Prof. Magarita Samad-Matias, City
College of NY; Dr. Rene Awentonu
-Vaarnold, Life Institute, NY
March 31, 1981, Aspects of Afro-
Colombian Pacific Coast Culture
Dr. Michael Taussig, Univ, of
Michigan
April 7, 1981, Latin American Music:
African Interlinks
John Storm Roberts, musicologist, NY
April 30, 1981, West African Cosmology
Dr. Wande Abimbola, University of
He
May 7, 1981, Ifa Divination
Dr. Wande Abimbola, Univ, of Ife
Performance Traditions for Afro-Carib­
Dr. Errol Hill, playwright, Trinidad
May 12, 1981, Performance Traditions
for the Afro-Caribbean Theatre
Dr. Errol Hill, playwright; Trinidad
May 19, 1981, Caribbean Folklore in
the Visual Arts
Michael Auld, Howard Univ.
Jamaican sculptor; Leroy Clarke,
painter, Trinidad/Bklyn.; Jorge Soto,
Taller Boricua, Puerto Rican painter
May 26, 1981, Santeria
Angela Fontanez de Fleming, Puerto
Rico; His Royal Highness Adefuni-
Oseijeman Adelabu, USA
SEPTEMBER 1981 FESTIVAL CON­
FERENCES SERIES
September 15, 1981, The Harlem
Renaissance, Negritude, Pan
Africonism: The Workings of a Net­
work
Chairman: Raoul Abdul, musician
and writer; Hollis Lynch, historian,
Prof, at Columbia Univ.; Quincy
Troupe, Poet
September 16, 1981, Collectors and
Collections: Legacies of Arthur
Schomburg and Nelson Rockefeller
Chairman: Cliff Lashley, Prof, at
Rutgers Univ.; Wendell Wray, Chief,
Schomburg Research Ctr. for Black
Culture; Annette Walker, Director,
International Women's Tribune Center
Location: Boro of Manhattan Com­
munity College, NYC
September 22, 1981, Marcus Garvey,
Paul Robeson, Malcolm X: People
Movements in New York
Chairman: Joel Dreyfuss, Editor,
Black Enterprise Magazine; Mike
Thelwell, Novelist and political ac­
tivist, author of "The Harder They
Come"; Tony Martin, historian, Prof.
Wellesley College
September 23, 1981, Characteristics
and Links of Caribbean Communities
in New York
Chairman: Cliff Lashley; Karl
Rodney, President of Jamaica Pro­
gressive League; Jama Adams, stu­
dent, President of Caribbean Students
Organization
Location: City College of New York,
NYC
September 29, 1981, The Orisa Tradi­
tion: Review of the June Ile-Ife Con­
ference
Location: Leiderkranz, 6 E. 87th St.,
NYC
Wande Abimbola, scholar and tradi­
tional leader; Marta Moreno Vega
(chair); Molly Ahye, researcher,
dancer, Tinidad; Hector Vega,
ethnomusicologist, Puerto Rico
November 3, 1981, Caribbean Expres­
sions, An Educational and Cultural
Seminar
Location: Fordham Univ., Lincoln
Center Campus, NYC
Introduction: Maria Torres del Valle,
Insitute of Puerto Rican Studies, Ford­
ham Univ.
Moderator: Leandra Abbott, Con
Edison
Slide Presentation: From Africa to the
Caribbean to New York City, Marta
Moreno Vega, Director VARRCRC
Lecture Demonstration: Dances from
Africa, the Caribbean and the USA,
Marie Brooks Children Dance
Research Theatre
Panel Discussion: The Caribbean
Community: Their Impact on the
Educational School System
Awilda Orta, Director, Office of Bil­
ingual Education; Angela Jorge, Asst.
Prof. Bilingual & Bicultural Studis,
SUNY at Old Westbury; Clement
London, Asst. Prof, of Education,
Fodham Univ.; Henry Frank, Lec-
turere, American Museum of Natural
History
Conference Series: African Traditional
Retentions and Continuities in New York
City—a program of the Visual Arts
Research and Resource Center Relating
to the Caribbean (VARRCRC) in cooper­
ation with the Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Cifiture, December
1981—February 1982.
The African-based cultures of more than
four million Caribbeahs, Latin Ameri­
cans and Afro-Americans residing in
New York City have had significant im­
pact on all of us who live here. Moreover,
the African traditional belief systems and
aesthetic perceptions of* these cultures
have contributed greatly to the cultural
life of New York City. 7
 VARRCRC in cooperation with the
Schomburg Center presented a lecture
series focusing on the varies areas and
disciplines which are expressions and
manifestations of African retentions and
continuities in New York City. This
seminar brought together traditional
leaders, scholars, and experts on African
Traditions in the Americas which include
Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad, Haiti,
Brazil, Dominican Republic.
Time: 5:30-7:30 PM on:
Wednesday—December 16, 1981—"Spi
ritism in New York"
Moderator—Angela Jorge, Asst.
Prof., SUNY at Old Westbury
Wednesday—December 23,
1982—"Spi­
ritism in New York"
Moderator—Angela Jorge
Tuesday—January 5, 1981—"Orisa in
New York"
Moderator—Henry Frank
LOCATION: Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Culture, 515 Lenox
Avenue, New York City, Tel: 862-4000
Wednesday—January 20, 1982—"Orisa,
A World View"
Moderator—Professor Robert Farris
Thompson, Yale University
Wednesday—January 27, 1982—"Afri­
can Music in the Americas"
Moderator—Dr. Leonard Goines,
New York University
Thursday—February 4, 1982—"African
Symbols in the Visual Arts"
Moderator—Marta Moreno Vega, Ex­
ecutive Director, VARRCRC
Wednesday—February 10, 1982—v"Afri-
can Dance in the Americas"
Moderator—Duane Jones, Editor
CARIBE Magazine, VARRCRC
Conference Coordinator: Marta
Moreno Vega
LOCATION: 10 East 87th Street, New
York City, Tel: 427-8100, Ext. 205
The lecture series was part of the ex­
hibition on view at the Schomburg
Center through January 5, 1981: The
Orisa Tradtion—He, Ife Nigeria, a
photographic documentation by Marco
Kalish.
This series made possible in part with
support from the New York State Coun­
cil' on the Arts and the New York State
Council for the Humanities.
8 archeological remains, but did not yet know
RESEARCH
OBJECTIVES
IN
CARIBBEAN
ARCHEOLOGY
Irving Rouse
reprinted from CARIBE Vol I, No. 1; 1977
Professor Irving Rouse, Seminar "Pre-
Columbian Art of the Caribbean"-1976-
Photo: Hiram Maristany
The pioneers of Caribbean ar­
cheology, who worked during the latter
part of the nineteenth century and at the
start of the twentieth century, spent most
of their time locating sites, collecting ar­
tifacts from them, and analyzing their
finds. Their reports were descriptive,
although they often included a brief con­
cluding section in which they gave their
opinions as to the nature and time of the
peoples who had produced the finds.
This was as it should be. The pioneer ar­
cheologists were beginning to build up a
body of information about the nature of the
enough about them to be able to draw ex­
tended conclusions from them.
Research into the nature of the remains
reached its climax in the work of J. Walter
Fewkes. Between 1911 and 1914, he was
commissioned by George G. Heye, who
subsequently founded the Museum of the
American Indian in New York City, to make
a study of the extant collections from the
Caribbean on the local islands, in Europe,
and in the United States. He produced the
first overall survey of the archeology in his
A Prehistorical Island Culture Area of
America (Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, no. 34, Washington,
1922).
A second phase of Caribbean ar­
cheological research began during the
1930's. By this time, so much knowledge
had accumulated about the nature of the re­
mains that the archeologists were able to
shift the focus of their attention to the
peoples who had produced the remains.
They no longer regarded the sites and ar­
tifacts simply as objects to be found and
analyzed per se. They began also to treat
the remains as documents from which to ob­
tain information about the inhabitants of the
West Indies, their history and prehistory.
So far as the historic inhabitants are
concerned, the archeologists needed on­
ly to fill gaps in the colonial records, for
example, to locate the Indian villages
which Columbus visited during his four
voyages. In the case of pre-history,
which is not documented by writing, it
was necessary to infer all possible infor­
mation about the inhabitants from their
sites, artifacts, and other remains.
The logical way to begin the pro­
cedure of inference was to distinguish
the peoples who had produced the re­
mains and to determine where and when
they lived. Caribbean archeologists
have been occupied with these objec­
tives since the I930's, starting in the
Greater Antilles and on the mainland of
South America and expanding recently
into the Lesser Antilles. They have for­
mulated a number of preceramic
peoples, each defined by its distinctive
stoneworking complex, and a much
greater variety of ceramic peoples, each
marked by its own style of pottery, such
as Cuevas and Ostiones in Puerto Rico.
They have also determined the
geographical and temporal distributions
of these peoples and have been able to
arrange many of them in developmental
series, each marked by its own
diagnostic stoneworking or ceramic
tradition, such as Saladoid and Os­
tionoid.
This task is nearing completion. We
are approaching the point where we
shall be able to write overall summaries
of the nature of the archeological
peoples of the Caribbean area, cor­
responding to Fewkes' overall summary
of the nature of the archeological re­
mains. (Several preliminary attempts to
do this have already been made, such as
the writer's "Prehistory of the West In­
dies," Science, vol. 144, no. 3618, pp.
419-513, Washington, 1964).
Now is the time to begin thinking
about the next phase in Caribbean ar­
cheological research. Logically, we
should now aim to learn as much, as
possible about the life and time of each
of the peoples defined during the
previous phase of research. We should
not be satisfied with our present
knowledge of the lithic complex that
defines each preceramic people and of
the ceramic style that defines each
pottery-making people; we must go on
from them to learn as much as we can
about the rest of each people's
technology, subsistence, habitations,
clothing and ornaments, transportation,
recreation, warfare, education, burial,
religion, esthetics, government, com­
merce, science, medicine, and
philosophy—together with the ways in
which they organized each of these ac­
tivities.
To be sure, we have already acguired
some information about many of these
activities, just as we had already ac­
guired some information about who the
peoples were and where and when they
lived while still focusing on the sites and
artifacts during the first phase of ar­
cheological research. But in both cases,
the information has been incidental and
in the form of opinions rather than con­
clusions based on systematic study of all
the pertinent evidence. Now we need to
focus more directly on the task of
reconstructing the culture and social
structure of each of the peoples we have
defined, insofar as we can possibly do so
on the basis of archeological remains.
This will involve the collection of new
kinds of archeological evidence, using
different technigues than the ones we are
now accostumed to using, such as flota­
tion and pollen analysis. We shall also
have to dig differently, for example, in a
non-stratigraphic manner so as to be
able to distinguish post-molds indicative
of the structures used by each of our
prehistoric peoples. Finally, we need
more studies of the colonial sources, in
order to obtain further evidence about
aspects of the life of the historic peoples
which we can project back into
prehistoric time to help us in our
reconstruction of the lives of the
prehistoric peoples. (For further discus­
sion of the procedures of reconstructing
cultures and social structures, see the
writer's Introduction to Pre-history, New
York, 1972, pp. 140-90; Spanish edition
published by Ediciones Bellaterra,
Barcelona, 1974.)
As I see it, this third phase in Carib­
bean archeological research cannot be
considered an end in itself. Instead, it
will eventually lead into a fourth phase,
in which we will study the manner in
which our peoples' cultures and social
structures have developed and will seek
to explain the developments. To be sure,
we do some of this now, as when some of
future developments, especially in
island areas like the Caribbean.
us postulate migrations of the Saladoid,
Ostionoid, and/or Carib peoples from
Preliminary research of this kind (which
has sometimes been called an­
the mainland of South America. But we
argue endlessly about which of these
thropological archeology) has already
been undertaken, for example by Adolfo
migrations actually took place and are
unable to agree. Actually, we shall not
de Hostos in "Notes on West Indian
Hydrography in its relation to Pre­
be able to determine whether any par­
ticular interisland similarities are the
historic Migrations" (see his An­
thropological Papers, San Juan, 1941,
result of migration, of the diffusion of pp. 30-53). But such research is crude
ideas, or of independent invention until and will always be subject to revision un­
we have worked out in detail the til we acguire adeguate information
development of culture on each island about the development of all aspects of
and have learned, for example, whether culture and social structure in the Carib­
there are sudden breaks of sufficient bean area, since the different aspects
magnitude to support an hypothesis of are interrelated and affect each other.
migration. Our present hypothesis of In my opinion, then, the most pressing
migration, diffusion, and independent objective before us, apart from present
development are little more than attempts to distinguish and date peoples,
guesswork. is reconstruction of each people's
Still further into the future, as I see it, culture and social structure. I do not
is a fifth phase of archeological research believe that we should cease to speculate
by which we will attempt to generalize about how and why the cultures and
our conclusions about cultural and social structures developed and to make
social developments in the Caribbean postulates about the general develop­
area by developing postulates about the ment of culture and social structure. But
nature of cultural and social develop­ we should not allow such speculations
ment in general—postulates which could and postulates to divert us from the more
perhaps, be used to predict and plan immediate objectives at hand.
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BREfiTH by Birago Diop
Listen more to things
Than to words that are said,
The water's voice sings
And the flame cries
And the wind that brings
The woods to signs
Is the breathing of the dead.
Those who are dead have never gone
away.
They are in the shadows darkening
around,
They are in the shadows fading into
day,
The dead are not under the ground
They are in the trees that quiver,
They are in the woods that weep,
They are in the waters of the rivers,
They are in the waters that sleep,
They are in the crowds, they are in the
homestead.
The dead are never dead.
Listen more to things
Than to words that are said.
The water's voice sings
And the flame cries
And the wind that brings
The woods to signs
Is the breathing of the dead.
Who have not gone away
Who are not under the ground
Who are never dead.
10
Those who are dead have never gone
away.
They are at the breast of the wife.
They are in the child's cry of dismay
And the firebrand bursting into life.
They dead are not under the ground.
They are in the fire that burns low
They are in the grass with tears to
shed,
In the rock where whining winds blow
They are in the forest, they are in the
homestead.
The Dead are never dead.
Listen more to things
Than to words that are said.
The water's voice sings
And the flame cries
And the wind that brings
The woods to sighs
Is the breathing of the dead.
And repeats each day
The Covenant where it is said
That our fate is bound to the law,
And the fate of the dead who are not
dead
To the spirits of breath who are
stronger than they.
We are bound to Life by this harsh law
And by this Covenant we are bound
To the deeds of the breathings that die
Along the bed and the banks of the
river,
COABEY.• •
mountain range of
the God of Death
by Rafael Colon Morales
translated for this issue by Angela Jorge
Coabey is a district in Jayuya, a town
in Puerto Rico. Through Coabey a river
whose name is also Coabey flows and it
has its birth in the highest region of
Puerto Rico. In Jayuya one finds the
highest mountain of the island, the Pun-
tas Peak which rises 4,000 feet. The
Caribe Indians used to tell a story that
through a mountain which touched the
sky there was an opening that allowed
the sky and earth to communicate.
Through this opening mankind, which in
the beginning lived in the sky, traveled
to earth and when man so desired, he
returned to the sky. A fat woman became
trapped in the opening and could not go
up or down. This caused a break in com­
munications between those who were
above and those who were below. The
world above became the residence of the
dead and the world below that the living,
ing.
In the island of Ayti and in Jamaica
there are also places name Coabey.
Pane, referring to Haiti, said that the
dead traveled to the land of the living
and at night walked through the same
farms, these returning dead were called
"Opi." Some of these dead were evil and
they were called Maboyas, which means
evil spirits. Maboya was also the Hur­
ricane, Evil Spirit. For the Carib Indians
of the island of San Vicente, Maboya is
the Great Serpent, a deity that accor­
ding to the Caribs lives on the island in a
cave.
The Indians used to place "cemies" to
drive away the evil spirits because they
destroyed the harvest. In Haiti, Guayaba
(Guautauba) Maquetauri was the deity
of the land of the dead. He was the first
To the deeds of the breaths that quiver
In the rock that whines and the grasses
that cry
To the deeds of the breathings that lie
In the shadow that lightens and grows
deep
In the tree that, shudders, in the woods
that weep,
In the waters that flow and the waters
that sleep,
To the spirits of breath which are
stronger than they
That have taken the breath of the
deathless dead
Of the dead who have never gone away
Of the dead who are not now under the
ground.
Listen more to things
Than to words that are said.
The water's voice sings
And the flame cries
And the wind that brings
The woods to sighs
Is the breathing of the dead.
Translated from the French
1978 - "Caribbean Images",
Originally published as “Souffles" in Leurres Et unidentified photo from Library of Congress Collection
Lueurs (Presence Africaine Paris, I960)
ancestor to reach the land of the dead. In
Puerto Rico Guayaba is the God of
Coabey.
The Indians did not fear death
because they believed that death was a
reunion with one's ancestors. Las Casas
leaves no doubt as to their level of
veneration and devotion for the
ancestors: the Indians not only believed
in the return of the absent souls to the
land of the living, but they also appealed
to their principal ancestors in their
rituals of the "Cohaba" to reveal to them
the future or to help them in some dif­
ficult undertaking. Yes, they were afraid
of the dead who would come out at night
because these spirits could, according to
Indian belief, deceive them, destroy the
harvest and abduct the women. In order
to know if a person was or was not a
spirit, they used to pass their hand over
the navel of the suspected person. If the
person didn't have a navel, then the per­
son was an "opi."
"THE WRITTENROCK OF COABEY"
In Coabey there is the "written" rock
(tr.). It is an enormous rock sitting in the
middle of the river. The rock breaks the
current and the waters around it form a
small lagoon where the people come to
swim. If one walks from the rock in the
direction opposite to the river current
one finds the birth of the river. This path
is full of rocks, many of them with
designs. This view of the river gives the
appearance of a cemetary because of the
white rocks that shield the view. For the
Indians the "written" rock was the door
to the land of Coabey and the door to the
land of the dead.
In front of the "written" rock, on the
other side of the river, there is another
rock which has a carved seat. Let us im­
agine the association that the Indians
perhaps made between the "written"
rock, the carved seat, and their
reverence to their ancestors.
After being buried, the spirit of the
dead went to Coabey. First, the dead sat
on the seat that faces the "written" rock.
The ancestors welcomed the dead, they
would initiate the dead with a ritual and
afterwards would take the dead to their
land. The Cemi Opiyelguaviran, in the
form of a dog, is the one who according
to Prof. Arrom guides the dead to his
land or kingdom. Opiyelguaviran is that
cemi which Pane said had four dogs legs
and went to live in a lagoon when the
Spaniards arrived. It is interesting to
note that the Egyptians also had a deity
that was the judge of the dead and this
deity also had the appearance of an
animal.
The "written" rock measures 16 feet
wide and some 12 feet high. It has the
appearance of a large carved ax, or part
of a menhir (sacred construction of
rocks). It is covered with petroglyphs,
which can be writing. In the pet­
roglyphs, the spirals and counterspirals
prevail. Arrom says that when the spiral
appears alone this signifies the good
wind and when the spiral and
counterspiral appear together it signifies
change, destruction (bad wind). Women
with rings and small animals also ap­
pear. The small animals represented ap­
pear also in the idols in the region of San
Agustin in Colombia. The petroglyphs
are a set of signals in which spirals and
abstract forms alternate with small
animals and faces, frightened or blow­
ing. The meaning of this structure is yet
to be determined. Perhaps it is the
writing of an "areyto" which describes
the legend of this land of Coabey and the
first ancestors. The "written" rock may
also [be] a cemi.
reprinted from CARIBE Vol. I, No. 1; 1977 original
ly published in Spanish under the title. “Coabey...
Sierra del Senor de la Muerte."
 EXHIBITIONS
• November 15, 1976
"Mitologia y Artes of the Pre-Columbian
Caribbean"
Location: 10 E. 87th St.

• May 31, 1978

"Caribbean Images"
Location: 22 E. 54th St.

• October 27, 1978

"Santeria y Vodun: African Religions in
the Caribbean"
Location: 22 E. 54th St. ’* 1
• May 4, 1979
"The Art of Living"
Location: 22 E. 54th St.
III
» • tP-

• September 7, 1979
"Contemporary Caribbean Artists:
African Expressions"
Location: Bronx Museum of the Arts,
Bronx, NY

• February 22, 1980

"African Diaspora: Contemporary Ritual
Symbols"
The Works of Abdias do Nascimento
Location: Taller Boricua, 1 E. 104th St.

• December 8, 1980
"Carnival"
Location: Dept, of Cultural Affairs
Gallery, 2 Columbus Circle, NYC

• October 23, 1981

"Photographic Documentation of the e
Orisa Tradition: Ile-Ife, Nigeria"
Location: The Schomburg Library,
515 Lenox Ave., NYC

3- Interior "Carnival" exhibition- DCA-NYC.

Photo: Marco Kalisch

b. 1980 - VARC staff photographer Marco Kalisch,

captures a surreal “Carnival" image
through Department of Cultural Affairs window
and the reflection of Columbus Circle
simultaneously. Photo: Marco Kalisch

C. 1979 - Partial view of "Contemporary Caribbean

Artists" exhibition, Bronx Museum of the
Arts. Photo: Frank Stewart

km
d. 1981 - The "Oluwo of Egbaland", one of the
"Orisa Tradition" photographs on exhibition at
the Schomburg. Photo: Marco Kalisch.

12
e. 1980 - Brazillian artist Abdias do Nascimento's
"Contemporary Ritual Symbols" attract a
youthful admirer. Photo: Marco Kalisch
*'■ few a 13
 PERSPECTIVES
ON THE DIASPORA
DEFINITIONS
reprinted from CARIBE festival
supplement Vol. IV, No.2; 1980
"diaspora/di-as-p( -)r In [Gk, disper­
sion, fr. diaspeirein to scatter...] la:
the settling of scattered colonies of Jews
outside Palestine after the Babylonian
exile b: the area outside Palestine settled
by Jews c: the Jews living outside
Palestine or modern Israel 2: MIGRA­
TION."
Webster's Seventh New
Collegiate Dictionary,
s. v.
"The diaspora paradigm involves the
concept of a 'Homeland' and various
situations outside of it into which in­
dividuals have migrated and where per­
sisting 'diaspora communities' survive
despite profound changes in the culture
and physigue of the people. In the
classical prototype, the Jewish people
were forced away from the Homeland.
Though dispersed, a 'remnant' never lost
its nostalgia for the Homeland and kept
alive the concept of 'the ingathering of
exiles,' of an eventual 'Return.' Some
similarities to the black experience are
obvious, including, at times, trends that
can be called 'Black Zionist.'
"...Sub-Saharan Africa [is] a
'Homeland' from which, during the past
10,000 years, a number of separate
diasporas may be defined."
St. Clair Drake, "The
Black Diaspora in Pan­
African Perspective,"
Black Scholar 7, no.l
(1975):2-13.
14
"What do we mean when we speak of the
Caribbean?
"... Geographically, the Caribbean
is that group of islands and lands washed
by the waters of the Caribbean Sea, but
historically and in terms of the treaty
establishing the Caribbean Community,
the definition includes the islands of the
Caribbean together with the Bahamas,
Belize and the trio of mainland ter­
ritories on the South American
coastland, i.e. Guyana, Surinam and
French Guyana.
“A wider definition exists on grounds
which defy geography but which include
political, social, economic, cultural,
racial and religious characteristics of
Third World countries, viz. the countries
in the Caribbean basin together with
other countries, namely, the Guyanas,
Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa
Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala
and Mexico. In addition to the Carib­
bean Community countries there are in­
cluded Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican
Republic, the Netherland Antilles.
There is also El Salvador.
"... An approach is sometimes made
to a definition on the grounds of an
almost indefinable and vaguely spiritual
essence, to include the countries in the
area which have come under the
military, economic, political, cultural
and religious domination of the Euro­
pean peoples and which suffered from
mechanisms of under development and
domination."
Arthur James Seymour,
"Culture in its Broadest
Sense: An Inseparable
Part of Daily Life,"
Cultures 5, no.3
(1978):77-89.
Caribbean Culture
reprinted from CARIBE Vol HI. No.2; 1979
In the Caribbean, the concept of Carib­
bean culture hardly exists. The various
countries are still busy trying to define
their national identities. So the concept
is incubating in the imperial
metropolises—especially New York,
because the number and variety of
Caribbeans here and the geographic
proximity and strategic importance of
"the islands" make them more real here.
The impulse to synthesize a Caribbean
culture is largely a response to racism.
The Caribbean person, who was in the
majority in his own society, cannot ac­
comodate himself to racism (in the
wildest sense of the word) in America.
In defense he asserts his Caribbean
identity. Having done that he h^s to give
his assertion some actuality; he has to
find out himself what his Caribbean
identity is.
In establishing their Caribbean identi­
ty the various Caribbean people will
have to modify their attitudes. Black
West Indians will have to differentiate
among the various Spanish-speaking
Caribbeans; they are not all Puerto
Ricans. Light-skinned Hispanics will
have to curb their racism. All the na­
tionalities will have to lose their intense
attachment to their various imperial con­
nections. They will have to accept their
common African heritage and they will
have to face the fact that they share this
heritage with their Black American
fellow-citizens.
The search for our Caribbean heritage
must not become nostalgic and escapist.
It must embrace its ambivalence caused
by its multiple sources and allegiances.
If we embrace all that we are, we will
maximize the contributions we Carib­
beans have been making to the mainland
for about four centuries now.
Cliff Lashley
1979 - Singers of the National Dance
Company of Jamaica, Carnegie Hall
Photo: Marco Kalisch
African Diaspora in the Americas
reprinted from CARIBE, festival supplement: Vol.
3, No. 2, 1979
The notion of a diaspora, of course, is
not confined to any specific group,
class, nationality, or time. In the course
of world history, many human groups
have engaged in massive movements,
from their place of origin to dispersed
and distant places of settlement, often
under forced conditions or for various
and not fully voluntary reasons. In some
cases such groups have experienced
multiple movements so that their present
place of abode represents a subseguent
move after having been settled physical­
ly, located socio-economically, and
adapted culturally to another society
following their original transplantation.
Among the African peoples now located
on the continental firm lands of the
Americas, there are several groups
whose presence represents a history of
seguential migrations from ancestral
Africa. Particularly', in various parts of
the United States, Canada and Central
America, and some northern parts of the
South American coastland, there can be
found peoples of recent West Indian or
Caribbean ancestry. Many of these peo­
ple are of African descent in part or
whole, and despite their color or class
they are likely to have had significant
exposure to various forms of African or
Black cultures.
The aboriginal population of the
Caribbean archipelago—Siboneys,
Arawaks and Caribs—were almost total­
ly liguidated in the early period of Euro­
pean conguest. They were replaced by
Africans who by their magnitude have
exerted demographic and cultural
hegemony over the archipelago from
Cuba to Haiti, despite variations of ad­
mixture which some shared between
African, Asiatic and European stocks.
For example, the most recent emigres to
the United States from Cuba have been
largely white. Yet, they are quite respon­
sible for the recent upsurge in interest
and rapid diffusion or sateria—an Afro-
Cuban religion now heavily practiced in
North American cities among Black and
Hispanic populations. The older Carib­
bean migrations to the United States, to
some extent even from Puerto Rico and
Cuba, tended to be phenotypically as
well as culturally more explicitly
African. Hence, when we speak of the
African Diaspora to the United States,
we must necessarily consider the Carib­
bean input. Its Caribbean linkage, is as
old as slavery and still new in the cen­
tury; it has been continuous and yet it
has been changing.
Part of the notion of ani African
Diaspora is a reflection of an <objective
reality, represented by widespread
by
Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte
physical and other discernible presence
of African peoples in many parts of the
world beyond the African continent
itself. This includes as well the cultural
continuities and socio-historical com­
monalities which they share by way of
that origin, exposure or experience. On
another level the notion of the African
Diaspora (as is true of most complex
sociological phenomenon or issue) is
characterized by a subjective aspect, which
becomes part of our consciousness. This is
not only a result of exercises in identity, in­
sight, intellect, creativity, scientific
research and reasoning, but also a product
of confrontation with different forms of
racism. On still another level, it is dynamic.
It continues to take new shape and course of
development resulting not simply from the
logic of historic predistribution or
mechanistic precedents but also from pur­
posive human actions and complex political
interactions (or policies). Thus the notion of
an African Diaspora is as much what we in­
herit and what we discover, interpret or ex­
press, as it is what we contribute to its be­
ing.
Any phenomenon so complex as the
African Diaspora merits more than celebra­
tion. It merits periodic reexamination,
strategy and demonstration as well, more
so, given the intensely precarious positions
in which its components as minority peoples
of minor states are often found within the
drama of world politics. Only recently have
we earned power, space and resources to
make inputs from our own perspectives on
what we think or want our Diaspora to be,
what we want it to yield, and how to share,
manage or utilize it so that it operates in
favor of the collective integrity, interest and
well-being of us as a people. Even with
respect to the Caribbean aspect of that
Diaspora, we have witnessed endeavors to
exploit and efforts to interpret, evaluate,
guide, and exercise control over the
authenticity and legitimacy and use of our
culture—efforts and endeavors too often
characterized by our passive or minor par­
ticipation. Striving to gain such custodian­
ship is a struggle, often of a subtle political,
economic nature—one which is exacer­
bated when it has to be carried out from the
position of low status minorities or im­
migrant populations.
One consequence of massive,
widespread and continuous migratory
movements is that they assure per­
sistence and diffusuion of the old
culture—even when the migrants may
not be strong enough to assure
legitimacy and institutional propping.
So those cities of the United States where
large numbers of Caribbean people
have concentrated have always evi­
denced; and in some specific ways have
been influenced by specific or general
Caribbean cultures. For like other
peoples they have carried and cared for
their culture. Yet, the general cir­
cumstances of race and its concomitants
of economic, political and institutional
powerlessness, the limitation of
technological or managerial skills, the
inadequate nature of familial or com­
munal linkages among Caribbean
peoples in the United States reduced the
image, impact, publicity, prestige, and
legitimacy which could have been
gained by their culture. Much of it was
seen either as exotic, legalized or con­
fined to the Black community, if not
ostracized as a deviant or deficient
departure from white culture.
Of course there have been pioneers
among participants and promoters of
Afro-Caribbean culture in the United
States but only recently has there
emerged enough conviction, commit­
ment and clout in that sub-community t >
obtain financial, institutional, and
technical support for the dignified
display and the intellectual or artistic ex­
pressions of that culture by the practi­
tioners themselves. Even more recent
are the efforts to bring together in per­
formance, dialogue and study the
various ethnic, national, subcultural
traditions and communities which com­
prise the Caribbean population in these
cities. Unfortunately, these efforts have
been successful largely when they take
the form of events such as carnivals,
celebrations, conferences and the like.
The limitations with the latter include
their single dimensions in terms of type
of performance, and restriction by
locality or ethnicity, and temporarity of
organization. There are few institutions
of long term standing or projection
which can be mentioned. And, a few
which exist may have drifted away from
the preoccupation with indigenous or
popular authenticity of their activities
even when their clientele or personnel
continue to be of Caribbean ancestry or
orientation. In this respect, Visual Arts
Research and Resource Center Relating
to the Caribbean (VARCRC), seeks to be
among the unique: it is committed to re­
taining a Pan-Caribbean authenticity
both on the level of personnel and per­
formance and at the same time to gear­
ing itself to a long-term commitment to
the execution of a’ complex and
cosmopolitan presentation of Caribbean
culture in New York.
Roy Simon’Bryce Laporte
Smithsonian Institution 1979 15

HRTICULRTING fi
CARIBBEAN
AESTHETIC: THE
REVOLUTION OF
SELF-PERCEPTION
by Gordon Rohlehr
Professor Gordon Rohlehr of Trinidad,
"The Revolution of Self-Perception''- 1979-
Photo: Adal Maldonado
During the period of slavery in the
Caribbean, the "selves" of master and
slaves, white and black, were prescribed
by the rigidities of slavery and the plan­
tation system. These were really imposed
selves, hardened by the fact that the
system endured for over three centuries
and was thorough in its methods, most of
which were directed towards the restric­
tion of human potential and the reduc­
tion of people to tools, objects.
The limits within which Caribbean
people lived were visible in every area
of life; in the economics of primitive
capitalism, which shackled the fragile
island economies to that of the
metropole; in the class stratification
which resulted from the economic
system, and w§s reinforced by the factor
of race; by the various slave codes or
laws, which anticipated the psychology
of the modern concentration camp by
several centuries. But the limits within
which Caribbean people lived were
most clearly visible in the need which
the dominant race, class and civilization
felt, to create and perpetuate stereo­
types, systems of coercion (laws), and
propaganda which reinforced stereo­
types (education), both during and after
slavery.
There isn't any doubt that much was
16 destroyed, much lost or obliterated.
Many minds were shattered, most ac­
cepted and adapted to the limits which
had been placed on human potential.
Hence we have the role-playing black,
the jive-ass black, the Uncle Tom
stereotype, and the dozens of other well-
known stereotypes which have existed
since slavery and have gone through
several cycles of permutation since
emancipation. DuBois in several of his
works, Ellison in Invisible Man, Edward
Brathwaite in Rights of Passage, have all
dealt with the phenomenon of the endur­
ing stereotype. Frantz Fanon has given
its psycho-philosophical definition in his
now seminal testament Black Skin White
Masks.
The revolution of self-perception"
really began with the inner resistance of
the slaves to the self imposed on them by
the plantation system and slavery. In its
most fundamental form it was the refusal
to be a thing, an object, a tool, mere
chattel: the negation of a process of
reification.
The positive aspect of this revolution
involved the constant affirmation of the
validity of the submerged self; the
self—to borrow Edward Kaman Brath­
waite's phrase—in maronage; the
marooned, submerged and often subver­
sive self. This self-in-maronage was af­
firmed in infinite ways:
a. Rebellion and constant resistance
on the plantation (suicide, maling­
ering, rioting, the Haitian Revolu­
tion, Cannes brulees, etc.)
b. The preservation of religions with
an African base, or the adaptation
of these under pressure of the plan­
tation system/structuTe during
slavery. After Emancipation
several religions existed in face of
constant harassment from the Law
and Churches. The anthropolgical
work on Afro-Caribbean religions
is beginning to constitute an im­
possible body of literature. Off­
hand, I can list a number of con­
cerns which have emerged from
the study of these religions.
(1) The continuity of West African
heritages in the Caribbean.
Factors instrumental in such
continuity have been the isola­
tion of some communities; the
inadeguacy of the education
system; the fact that during the
post-emancipation period com­
munities of "liberated Africans"
who had never been enslaved,
were settled in various islands
(Trinidad, e.g.)
(2) The notion of a continuum strictly
between religions with the
greatest "African" content and
those with the greatest "Euro­
pean" content. Donald Hogg in
Jamaica Religions: A Study in
Variation advances this thesis for
Jamaica. Continuum theory
allows for overlapping, syn-
cretism, conflict and consensus,
and leads to a notion of religion
as lived process within the
framework of a total society,
rather than as static, fixed struc­
tures.
(3) The syncretic blending of West
African and European pro­
letarian heritages, in religious
such as Zion Revival, Puk-
kumina, Rastafarianism in
Jamaica, the Spiritual Baptists or
Shouters in Trinidad. Vodun in
Haiti reveals another dimension
of syncretism, including a post-
Medieval Catholicism and a
Dahomean cosmology in a single
seamless theological system.
(4) The relationship between
religion and social institutions,
such as communities and
political parties. The cult/sect
and charismatic or authoritarian
political leadership. The
cult/sect as an exploitable reser­
voir of popular lumpen pro­
letarian faith and emotion. •
These are some of the concerns
which have emerged from the study
of Afro-Carribean religions. That
these religions are capable of
leading scholars to such fundamen­
tal guestions is the surest testimony
of their vital and vibrant existence as
the ground of being for large
numbers of Caribbean people. It is
also the clearest evidence of the sur­
vival of the self-in-maronage after so
many years of hostile laws, educa­
tion, economic suppression and the
cultural contempt of the white,
brown and black servitors of the
establishment.
c. The survival of folktales, proverbs,
rhetoric, patterns of performance,
and the capacity to create style, are
further evidence of the continued
existence of the self-in-maronage. If
the original folktale has almost
disappeared, the capacity for
storytelling has not. Hence the
storytelling tradition is maintained
in The Calypso, Paul Keens
Douglas, Abdul Malik, Brathwaite's
The Amivants, and a growing cor­
pus of short stories and anecdotes,
which exactly parallels what has
been taking place in The Afro-
American tradition.
If the original propensity for proverbs
and aphorisms has been modified, a
tradition of moralizing still exists, and is
evident in the weighty didactic element
in some reggae and a few calypsos; the
desire to instruct through art.
The revolution of self-perception,
then, is process, is ongoing self-
affirmation which, in the face of the un­
changing rigidity of oppression general­
ly means self-assertion. In asking what
that revolution means today we are in
fact attempting to assess the guality of
our self-affirmation in all the areas of our
conscious living. These areas include:
a. Politics and the on-going class
struggle.
b. Literature and that constant, com­
plex exploration of the no-longer
submerged inner self' the no-
longer-marooned personality.
c. Music—Blues, Jazz, Gospel,
Calypso, Funk, Reggae—and the
life-styles, both sacred and
secular, which sustain the music.
Hence we shall have to ask our­
selves what is the meaning of our
capacity for celebration, dance,
carnival on the one hand, and the
trauma, agony and constant strug­
gle which celebrates masks. For
our music, whether created by
'Trane, Sanders, 'Tosh, Marley,
Chalkdust, Black Stalin or Bird, is
connected with the phenomenon of
survival. Sometimes as with 'Trane,
it seeks to energize and humanize a
city of stone and steel. Sometimes
as with Chalkdust, Valentino,
Marley and 'Tosh it cries out
against, attacks and erodes a stone-
deaf politics which, like the old
plantation system it has succeeded,
still regards people as things, ob­
jects, tools.
The body of my paper will be an
outline of some of the trends in West In­
dian, literature in English, which
together constitute part of the on-going
revolution of selfperception. For pur­
poses of convenience I have arbitarily
divided my time-period into three in­
terlocking phases: 1920-1950, 1950-1960
and 1960 to the present.
1920-1950
The twenties was the period of
Garvey, Claude McKay and the Harlem
Renaissance, to whose political and
literary aspects both of those outstanding
Jamaicans contributed. The thirties saw
C.L.R. James's Minty Alley, his play
Toussaint L'Ouverture (1936). The
novels of Portuguese author Alfred
Mendes (Pitch Lake, Black Fauns) and
the short stories of Seepersad Naipaul
Gurudeva and Other Tales indicated the
multi-ethnic nature of the Trinidad ex­
perience. The forties were a period of
steady growth in which regional
periodicals such as Frank Collymone's
Bim and A. J. Seymour's Kyi-Over-
Alemerged. Louise Bennett, whose
creative acceptance and dramatization
of the language of the Jamaican people
was in itself a revolution, had begun to
write her poems in the late thirties, and
had by 1950 become an artist whose
work was known throughout the ar­
chipelago and in Panama. One of her
contributions to West Indian letters was
to establish the fact that the little people
had not only a voice, but a way of see­
ing, placing and reducing the world of
their social superiors.1
The calypso emerged during this
period from the traditional structures of
Kalinda and sams humanite picony2 to a
flexible medium capable of accommo­
dating narrative, social and political
protest, scatological humour, and
celebration. An entire and virtually
unexplored body of oral literature exists
in the calypso. It is a literature which has
intimately reflected social change, and
can provide the scholar with a documen­
tary of the changing attitudes of grass­
roots Trinidad.
The literature of this period was being
accompanied by serious inguiry into the
roots and heritage of the people of the
African diaspora. There had already
been the substantial work of Edward
Wilmot Blyden. In America this work
was to be built upon and augmented by
W.E.B. DuBois. The impulse to unders­
tand, explore and vindicate an African
heritage was Philosophy and Opinions
(1923) is one of the few Afro-Caribbean
publications which have survived the
rigid censorship of that period.
Egually remarkable was Norman
Cameron's The Evolution of the Negro3
(1929). Cameron was a Guyanese stu­
dent of mathematics at Cambridge,
whose vocation to teach in Liberia im­
pelled him to find out all he could about
that country. This awakened in him an
appetite to know more about Africa
itself, particularly in the Pre-European
period: he read all the collected works of
all the early travellers. He augmented
these with French translations of Arab
and Moorish documents. He developed
a keen interest in African art and
sculpture which led him to those
museums in England which house ar­
tifacts stolen from Africa during the
scramble. Thirty years before Basil
Davidson's now famous Old Africa
Rediscovered, Cameron had already
posited the link between Egypt, the
Western Sudan and Africa south of the
eguator. He had already refuted the then
current notions that excellence in
African sculpture in bronze, iron and
gold was the result of European in­
fluence.
He was interested in other things
besides. In chapter II on the Mali Empire
he showed on interest in oral traditions
such as the drum and elephant horn or­
chestras; the praise songs and use of
poetry for the recording of oral history.
He felt that our poets and playwrights
ought to be interested in such things and
wrote poetry and didactic plays himself,
in some of which he consciously sought
to include an "African" presence and
ethos. Forty years later in Edward
Brathwait's Masks (1968), there at last
emerged a Caribbean poet who could
give impressive shape to identifiably
West African oral traditions. The drum,
atumpan, mmenson, the idea of masks,
as well as the history, old ceremonies
dances and aspects of Akan cosmology.
Cameron, in his introduction, an­
ticipated the criticism that there was
nothing worth studying in African
history. He also anticipated the now cur­
rent accusation that to be seriously con­
cerned with the African past is to be
atavistc or nostalgic. The Evolution of
the Negro was based on the idea that the
past should be explored as part of one's
duty to oneself. One doesn't free oneself
from the trauma of history by forgetting
the past. One needed, instead, to accept
past struggle as the basis for a self­
confidence necessary for facing the pre­
sent and creating a future. Thus, besides
the descriptions of the pre-European
kingdoms of Africa, Cameron dealt with
the effects of contact with Europeans,
slave life on the plantations and the
Abolition of Slavery and emergence of
the Afro-Caribbean person.
If his reading suggested the destruc­
tive nature of slavery, his vision was
directed towards what was or would
become possible if Afro-Guyanese peo­
ple were to discover their roots. Thus
The Evolution of the Negro sought to
define these roots. Cameron spent some
time describing the layout of villages as
well as social institutions, laws, aspects
of local government in Africa. He was in­
terested in things such as cloth designs
and hair styles, things which did not
reenter popular black consciousness un­
til the 1960's.
Cameron's book, which went into two
volumes (1929 & 1934), was about
History as continuity, and the historian
as healer, bridger of hiatuses in our
knowledge and consciousness. But the
conscious or unconscious aim of educa­
tion in the English-speaking Caribbean
was to divorce the Caribbean person
from issues and concerns of central
relevance to his knowledge of self and
milieu. Thus Cameron's profound and
scholarly work, self-published and
distributed, reached only a few people,
went out of print to resurface in 1970
when it was reprinted in America.
Unlike many others such reprints, it
hasn't appeared on the shelves of Carib­
bean bookstores. Garvey's vision, too,
remained on the borders of our con­
sciousness and was for years beyond the
reach of our curricula.
This is essentially what we are up
against, then, a tradition of discontinuity
by which our most crucial perceptions
and discoveries are relegated to the
margins of consciousness. The Black
Jacobins (1938) C.L.R. James' great
study of the Haitian revolution, took
twenty-two years to .be republished
(1962). George Padmore is still a name,
Sylvester Williams remote, despite
Owen Mathurin's fairly recent publica­
tion. Robert Love is virtually unknown,
F.E.M. Hercules has scarcely been
heard about. This is probably why an era
which produced work such as Garvey's, 17
 Cameron's, the early work of Eric
Williams, should have produced artists
who were generally little more than ex­
cellent observers of the surface of ac­
tions and recorders of manners. The
creative sensibility of the period was
largely divorced from the creative
thought of the period. One of the ob­
vious reasons for this was the fact that
Caribbean people were not in control of
their political destines, or of their
economies. This point had been made
over and over again in the polemics of
the 1930's and 1940's. It resurfaced in
the various discussions about the
possibility of a West Indian Federation.
One of the most interesting blueprints
for a federation was A.P. Maloney's
After England We (1949) which examin­
ed the potential and the limitations of the
region as a whole, and envisioned a
multi-lingual federation, and the
emergence of a "cosmic race." Maloney
was one of a family of distinguished
Trinidad scholars, resident in the United
States.
1950-1960
The period of 1950-1960 saw the
evolution of a substantial body of
literature. Mais, Lamming, Selvon,
Salkey, Carew, Hearne, Mittelholger,
Harris, Reid, Carter, Walcott, V.S.
Naipaul, Keane, Roach and Brathwaite
all emerged in this decade. Dennis
Williams and Edward Brathwaite lived in
Africa during this period, as had
Blackman (My song Is For All Men).
Reid, without having actually lived there
had written in The Leopard an im­
aginatively impressive novel, set in
Kenya. The theme of African continuity
or conversely of divorce from Africa ap­
peared in the poetry of Roach and
Walcott, while Brathwaite was writing
plays for Akan school children, and had
by 1962 already given shape to the first
half of Masks. Dennis William Other
Leopards (1963) explored the split sen­
sibility of the Caribbean omowale and
left his schizophrenic hero in a desert,
almost stripped of his old self, and
savouring possibilities of growth in an
inscrutable future.
The writers of this decade had a better
opportunity to draw on a body of emerg­
ing thought and scholarship than had
those of the generation before. In an­
thropology alone, for example, there
was the work of Melville and Frances
Herskovits, George Eaton Simpson,
M.G. Smith, Raymond Smith and Daniel
Crowley. Afro-Caribbean folklore,
religions, folkways, folktales, rhetoric
and patterns of performance suddenly
became "visible", and we find Edward
Brathwaite in an early essay; "Sir
Galahad and The Islands" (IBM, 1957)
suggesting that in these discoveries lay
the basis for a new and alternative
aesthetic.4 We also find him writing
18 reviews of West Indian literature while
in Ghana, suggesting, as Cameron had
done earlier, that a knowledge of
African and traditions would help Afro-
Caribbean writers in defining and using
their own still vibrant oral traditions.5 He
was, in addition, a contributor to radio
programs in Ghana, and as an education
officer, part of the new thrust towards the
indigenization of education there, in that
early post-independence period.
In history, the impact of Eric William's
Capitalism and Slavery began to be felt
on the Mona Campus of the University of
West Indies. Elsa Goveia's A Study on
the Historiography of the British West
Indies provided those who were in­
terested with a means of locating most of
the current notions about the history and
potential of Caribbean peoples in their
historical context. George Lamming
read and was deeply influenced by the
ideas of C.L.R. James.
Horizons widened during this decade.
Lamming's "The Negro Writer and His
World". (1956)6 for example, moved far
beyond the normal stereotyped discus­
sion to suggest the complex situation of
the Black as diasporan, as twentieth cen­
tury man, and as one who had to
refashion both for himself and the
benefit of the Other, that image which
the Other had imposed on him. The ar­
tist is seen as rebel, as adamic
refashioner of word and world, as lonely
descender into private hell, and as il­
lumination of social and political reality.
Lamming who had read Richard
Wright's Black Boy years before, was
aware of himself as one of an interna­
tional group of New World writers who
were involved in a process of transform­
ing the historic stereotypes which had
been imposed on Black people, by
speaking from within the self-in-
maronage. Significantly, "The Negro
Writer and his World", was a conference
paper read at the First International
Conference of Negro Wrtiers, held in
Paris in 1956. James Baldwin also attend­
ed that conference, and provides a
perceptive account of that crucial period
in one of his essays.
1960 to Present
Janheinz Jahn in Muntu (1958) had
helped lift Afro-Caribbean literature out
of its solitude and to locate it—often er­
roneously—in a wide Pan-Africanist
context which had existed before in the
dreams of a handful of scholars. His
main concern was the literature of the
Francophone Caribbean. Gabriel
Coulthand's Race and Colour in Carib­
bean Literature (1962) began for the
Anglophone Caribbean the crucial
business of comparative Caribbean
literature. As we have seen, this was tak­
ing place while the writers themselves
were—through exile—in the process of
widening their horizons and deepening
dimensions.
The Pan-African context, however,
was but one of the possible contexts
within which the literature of the
diaspora could be placed. V.S. Naipaul
was an outsider to such a context. His
position of outsider/insider enabled him
to mock it, caricature it, critically
analyze it. Never for one moment could
he be fully part of it, however much of it
was part of him. For the "Seepage" from
the world of Creoledom was viewed by
him as violation and chaos7. Naipaul,
after a decade of wrestling with the pro­
blems confronting the Asiatic presence
in a post-colonial society where the Afro-
Creole presence was only just beginning
to be defined and accepted as such,
wrote The Mimic Men. In this novel he
posits that the violations of history have
impaired both the public and the private
selves; both what I have termed the im­
posed self and the self-in-maronage.
Because of this each ethnic group is seen
as festering in its separate cell; while the
public forum of school, parliament of
business provides them with no real
possibility, no common ground for
dialogue. "Mimicry" in that novel is
more than simple copying of other peo­
ple's stuff. It is the result of the attenua­
tion and destruction of will through
historical process, the loss of the capaci­
ty for choice and the possibility of self­
hood and because of these things, the
openness of the psyche's shell to every
chance, opinion, fashion and style, and
the replacement of willed choice by role­
playing.
Derek Walcott couldn't be satisfactori­
ly placed in a Pan-African context
either. His stance, which he eventually
defined as "mulatto"8 was one of Janus­
faced ambivalence which could at one
and the same time theoretically reject
and accept both Africa and Europe in
the Caribbean. Lamming, indeed, notes
ambivalence as one of the major aspects
of the Caribbean sensibility, particularly
when it faces the dilemma of affirming an
African presence.9 Walcott's seminal
work seems always to grow out of this
ambivalence. He has called it "making
creative use of schizophrenia." In prac­
tice, this has meant the display of con­
siderable strength in the affirmation of a
European presence in the Caribbean
sensibility, and a considerable bitterness
in conforming the resurgence of an
African one.10
Just as Naipaul is able to deny the
validity of the inner self-in-maronage,
Walcott is, in “The Muse of History" able
to reject all the manifestations of this in­
ner self—the drums, music, style,
rhetoric, religion, symbolism, etc.—as
the basis for a new aesthetic. The dif­
ference between the outsider/insider
position of the "Asiatic" and the
"schizophrenic" position of the
"mulatto" is that the latter is generally
forced to affirm whatever he denies.
Hence Walcott accepts the drums,
music, style, rhetoric, folklore, dance
and so forth as viable basis for the con­
struction of a new world drama, and has
recently included in his poetry some of
the very elements for which he has
roundly abused a host of unnamed other
Caribbean poets.
Wilson Harris could not be fitted into a
Pan-African context. He started with the
notion of the Caribbean and New World
sensibility as “The latent ground of old
and new personalities"—a meeting
place of the crumbling old world and the
unborn new one. In the unnamed untam­
ed osmotic heartland of this New
World—aptly symbolized by the virigin
forests, black inland rivers, and exten­
sive savannahs of Guyana—all primal
cosmologies, mythologies, dreams of
civilization and conguest meet, in­
VARC Carnival Exhibition, Department
of Cultural Affairs, 1980
Photo: Marco Kalisch
tersect, echo or parallel each other,
creating tension conflict, and at the
same time infinite possibility. Yet the
vessels within which these cosmologies
meet are an odd collection of rum
guzzlers, murderers, delirious pork
rockers, money-lenders, whores, cattle­
ranchers, rustlers, land-surveyors, and
psychotics from the coast of "domesticity
and lights", who find themselves like
while America's newest Thoreau, Jim
Jones, in the Guyana forest of the night.
There, all these people find nothing but
themselves; the self stripped of its social,
ethnic or economic props. And the result
of such encounter is disintegration and
the possibility of transformation through,
lived ordeal.
Harris's preoccupation with inner
quest and cosmic issues had its base in a
very particular sense and knowledge of
the Guyanese political scenario. There
more than anywhere else in the English-
speaking Caribbean, was the visible
evidence of that plural, schismatic socie-
ty, which the sociologists were trying to
define in the sixties11. There is no doubt
that the break up of the PPP and with it
the African and East Indian coalition in
Guyana (1954-57) is partial responsible
for the themes of Harris's first four novels
Place of the Peacock, The Far Journey of
Oudin, The Whole Armour and The
Secret Ladder (1961-65). In these
novels—the first two in particu­
lar—history is ordeal, a legacy of bit­
terness and guilt. It has maimed the
psyches of both colonizer and colonized,
and established brutal authoritarian and
materialist patterns, not only in
Euro/Afro-Creole society but also within
the world of the indentured East Indian
peasantry and their descendants. The
ghost of this legacy of guilt, materialism,
brutality and psychic crippledom cannot
be laid by amnesia or evasion, but by
confrontation and atonement. And since
the crippledom exists within the psyche
and has been maintained by ex-colonial
peoples long after the physical with­
drawal of the colonizers, then confronta­
tion and atonement have to occur within
the psyche.
Where Naipaul's people remain
paralyzed before their crippledom, and
Walcott faced with the maimed remains
of history at one point advocates
amnesia, Harris like the Hindus or the
Buddhists, involves the psyche in terri­
ble and agonizing Kharmic processes, in
which the intolerable burden of History
has to be born and worn because it is our
own burden. Time has to be imaginative­
ly re-entered and relived until one
becomes worthy of reprieve or move­
ment beyond. The price of becoming a
person in the sense that Harris
understands personhood reguires a
movement through history then a move­
ment beyond history; a gradual peeling
off of the old personality, a divestment of
the props of color, status, race, power
and authority. Walcott eventually adopts
a similar position in his play Dream on
Monkey Mountain which owes much
conceptually to Harris.
By the mid-sixties, then, the Pan­
African paradigm had proven inade­
quate in the face of the multi-faceted
complexity of the total Carribean ex­
perience. It was qualified by the notion
of an ethnically plural and culturally
diverse archipelago; by the idea of a
mulatto heritage in which European and
African elements are blended; and by
the notion of an emerging indigenized
Carribbean tradition which was flexible,
complex and had grown, or was growing
and of the confrontation, competition,
intersection and collapese of several
peoples, life-styles and cultures over a
process of time and under pressure from
a rigid, authoritarian and exploitative
system.
If Harris's work suggests the interior
dimensions of this shift in perception,
Lamming's Of Age and Innocence was
the first serious attempt to deal with its
political aspect. Coming in the wake of
the collapse of multi-ethnic politics in
Guyana, this novel reveals the deep
sense of schism running through West
Indian society, as well as the desperate
or resolute hope of unity in one open and
ominous future. Secrecy and commu­
nion constitute the opposite poles of this
novel. True political liberation can only
be based on open dialogue, shared ex­
perience and communion both within
and between ethnic groups. And com­
munion requires trust, absolute candor
and honesty between the leadership and
the people on the one hand, and bet­
ween the different ethnic groups in a
culturally diverse society.
But these qualities of openness, trust
and candor have never been permitted
existence in a colonial situation such as
the one described earlier in this paper.
Thus secrecy and mistrust permeate the
relationship between Africans and In­
dians, the major ethnic groups in Of Age
and Innocence, and become the catalyst
for the tragic divisions which occur
towards the end of the novel. If In the
Castle of My Skin (1953) ended with a
perception of the complexity of the
African heritage, and an emerging vi­
sion of the spiritual and emotional
oneness of the Black experience, OfAge
and Innocence ends with the more com­
plex vision of a multi-ethnic society in
which the African heritage is one by one
of the many heritages competing for
visibility and political presence, and
Pan-Africanism a source of strength or a
prop only to one segment of the popula­
tion. Of Age and Innocence also ends
with the embryonic dream of the
younger generation; a dream—like Mar­
tin Luther King's—of openness,
graciousness, cultural exchange in a
world where there are no^ecrets, only a
sharing of modes of living and seeing. It 19
 is the single hopeful possibility Lamming
permits in a horizon of omen and
smouldering catastrophe.
The intolerable wrestle between
dream and reality has intensified since
the mid-sixties. Far from achieving
dialogue and communion among the op­
pressed, Caribbean societies have deep­
end the division of class and race. Cen­
tral to this development was the Black
Power movement in America, which,
forty years after Garvey reopened the
questions about the self-perception,
economic position, and real presence of
Black people in America. These ques­
tions had to be reopened; and viewed
positively, the profound reassesment of
the situation of Black people in the
diaspora has led to a deepening of con­
sciousness both in America and the
Caribbean. There are far more people
who are aware of their history and of the
continuity of struggle, survival and
creativity. While the system still seeks to
marginalize Black people in general,
there are far more people at every level
of life who are articulate, resolute and
conscious. There is far more publishing
being done, more to read.
But it is also true to say that in places
such as Trinidad and Guyana, the situa­
tion which Lamming explored in Of Age
and Innocence still obtains. In those two
countries, the two major races view each
other as competitors and thus view each
assertion of racial presence as a threat to
Self-hood. The masses of both Africans
and Indians remain exploitable, divided
and open to manipulation by politicians
who, because of the deepening of ethnic
consciousness, have had for the last
twenty years to project themselves as
charismatic, ethnic culture heroes.
Elsewhere in the Caribbean, politicians
have even manipulated the religious of
the oppressed, drawing on the fervour of
the cult for political support which at
points reaches fanaticism. This is true of
Jamaica and Guyana and was true of
Grenada and of course Haiti.
What one is dealing with in the 1970's
then, is no longer the denial of racial
presence to Afro-Caribbean people, but
the exploitation of awakened racial con­
sciousness by Black political leaders. So
that the deepening of consciousness
which could be a strength has ironically
become the basis of fresh exploitation.
Attempts to transcend racial and class
divisions have taken the form of (a) ver­
bal nationalism, (b) a renewal of Marx-
ist/Leninist ideology. The struggle for
both of these ideals is just beginning,
and promises to be long, paradoxical
and bitter. Nationalism, for example,
can easily become traditional insularity,
which renders the region as a whole
even more vulnerable in the world.
Marxism/Leninism is, so far, advocated
in a rigid and doctrinaire fashion, which
seems to me to ignore the multi-faceted
20 complexity of the Caribbean situation. It
isn't surprising that both in Trinidad and
Guyana, the cleavages along racial lines
have remained and been most pro­
nounced even in parties which have pro­
claimed a universalist Marxist ideology.
Since the mid-sixties various ’'direc­
tions" have been evident in the
literature, Edward Kaman Brathwaite's
trilogy The Arrivants (1967-1963) has
been the mature fruit of an intense and
richly various enquiry into the meaning
of the African presence in the Caribbean
and Americas. One of his most important
contributions has been his ceaseless ex­
perimentation with form, and his ability
to use models drawn from the basic fold,
fold-urban and proletarian forms of
black people of the diaspora, and on the
continent of Africa.12
What has happened in Jamaica since
then has resulted in an entirely different
sort of poetry, best seen in his collection
Black and Blues{1976). There the poetry
emerges out of the thermidor mood
which succeeded the assassination of the
Black Power and Civil Rights movement
in America and its collapse in the Carib­
bean. It constantly asks questions about
the connection between Revolution and
consciousness. In "Glass," for example,
the poet posits that Revolution must be
based on spiritual continuity with past
revolutionary effort. But Blacks have in­
herited a tradition of discontinuity
which, as Brathwaite had already il­
lustrated in Rights of Passage, forces
them to alternate between creative ac­
tion and role-playing, revolutionary
consciousness and the minstrel dance of
death. How does one, beginning as col­
onials have had to begin, break the cir­
cle of repression/reprisal/ retribu-
tion/revolution/repression? What
creative action brings the necessary
release from this wheel?
Brathwaite asks these questions with
respect to a society which is half urban
and half primal, facing the full stress of
modern life with very few visible
resources. Under pressure this world
begins to prophesy; to create song
legend, myth and dread omen out of the
materials of everyday horror. Black peo­
ple caught in the system, whether they
jive in Harlem ("Glass"), or sharpen
their ratchet knives in Kingston ("Spr­
ingblade," "Starvation") become
representative of all subjugated peoples,
disoriented since the break-up of the
Roman Empire and the formation of
Western European civilizations. The
Caribbean diaspora is placed in a long
and vast historical context which has
been movement of peoples, disorienta­
tion, the extermination of millions of
primal peoples in the Americas by the
bearers of a superior technology of war­
fare, the confrontation of the
materialistic West with the kingdoms of
spirit in India, Africa and meso­
America; the elevation of Western
materialism into skyscraper, rocket,
spaceship and mushroom cloud, until to­
day the West predicts its own destruc­
tion, sees each new invention as an omen
of catastrophe, {Future Shock, The
Greening of America, Silent Spring)
and longs for its now abolished sense of
wonder, the reinstatement of its dead
gods.
Brathwaite's problem becomes that of
the entire New World sensibility, that of
locating his exprimordial peoples in this
context of movement, disequilibrium
and destruction. It is Walcott's problem,
that of Lamming's last two novels (Water
with Berries and Natives of My Person,
that of Carpentier. {The Lost Steps, Ex­
plosion in a Cathedral), Harris and
Fuentes {Terra Nostral). It involves a
profound reassessment of the meaning of
European history, with Brathwaite had
already began in some of his earlier
poems, (e.g., "Heretic," "Judas and
Barcelona' in Other Exiles).
The two sets of possibilities
represented by Harris' Palace of the
Peacock and Naipaul's The Mimic Men
now become the poles between which
our self-perception swings. On the one
hand there is the possibility of
rebuilding the lost kingdoms of the spirit
whose ruins remain as reminders of who
we were. How we are to do this becomes
the basis for fresh debate. Is Tom's
transformation into Ogun still possible?
Can Makak really return to the green
beginnings? Will Donne ever attain the
palace of the peacock or Mohammed be
purged by the refining fire of spirit?
Naipaul's constant answer to this has
been a resolute NO.
Brathwaite, with all his hopes for
revolutionary transformation, has grve
doubts. On the one hand the ruined city
man has created roots and prophecy,
and his rumble of consciousness moves
like an earthquake under the frail struc­
tures of "our mindless architects." But on
the other hand, the city man is a victim
who sees "vistas of rot only." Each new
generation is "a new generation of clog­
ged gutters," and constantly betrays its
lightning flashes of intuitive vision.
The flash of dark into which have carv­
ed no holy place. ("Caliban").
So that if The Arrivants moved with
the faith of spiritual dialectic towards an
equilibrium of negation and affirmation,
void and structured form, silence and
widening circle of sound, Black and
Blues constitutes a veritable de profun-
dis of catastrophe. The landscape is
more dreary the manscape more ravag­
ed. The result in terms of form is direct­
ness and plainess of statement on the one
hand, and a restless unfocussed tur­
bulence on the other. There is a greater
intellectual width and depth and a burn­
ing intensity of inner search.
Fierceness and bleakness of vision is
characteristic of the 1970's. Our poets at
home have become furiously driven
men. Walcott, Carter, Brathwaite,
McNeill, Scott, Roach or Questell all
share his • "driven" quality, which is a
REGGAE H MUSICAL WEAPON
By Garth White
direct response to the quality of chaos
which exists in the contemporary Car­
ribbean. One has travelled a con­
siderable distance from the simple vision
of the thirties and forties. The revolution
of self-perception has always been tak­
ing place; and it continues, grows in­
creasingly more complex and
multifaceted. It embraces now both the
notion of ethnic heritages and their com­
petition, confrontation in the contem­
porary post-independence Caribbean. It
involves the relentless class struggle,
and the survival of the structures and in­
struments of exploitation and repression.
It hovers between the alternatives of
academic renewal or return, and ex­
istentialist sense of void. It challenges
conventional notions of history and is
part of a vast worldwide movements to
relocate the scubmerged cultures of the
devastated in the kingdom of human and
humane achievement.
REFERENCES
1. Rohlehr. G.- -"The Folk in Caribbean
Literature"
Tapia Vol. 2 Nos. 11 and 12 (December 17 &
24, 1973)
2. Rohlehr, G.—"Forty Years of Calypso"
Tapia Vol. 2 Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (September 1972
3. Cameron, N.—"The Evolution of the Negro"
Greenwood Press, Westport
Connecticut, 1970
Originally published in 1926 & 34,
Georgetown, Guyana
4. Rohlehr, G.—"The Creative Writer and
Society"
KAIE, (Guyana) No. 11, (August 1973)
pp 48-77
5. Brathwaite, E.—Review of Review of Voices
from Ghana BIM 1958
6. Lamming, G.—"The Negro Writer and
His World"
Caribbean Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 2
(February 1958)
7. Rohlehr, G.—"Predestination, Frustration and
Symbolic Darkness in Naipaul's A House for
Mr. Biswas, Caribbean Quarterly Vol. X No. The Black Eagles, Reggae artists, Delacorte Theatre- 1979- Photo: Adal Maldonado
1, (1964) pp. 3-11 also
"The Ironic Approach" in Modern Black form was forced underground and some
After knocking on the doors of the in­
Novelists, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
ternational music world for almost fifteen less vibrant usurper came to hold sway.
NJ 1971, pp. 162-176
8. Walcott, D.—"What the Twilight Says: An years, reggae, the popular music form of Not satisfied with this, the whites,
Overture," Introduction to Dream On Monkey Jamaica, since the mid-seventies has shouldering their "burden", often took
Mountain and Other Plays managed to gain entrance into that com­ over these watered-down forms under
Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, NY 1970 petitive arena. Like other black forms in the pretext of "polishing" them up
"The Muse of History" in Coombs O. ed the Americas it is of mixed parentage pushing the black practioners out of the
Is Massa Day Dead? Doubleday Anchor, NY 1974 and to trace its origins one has to go as picture and thus, in addition to their
9. Lammijng, G.—"Caribbean Literature: far back as slavery. Then as now the general exploitation of his labour, vir­
The Black Rock of Africa," in African Forum, tually using his "last resort" against him.
white man patronisingly conceded that
1965 Although there are significant dif­
10. Walcott, D.—opus cit the black could entertain and while he
prohibited the purely African ferences today, this general picture is
For my comments on this aspect of Walcott's
work see: Rohlehr G, "My Strangled City," ceremonies, which often co-ordinated still fairly representative.
Caliban Vol. 2, No. 1. (Fall/Winter 1976) pp revolts, he would tolerate masquerades, It is probably one of the most striking
50-12 songs and dances that were not too un­ things about reggae that it has managed
11. Smith, M.G. — The Plural Society of the West familiar to him . This attitude and the to "penetrate" the larger music world
Indies fact that the whites controlled the purse­ without losing its raw power, its "dread"
12. There is a fair body of commentary on
strings usually meant that the true black menace and its often scathing commen- 21
Brathwaite's The Arrivants.
 tary on “Babylon" and the bourgeois
world. Some of the reasons accounting
for this are bound up in the nature and
history of the form and one, however
briefly, must turn attention to these if
even a superficial understanding of the
music is to be gained.
Virtually all black music in the West
shows the original African influence and
the adoption and refashioning of Euro­
pean forms to bring into being a distinct,
separate, indigenous tradition. The black
music of Jamaica is no different in this
regard. It must be noted that Jamaica
was able, fortunately, to retain more
elements of the African heritage than
North America despite strong planter
opposition to the blacks' “pagan" rites.
There still was, however, a great degree
of musical contact and the mayal-man of
the African-derived war or fertility
dance was also familiar with British
seachanteys and later on with military
marches, hymns and European popular
song and dance. The African or black in
the diaspora, usually more in tune with
nature and his environment, could ac­
commodate white forms honestly and
openly.
As time went on, other elements were
added to the musical mix. Latin-
Caribbean and Latin American rhythms
and styles were incorporated—Jamaica
mento music and social dance resulted.
A little later North American black
rhythm and blues were heard and
favoured. With the development of the
mass media, it is now extremely difficult
to disentangle the separate threads that
have been woven together. This is why
reggae often sounds paradoxically
strange and yet familiar to mainland
ears.
This vast musical ancestry is not idle
claim. If one stops to listen, without pre­
judice, and is fortunate to be able to hear
the real thing, the claim can easily be
proved. Listening to the range of reg­
gae, one can detect the rhythms of an­
cient ancestral cults and jonkunu mas­
querades, strains of revivalist religion,
the use of European instruments and
melodies and the effect of exposure to
music from all over the world. Around
this question, much controversy exists as
Jamaican ''nationalists'' intent on
building and preserving a "local"
culture insist that ska, the direct grand­
parent of reggae, grew out of mento
while the testimony of many musicians
and "sound-system" operators holds that
Rhythm and blues was their virtual
model with jazz as the spiritual guide.
The truth is to be found in varying
places between these poles. For one,
many musicians did come out of mento
or swing background so that by the 50s,
in the latter part of which the ska was
born,many of them were equally at home
with say 'Slide Mongoose' and 'Penny
Wheel'. And the black audiences were
22 not "digging" Louis Jordan. The first
recorded tunes in this new style
underline the point. Artists like Laurel
Aitken, Clue J. (Cluet Johnson), Owen
Grey, Wilfred Edwards, the
Mellowlarks, the Maytals are undeniably
in the mento and Jamaican revivalist
stream. The purists of both poles are
hard put to explain, if either of their
views is correct, how the Jamaican youth
of the fifties and sixties were not really
into mento, seeing it as country music or
on the other hand, if the music was mere­
ly 'covered' R & B, why it sounded strange
to United States listeners, even those of
the black ghettoes. As we are holding, it
incorporated both to a greater or lesser
degree depending on performing artists
and groups. In what seemed to be sim­
ple, almost "primitive" ska were many
elements.
The increasingly black bourgeoisie of
the island at first would have nothing to
do with this music. Taking their cue from
white example they just reviled and
ridiculed the emerging forms. They em­
braced anything white and metropolitan
and conversely rejected anything that
was reminiscent of the black past. Mento
they would tolerate as it was mostly in a
humorous vein. Not so with ska. The
'social' content and Rasta philosophy
that became the lyrical mainspring
made them somewhat uncomfor­
table—even if they did condescend to
listen, the mental block they erected
prevented an honest, critical appraisal
of the music.
Thus it was that at the high point of
ska, at which time the band to which
most credit must be given for subsequent
development—the Skatalites—was in ex­
istence, the middle class could scoff at or
really not hear the virtuoso quality of the
instrumentalists. So it is that even now
the real credit for the development of re­
cent indigenous music is not often given
and the international market receives
only the most recent link in a long chain
of growth.
The Skatalites reflected the blending
process we described above. Numbered
amongst them were jazz greats like Don
Drummond, Tommy McCook, Roland
Alphonso and Johnny Moore. These
front-line instrumentalists provided the
confidence that was needed to keep the
form going in the face of official indif­
ference. Drummoned, the unique, in­
spired trombonist, McCook the lyrical
saxaphonist combined Getz-like tones
with the 'flood-of-notes' technique of a
Coltrane. Alphonso, the other half of the
tenor saxaphone couple with his 'big
tone' sonewhat like that of a Rollins.
Johnny Moore, the trumpeter with a
military flavour and probably the one
most influenced by Drummond. Lester
Sterling on alto colouring a singer's
words with his riffs and responses. None
of these musicians, all with some degree
of formal training gained at the Alpha
School for boys or in the military band of
the time, were ashamed of the traditional
music they grew up hearing. And to
reflect changed conditions they used all
the elements at their disposal. Their
themes could be structured or chosen
from a popular mento tune, a jazz stan­
dard, classical piece, a Rastafarian
chant, the popular rhythm and blues
tunes of an earlier day, movie scores or
original ideas.
Underneath them were some of
Jamaica's unsung culture heroes—
bassist Lloyd Brevett and drummer
Lloyd Knibbs. These two anticipated
much of what was to become reggae.
The bassists of today, using bass guitar
and not the string bass for all their
doubling up running and increased syn­
copation still echo Brevett who was the
one who showed the flexibility of the nor­
mally fairly rigid walking bass of the
United States' R & B and Jazz. He was
able to combine mento rhythms with the
U.S. forms with consummate ease and
provided a rhythm that was sometimes
almost melodic. Knibbs, with a jazz
background, combined this with drum­
ming patterned off the rhythms of the
Rasta Court Ossie who himself was
strongly steeped in earlier Jamaican
forms like Kumina—an ancestral
cut—and 'burru'—a secular, ghetto
music. From the earliest times in recent
popular music history, Rastafarian music
and philosophy has wielded a mighty in­
fluence, much to the chagrin of many
older upper and middle-class
Jamaicans.
Completing the line-up of this “all-
star" band were guitar man Jah Jerry, a
Rastafarian taught by jazz great Ernie
Ranglin, the energetic rhythmic pianist
Jackie Mittoo, second trumpeter Dilon
and the singers Lord Tanamo—interest­
ingly enough out of the mento stream—
Jackie Opel, a Barbadian and Doreen
Schaeffer an early female singer who
partnered Opel in songs somewhat like
those of Shirley and Lee.
It was the guitar or piano stress on the
afterbeat of the U.S. "shuffle rhythm"
that gave the ska its name and here we
can get some insight into the paradox of
familiarity and strangeness to foreign
ears and also why ska can be seen both
as a development of mento and as an off­
shoot of U.S. R & B, R & B, boogie piano
did feature the right hand holding an
after-chord that together with the walk­
ing left hand provided a syncopated
jump or shuffle rhythm. The Jamaican
musicians accentuated this afterchord so
that it really became a backbeat or
afterbeat. Or to put it another way, the
piano or rhythm guitar emphasized the
and of one-and-tv/o-and-threeand-iour
and. The drummer meanwhile played
the conventional four beats to the bar on
the bass drum and the back-beat on the
snare. It is this peculiarity that has led
foreign writers and musicians to speak of
Ska-Rocksteady-Reggae as R & B and
rock and roll turned upside down,
around and "over on its back". It is more
than that though.
The developing from was also
somewhat reminiscent of the one-two
rhythm of pocomania, another syn-
cretisitc, indigenous religious cult and,
depending on the playing of the drum­
mer, reminiscent of mento. Thus with
subtle changes of emphasis, a band
could sound like that of a Jordan or a Bill
Doggett on one tune and like the older
Jamaican religious cultists and mento
bands on another. Other music forms
like ballads, country and western, the
1 song of Tin Pan Alley and a variety of
combinations and permutations of all
/ these forms could easily be adapted to
these rhythms of the poor. One has to
bear all this in mind before asserting the
primacy of any influence but our discus­
sion supports the contention that ska
grew out of both mento and rhythm and
blues, with calypso, jazz, ballads, rock
and roll, Latin American dance music
and Jamaican cult music playing impor­
tant supporting roles.
The mix was stirred into being by the
demands of the sound-system operator
and his audience. A sound-system was
the early forerunner of the mobile
1 discotheque. These operators would
play recorded music at house-parties
J and dances for a small fee. Because they
were cheaper, louder and could provide
a dance music which could readily be
understood by their poor black au­
dience, in time they came to supersede
the dance-bands of the swing era. By the
1950s, many of them vied for support
among this critical audience. The music
they played was largely R & B with a
dash of mento and what they called pro­
gressive jazz—music by people like Ed­
die Heywood, Basie, Jonah Jones and
Justin Gordon. The operators would
travel to the record outlets in the
Southern U.S. and pick up new tunes
and records they had heard on radio sta­
tions like WINS or Randy's.
I
Dance Festivals
fur Information on: IDE Vouchers (Discount Tickets) and a Calendar of Events
In the late fifties R & B seemed to go
into decline, or was forced down by
white dominated rock and roll. The
black Jamaican audience, while ap­
preciative of the better efforts in this
field especially when undertaken by
blacks like Domni, Huey 'Piano' Smith
and Little Richard, still preferred the
truer R & B. Mento musicians had been
rather sporadically recorded but a few
good sellers had been made. Why not
try to produce a more modern in­
digenous dance music on record
primarily for the dance public but with a
potential record-buying audience in
mind? So thought the early record pro­
ducers like Clement Dodd, Duke Reid
and the Englishman Chris Blackwell.
They organized musicians and singers
and went to the studio of the pioneer
record manufacturing company of the
Khouris. The Black masses listened and
approved. By the mid-sixties, the music
of the Skatalites and that played by the
sound-system operators had captivated
most of them.
Some of them like the evangelical,
"clap-hand" Christian or "ambitious"
ex-ghetto resident may have denigrated
the form in terms not unlike that of their
middle-class models but often what they
substituted, or preferred, like rhythmic
hymns and evangelical religious songs
and spirituals in the first case or rock
and roll, light classical pieces and
balladry had some constiuents in com­
mon with the secular popular form.
In 1964 the death of Don Drummond
and consequent disbanding of the
pioneer Skatalites coincided with a
heightening of political tension in the
island and the growth of unrest among
the poor, particularly among the youth.
Jamaica had been independent for two
years and as we entered the third year,
the problems we had been experiencing
showed no signs of early solution. Pover­
ty, unemployment, lack of opportunity,
despair was still the lot of the black ma­
jority. The national income was one of
IIds Poster Is m» Possible wltti PiBIc Iunds loom ltewVori.atyDeot.ot Cuttiral Attains
Antes Hispanas para todos, todo el ano
Music Theatre
212-369-7054
the most unevenly distributed in the
world. The economic and politcal
dominance of foreign white capitalists
and their local counterparts continued,
undaunted by the expectations of the
masses. Frustration and alienation from
a society that seemed pitted against the
poor found a ready medium of expres­
sion in the changing ska form.
Protest lyrics and Rastafarian anti­
system sentiments had been in the music
almost from its inception. Observers who
paid scant attention to ska might well
believe that protest and social commen­
tary began in rocksteady but this is not
exactly correct. The true position was
that the slowing of tempo that
distinguished rocksteady facilitated the
development of melodic line and har­
mony. Mid-sixties artists took up the
tradition begun by singers Clancy Ec­
cles and Derrick Morgan among others.
Musically the neo-colonial condition
came under attack from the people down
under who had rarely had an opportuni­
ty to express themselves. The growing
turbulence of the period was paralleled
by what one can roughly describe as yet
another renaissance on the part of black
folk the world over. Country after coun­
try in Africa was gaining its in­
dependence. Militant spokesmen on the
U.S. mainland were insisting on better
conditions for the black oppressed, often
sparking off violent race riots. These
currents were reflected in the more ex­
plicit, critical lyrical content of Jamaican
music.
In fact, the music itself seems to have
been affected. It was still open to rele­
vant influence and thus the contem­
porary R & B form "soul" partnered it
just as earlier R & B had complemented
ska. Soul was played more regularly on
the local radio stations than had the
works of a Jordan T-Bone Walker. So
although the sound-systems played far
less soul and more local material, the
masses were still very much exposed to
the musical activity of U.S. black
Conferences Visual Arts Educational Programs
Association of Hispanic Arte, Inc. 200 East 87tfi Street New York, N.Y. 10028
23

brothers and sisters like the Drifters,
Otis Redding and Carla Thomas.
Despite this softening influence, as soul
music dealt more with an exploration of
man-woman relationships than it did
with explicit consideration of other
social relations, Jamaican rock-steady
became even more menacing and laced
with "dread" than the ska had been.
Brevett's ominous bass hints of things to
come were now echoed even more
resonantly. A host of new artists emerg­
ed. The musicians may not have been as
inspired as the Skatalites but there were
more of them and they had an even
larger body of tradition on which to
draw. As we have noted the lyrical con­
tent improved as did the quality of the
studio recordings. In place of the two-
tract studio, four, eight and sixteen track
studios appeared. The practice of recor­
ding all important events in song
became even more pronounced. Com­
bined with Rastafarian apocalyptic
philosophy, it engendered what was to
become one of the more revolutionary
musics of the world.
Because of the unswerving militant
stance and the connections between
youth, music, Rasta and the increasingly
influential black "underculture", official
society frowned upon dances where this
music was played. This attitude harden­
ed with the advent of the so-called
"rude-boys"—a term which covered in­
dividuals ranging from the anarchic and
revolution minded youth of the poorer
classes to the young political "goons",
mercenaries of the two existing political
parties and Rasta-spawned "cultural"
rude boys who rejected the aping of
white standards and continued existence
of the "white bias". Violence often flared
between rival political and criminal
gangs at the ghetto dances. Law en­
forces made no distinctions and treated
all youth in the ghetto in roughly the
same way. Reggae emerged out of these
fairly complex historical and musical
conditions.
The continual interplay of many
elements refashioned and reworked in
an indigenous framework results in the
creation of a broad range of music
generally classifiable under the term
reggae. Basically in reggae a half-note
is added to the classic afterchord—one-
and-two-and-three-and-four-and becom
ing "one-anda-two-anda-three-anda-
four-anda". This produced the
characteristic "reggae" or "skeng-ay"
sound. Something like this had been done
by U.S. R & B rock and roll artists
but the Jamaican drummer, continuing a
rocksteady pattern, falls in btween the
beats, a more "sinuous" and less
"jumpy" rhythm being thereby produc­
ed. At the same time a piano or organ
often provides a ska or a mento effect
playing at a quicker tempo, one then has
both slow and quick beats. Add a rock-
24 steady bass rhythmically developed,
oftentimes operating contrapuntally to
the vocal line with more running and a
dramatic observation and rests and the
effect is as if rhythm after rhythm were
overlaid on one another. The "croaking -
lizard" second rhythm guitar often har­
monizes and brings into a closer relief
the syncopated notes of the bass.
Shakers, graters, triangles and other
percussion instruments complete the
rhythm section. Despite the adoption of
many features from other countries,
notably the U.S., the music retains many
traditional elements exhibiting a con­
tinuity of form. Strictly instrumental
music is still produced today although not
as much as formerly and one does not
hear as many front-line solos. Lately, a
variation in this styling—the dub—mak­
ing use of almost pure rhythm, drum and
bass solos as it were, oftentimes accom­
panied by disc-jockey rhymes and
poems, has become increasingly popular
locally.
The lyrical content of reggae touches
most situations and human life. Granted
much of its specific to the Jamaican
situation but reggae addresses many im­
portant issues of modern life. This pro­
duct of the black experience in the West
combines, to paraphrase one writer, an
urban sophistication with a rural in­
nocence. Protest and soul themes,
satirical jabs and laconic thrusts at social
occurrences and relationships including
those of an economic and political
nature. In politics, as one member of the
Wailers puts it, the music is a weapon—a
musical hand-grenade, to be used
against those seen as the oppressors and
agents of Babylon. The Rastafarian
cultural dominance in the poorer sec­
tions of the urban areas accountably led
to widespread use of the faith's
philosophy and vocabulary—religion
with a political dimension, politics in a
spiritual mold. This has probably made
some songs less intelligible to foreign
listeners but the successful tours of a
group like that of Bob Marley and the
Wailers, one that has performed in near­
ly all the Western countries, across
language barriers so to speak, testifies to
the expressive power of the music. The
music remains vital, religious dogma
notwithstanding, because within the
Rastafarian religion there coexists a
number of differences on specific
details. Some brethren are exclusively
pursuing repatriation—physical return
to the "ancestral" homeland Ethiopia.
Others seek to combine this with an ac­
tive interest in Jamaican affairs, seeing a
favourable political system as a
necessary forerunner to the process of
future repatriation. Others again may be
willing to focus on Jamaica, "spiritually"
returning to Africa. Not shaken by his
reported death most see Haile Selassie I
as God the omnipotent, many see him as
the great king. However, and by
whatever process of reasoning, the
Jamaican system is indefensibly in­
dicted. Beneath the religious concep­
tualising and sometimes truculent word­
play are the central themes of black na­
tionalism, white capitalism's demise and
the consequent development of the
formerly enslaved peoples of the world
based on more equitable social- rela­
tions. The overwhelming Rasta presence
in the creative side of Jamaican music in­
fused it with these sentiments.
And reggae, as with most modern
music also has themes of love and of the
varied encounters between man and
woman. It really is tiring to hear some
critics who in one breath claim that the
music is too esoteric, too culture-bound
and self-consciously serious, in another,
on hearing a "roots" love-song,
somewhat gleefully pointing to a
"watering-down" or to "trifling
banalties" as if militants are not suppos­
ed to love. In fact, the reggae 'hard beat'
often adds sincerity to the tritest of
balads and jingles, which finding does
not deny that there are many tunes poor­
ly conceived, in bad taste and evidently
rushed through as potboilers.
Matching this wide range of music is
the variety of vocal style employed. One
can hear in the neo-African tribal chants
and in religious invocation and declara­
tion, urgent, strident, throaty tones as
well as a cool falsetto. The "blue" ap­
proach to scales and notes is strongly in
evidence and the long-noted call and
response style is still used to good effect.
There are a few group songs showing Tin
Pan Alley influence and acceptance of
the ballad form. Disc-jockey "nonsense"
rhymes are often rendered in a "sing­
talk" manner. Although reggae is large­
ly performed by young male adults as a
recorded music, there is a growing
number of female artists some as profes­
sional and as used to international au­
diences as the most highly rated male
groups. The most popular form of sing­
ing group is the trio assembled as 'lead'
singer and responsive first and second
tenors.
A larger question that usefully detains
us here is whether the popular music
strains of the world are not today fairly
close and in symbolic contact with one
another. Each bears distinguishable
characteristics but all show elements of
each other to varying degrees. Reggae
has been performed by individuals and
groups like Stevie Wonder, Ray Chales,
Bobby Womack, the Beatles, the Rolling
Stones, Barbara Streisand, Andy
Williams, the Staple Singers, Eric Clap­
ton, Herbie Mann, and Fausto Papetti,
some of them traveling to Jamaica to
record, using local musicians and
technicians. On occasion, 'mixing' and
'overdubbing' is completed overseas. It
can be seen by the no means exhaustive
list that both black and white performers
of the U.S. and Europe have attempted
the form. Of course the popular music of
the root continent, Africa, is also involv­
ed in this modern-day cross-fertilization
of styles and forms. Highlife and Afro­
rock although less known, are influenc­
ed and have influenced contemporary
popular music. Without desiring to make
premature judgements one can hazard
the view that reggae contains more ex­
plicit social criticism and encompasses a
broader range than any of the other
popular musics with the probable excep­
tion of the work of some artists like pace­
setter Miriam Makeba and the Nigerian
Fela Kuti. The U.S. soul artists are often
merely bland and preoccupied with sex,
of course with notable exceptions. The
white folksong form of that area is large­
ly intellectualized and commercialized
and brittle. The British "rebellious",
sincerely, it is hoped, turned to black
U.S. blues and R & B and lately to reg­
gae, but however well intentioned there
is a thinness of tone and forced
soulfulness that often militates against
their best efforts although they can write
beautiful melodies.
Reggae too is open to crticism and
many persons may well find its religious
and black redemption themes self-
righteous and opionionated. However
the essential point is that this music sees
no theme as outside its scope and in the
framework of the relentless beat ad­
dresses itself to key issues of life both
within and outside Jamaica society, with
increasing confidence. Quite the con­
trary to what some early observers
thought, the music is not only a rhythm,
not only "visceral', it provides more than
catharsis and tension-release; it com­
municates. The rhythm, for all its drive
and thrust, is basically relaxed and un­
neurotic. The singers have managed to
use simple melodic lines and often
elementary harmony to present in an
unsentimental and credible way ideas
with which some may disagree but which
nonetheless have meaning to people of
all colours and social strata, nationally
and internationally.
Rastafarian theology and black na­
tionalism set in motion a process that
demolished the cultural dominence and
psychological control of the foreign and
local middle class. Long before the
mainland Black Power outcry of the
“radical" sixties, the Rastafarians took it
for granted that one knew that one knew
that one should be proud to be black.
The African connection was trenchantly
proclaimed. Called extreme and fanatic
by the Jamaican ruling class the
Brotherhood's views on social
reorganization and the underlining of in­
equalities and injustices forced all but
the most intransingently conservative
and reactionary to take a critical look at
the system. In place of obsequiousness,
lack of confidence and disinterestedness
in the the affairs of Africa on the part of
most Jamaicans, the identity crisis was
solved—"You a African as I would say"
to quote the DJs. The fold, especially the
young, began to grasp the nature of the
imperialist stranglehold.
No longer could the black middle
class suburban dweller feign ignorance
of the living conditions of the poor, or of
happenings on the so-called 'Dark Con­
tinent'. Jamaican middle class youth
wanted to know the nature of the ghettos
and the people from whence this music
came. Soon they were also playing or
dancing to the music and a lively interest
was encouraged in social affairs and in
things African. Reggae then while often
focusing on inequalities and the class
struggle, the harsh reality of Jamaican
life, also fostered brotherly unity. The
young people, admittedly to varying ex­
tents, became committed to the idea of
change. Broadly speaking, one can aver
that even if many of them were not as
theocratic as most Rasts would like, most
of them became positive supporters of a
"socialist ethic" close to the communal
ideal of the Brethren.
Internationally, it is probably true that
one of the earliest aspects of a people's
culture that another people are willing to
accept is its music but reggae has had to
struggle to enter the market outside the
Caribbean. Today it has a growing au­
dience in the U.S., Europe and Africa.
Ironically, in the metropolitan centers of
the U.S. and Europe the audience is
largely white save in the case of England
which has long boasted a large West In­
dian community and its own reggae
musicians. The U.S. blacks' relative in­
difference—curious considering the
ancestry of reggae—may well have its
origin in a feeling among this group that
reggae is an upstart, usurping hybrid.
This will probably pass with more ex­
posure to the range of reggae which in
Raggae singer Max Romeo (T-Shirt) and his band Jahmala, Delacorte Theatre,
Central Park- 1979-
its breadth clearly shows that all black
music in the west is closely related.
It may be impossible for any observer
ever to say just how thought becomes
deed but one can confidently state that
reggae, airing "Third World" views and
for all its religious particularities, ex­
tremely topical in dealing with social,
economic and political matters, is put­
ting its weight on the side of the forces
that must unite and act together if a more
just world is to be salvaged. Although
financial considerations have meant that
reggae, while helping to 'beat down
Babylon' has had to woo the young
record buying middle class, the authen­
tic ghetto-born product has withstood all
attempts at dilution.
The classic course of events that the
music world has come to know, when
whites would elbow out original practi­
tioners of black forms, presenting less
musical integrity for more financial
reward, is probably underway but this
time round the true form stands firm
welcoming foreign ideas and influence
while maintaining an independent line.
Taking its place among the musics of the
world, this net foreign exchange earner
for Jamaica can be expected to increase
its influence, reflecting the life-situation
of the poor the world over and cham­
pioning their struggle for rights. With
improved marketing strategies and a ra­
tionalizing of the industry it would take a
most intrepid prophet to set a limit on
reggae's potential.
You gotta dance to Jah music", slow or
fast depending on your mood and you
also have to listen to what is probably the
most didactic music in the world. Times
have changed. No longer can metropoli­
tan audiences demand that other people
conform strictly to their tastes. One does
not carry ice to the North Pole, one car­
ries fire.
Photo: Adal Maldonado 25

1 Jamaica Journal, Vol. 10,No. 1, 1976 (devoted
to a naming and description of folk forms, dances,
musical instruments, etc.)
2 Carnegie, J., "Notes on the History of Jazz and
its role in Jamaica," Jamaica Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1,
(March 1970) pp.20-29
3 Clerk, A., "Extract from the Music and Musical
Instruments of Jamaica," Jamaica Journal Vol. 9,
Nos. 2 & 3 (1975) pp.59-67
4 Davis, W., "Song of the Gun" Expression,
(June 2, 1974) & (June 9, 1974) Sunday Express
Magazine
5 Dalrymple, H. & Kallyndyr, R., "Reggae: A
People's Music," London, Carib-Arawak Publica­
tions, Undated (c. 1973/74)
6 Gay, C., "Oh What a Rat Race" Black Music,
Vol. 3, No. 31, (June 1976) pp.21-26
7 Hussey, D., "Bob Marley,, the Man of Music for
1975," Pepperpot (Dec. 1975)) pp.41-45
8 Jerry, B., "Roll on Sweet EDon," Abeng, Vol. 1,
No. 16 (May 17, 1969) p.l
9 Jingles, J., "The Musical Evolution Since
1960," Star (Fri., Sept. 4, 1970) p.l7
10 Johnson, L., "Jamaica Rebel Music," Race &
Class, (Spring 1976), London. Republished in
Tapia, Vol. 6, Nos. 28 & 29, (Sun. July 11, & Sun.
July 18, 1976)
11 Lewis, O., "Jamaican Folk Music," Caribbean
Quarterly, Vol. 14, Nos. 1 & 2 (1968) pp.46-56
12 Lewin, O., "Folk Music of Jamaica: An
Outline for Classification," Jamaica Journal, Vol. 4,
No. 2, (June 1970) pp.68-72
13 Marley, B., "Marley Speaks," Black Music,
Vol. 3, No. 31 (June 1976) pp. 10-11
14 Meeks, B., "Duppy Conquerors," Embryo
Vol. 4, No. 3 (9 Oct. 1971) pp.l & 5 (an early
Marley review)
15 Mills, R., "A Materialist Analysis of Jamaican
Popular Music in the 1974-1976 Period" unpublish­
ed Caribbean Studies Essay, r U.W.I., Mona,
Jamaica, 1976. (This paper also p> provides a useful
list of protest Reggae tunes, togeigether with their
dates.)
16 O'Gorman, P., "An Approach to the Study of
Jamaican Popular Music," Jamaica Journal, Vol. 6,
No. 7 (Dec. 1972) pp.50-54
17 O'Gorman, P., "Introduction of Jamaican
Music into the Established Churches," Jamaican
Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1 (March 1975) pp.40-45 & p.47
18 Gorman, P., “Reggae Has Achieved National
Recognition," Pepperpot: Annual Jamaican
Review, (Dec. 1975) pp.33-35
19 Owen, N., "The Reggae Beat Makes it Big in
Britain," Trinidad Guardian, (Mon., Sept. 20) 1976,
p.15
20 Reckord, V., "Popular Music," Arts Review,
Vol. 1, No. 1, (Jan. 1976) pp.43-45. (This Review is
a publication, of the Creative Arts Centre, Mona,
Jamaica.)
21 Rohlehr, F.G., "Sounds and Pressure:
Jamaica Blues," Moko, Nos. 16 & 17 (June 6 & 20,
1969). (Article on Don Drummond, the Skatalites,
Rudyism and Rock Steady.)
22 Rohlehr, F.G., "The Folks in Caribbean
Literature," Tapia, Vol. 2, Nos. 11 & 12 (Dec. 17 &
24, 1972). (Discusses the Jamaican dialect poetry of
Louise Bennett, which was the first serious attempt
to dramatise the emerging folk/urban sensibility of
the uprooted Jamaican peasant. N.B.: DeLisser's
Jane's Career should also be read, for an insight in­
to the earlier phases of this movement from country
to town.)
23 Rohlehr, F.G., "West Indian Poetry: Some
Problems of Assessment," Tapia, Vol. 1, No. 20
(Sun. 29, 1971) pp.11-14. Reprinted in Bim,
Vol. 14, Nos. 54 & 55 (Jan.-June, 1972) pp.80-88, &
(July-Dec., 1972) pp.134-144. Reprinted also in
Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 17, Nos. 3 & 4
(Sept.-Dec., 1971) pp.92-113. (This article extends
the discussion on dialect but considers the more re-
26 cent tensions of "Dread," Reggae, Rastafarianism,
JAMAICA MUSIC:
A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
reprinted from CARIBE Vol IV. No. 4. 1980
By Gordon Rohlehr
etc. It contains several comments on Drummond,
and the poetry which elegised his death.. .i.e.,
poems of Tony McNeill, Mervyn Morris and Bongo
Jerry. Savacou 3/7 (1970) should also be read,
along with Jamaica Journal, Vol. 5, Nos. 2 & 3,
(1971) which contains several examples of a new ur­
ban sound in Jamaican poetry.)
24 Rohlehr, F.G., "Afterthoughts," Tapia,
No. 23 (Dec. 26, 1971) Reprinted in Bim, Vol. 14,
No. 56 (Jan.-June, 1973) pp.227-232. (Contains
comments on Marley and the Wailers, and the
significance of Duppy Conqueror. It also notes the
recurrent imagery of blood, fire and the
Apocalypse. Religious retreatism is identified as a
feature of the new sound in Reggae.)
25 Rohlehr, F.G., "Review Article on The
Harder They Come," Tapia, Vol. 3, No. 24 (17
June, 1973) pp.5-9. (Examines the central themes of
the film; corruption of rural innocence in the city;
the grim fate of the popular artists in the grips of an
exploitative economic system; the relationship bet­
ween suffering dread, emerging explosive sound,
and violence, fantasy...)
26 (No author named), Review of Mystic ‘ic Revela-
tions of Rastafari, in Scope (Nov. 8, 1971),l), U.W.I.,
Mona, Jamaica.
27 Small, J. & Brooks, C., "Music is a Love
Thing," Jean Small interviews Cedric 'Im Brooks of
the Light of Saba, in The Jamaica Daily News (Sun.
August 25, 1975) pp.6-8.
28 Soundbuster, "From Millie Small to Bob
Marley," Evening News (Trinidad) News Showtime
Section (Nov. 4, 1976)
29 Thomas, M., "The Wild Side of Paradise:
ming with the Rude Boys, the Rastas &
Steaminc
Regga jae," in Rolling Stone. No. 139 (luly 19, 1973)
pp.34-4-39. (This is an international pop music
ir-aper, whose offices are in New York, Los
newspap
Angeles and London. The article listed above is a
serious attempt to place Reggae back in its social
context. Like references nos. 5, 6, 10, & 19, it
heralds the impact which Reggae has been making
on the international scene of London and New York,
since the late sixties (Dekker's "Israelites," e.g.).
This impact may be related to the presence of large
Jamaican migrant communities in New York and
London, to their consequently growing visibility,
their backward grasp for roots, and the collabora;
tion which has arisen between key lamaican per­
formers (Marley, Cliff) and British (Cat Stevens)
and American (Johnny Nash) singers and com­
posers. There is also the phenomenon of Reggae
growing out of London, which has a different and
less rooted sound than the homegrown form.)
30 White, G., "Rudie, Oh Rudie," Caribbean
Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1967) pp.39-43
31 Wynter, S,, "Jonkunnu in Jamaica," Jamaica
Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1970) pp.34-48. (One of
the first serious attempts to trace the interrelation­
ship between folk dance, myth, music and the
changing social history of JiJamaica).
RELATED READING
’ , "African Presence in Carib-
1 Brathwaite, E.,
Daedalus, Vol. 103, No. 2 (Spr-
bean Literature," Di
ing 1974) pp.73-109
2 Brathwaite, E., “The Love Axe (1): Developing
a Caribbean Aesthetic 1962-1974," in Black Essays
in the Criticism of African, Caribbean and Black
American Literature, Cornell Univ., Africana
Studies and Research Centre, 1976. (ed. Houston
A. Baker, Jr.)
3 Brathwaite, E., The Arrivants, Oxford Univ.
Press, 1973
4 Brathwaite, E., Black and Blues, Cuba, Casa
de las Americas, 1976. (References 1-4 constitute a
full response
>nse to the experience
exf of contemporary
Jamaica. The poetry is of the city, and the essays on
date emerging folk/urban forms to
aesthetics relate
earlier folk forms, and backwards to ancestral roots
in West African oral traditions. Black and Blues is
particularly important for its sensitive and complex
response to the atmosphere of “Dread.")
5 King, A., et al, One Love, London,
Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1971
6 Johnson, L., Dread Beat & Blood, London,
Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1975
7 Maxwell, M., Play Mas, Trinidad, Cipriani
Labour College, 1976 (This contains descriptions of
Marina Maxwell's Jamaica experiments in Yard
Theatre, which involved integrated use of music,
ritual, movement, dance, and poetry. See reference
No. 2, for Brathwaite's assessment of Marina Max­
well's contribution to the emergence of a new con­
sciousness in Jamaica.)
8 Salkey, A., "Jamaica," London, Hutchinson,
1973
9 Williams, N.D., Ikael Torass, Cuba, Casa de
las Americas, 1976 (The first significant novel about
the spirit of dread. It captures as does Brathwaite's
Black and Blues, something of the starkness of land­
scape, the spirit of a perpetual
f naked drought, an
ible strength of survival, and the growing
incredible
lucidity of those consciousnesses which have
become indigenised by and inured to the ordeal of
the city.) Other novels of the city are Mais's The
Hills Were Joyful Together & Brother Man, Patter­
son's The Children of Sisyphus, Hearne's Land of
the Living, and Barrett's Song For Mumu.
10 Wynter, S., "Reflections on West Indian
Writing and Criticism," Jamaica Journal, Vol. 2,
No. 4 (1968/Dec.) pp.23-32 & Vol. 3, No. 1 (March
1969) pp.27-42
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL
BACKGROUND
1 Barret, L.E., The RASTAFARIANS: A Study in
Messianic Cultism, Puerto Rico, Inst, of Caribbean
Studies, 1968
2 Barret, L.E., The Sun and The Drum: African
Roots in Jamaican Folk Tradition, Heinemann, 1976
3 Bowen, W.E., "Rastafarian and the New Socie­
ty," Savacou, No. 5 (June 1971) pp.41-50
4 Brodber, E., A Study of Yards in the City of
Kingston, U.W.I., ISER, Jamaica, 1975
5 Chevannes, B., “Revival and Black Struggle,"
Savacou, No. 5 (June 1971) pp.27-39
6 Campbell, H., Commandist Politics and
Political Violence: The Case ofJamaica, unpubl' iblish-
ed monograph, U.W.I., St. Augustine, Mayf 27,
1976
7 Carrrnegie, J., Some As/ spects of Jamaica's
Politics J1918-1938. Kingston, IInstitute of Jamaica,
1973
8 Hogg, D., Jamaican Religions: A Study in
Variations, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Yale, 1964
9 Munroe, T., The Politics of Constitutional
Decolonization Jamaica, 1944-1962, Jamaica,
U.W.I., ISER, 1972
10 Owens, J.V., "Literature on the Rastafari:
1955-1975, A Review," Savacou, Nos. 11/12 (Sept.
1975) pp.86-114. (This review is impressively
researched, and locates the Rastafari movement in a
wide context, relating it at points to the Caribbean­
wide phenomenon of urbanization and backwards in
time to the history of Protestantism in Jamaica.)
11 Owens, J.V., “The Rastafarians of Jamaica,"
Troubling of the Waters, Hamid I. (editor),
Trinidad, 1973, pp. 165-170
12 Nettleford, R., Mirror Mirror: Identity,
and Protest in Jamaica, Jamaica, Collins/Sam mgster,
1970
13 Nettleford, R-, "Aggression, Violence and
Force: Containment and Eruption in the Jamaican
History of Protest," paper read at the Third Interna­
tional Conference of the International Society for
the History of Ideas, (1973)
THE QUfiSHIE AESTHETICS, ETC.
By Cliff Lashley
reprinted from CARIBE Vol IV, No. 4; 1981
Although there has been continuous
traffic between the English-speaking
West Indies and the North American
mainland since Columbus, West Indian
culture is still not well known or ap­
preciated in the U.S. The reasons cer­
tainly include the racism and ethnocen-
tricity which explain the formal, massive
neglect of Afro-American culture. Ex­
cept for some Reggae and calypso recor­
dings, West Indian cultural materials
are scarce in the U.S. and the West In­
dians actively promote utopian
stereotypes of themselves.
The islands—as many Americans call
them with a mixture of exotic expecta­
tion and proprietary benevolence—buy
expensive tourist advertising which por­
trays them as earthly paradises. What is
tantalizing about paradise is the assured
absence of ordinary, problematic
humans and society. The interest is im­
plicitly imperial and segregationist: we
will people paradise with our perfect
selves and live in permanent leisure.
Consequently the growing American
disapproval of West Indian political self-
assertion is partly based on the convic­
tion, clearly articulated by Froude in
1887 and presently recycled by Naipaul,
that "There are no people there in the
true sense of the word, with a character
and purpose of their own." Of course
what Froude saw and heard on his tourist
trip to the West Indies was the
Anglophile, imitative culture of the rul­
ing white minority and their uninformed,
self-interested devaluation of oral Afro-
West Indian culture. Nowadays the
black native West Indian governments
fitfully embalm their majority culture as
folklore for sale to tourists!
Cliff Lashley- 1981- Phot: Marco Kalisch
The current political interest of some
American literati in the spoiling
paradises of the Third World has taken
the form of excessive adulation of a
single West Indian writer—Trinidad-
born, racially subcontinent Indian,
Naipaul. Some of Naipaul's bitter
criticism of the West Indies is cleareyed,
witty, just. But his nihilistic dismissal of
those people and societies as ill-made,
trapped in their fragmentariness, doom­
ed, is ignorant jeremiad. His priggish
obtuseness has prevented the clean
reception, in the Third World, of his just
criticism. It has also provided American
literati with apparent justification of
their fear of the assertive Third World
mixed with longings for earthly
paradise. They approvingly echo, in
their review of his work, Naipaul's im­
plicit, unconscious echo of the ancient
civilized Western fear of the Barbarian
without, the wildman within. They
reward Naipaul with an appropiate title
of imitation: they call him their contem­
porary Conrad. They seem to, but in fact
do not, give him the essentially literary
attention they give their peers and
canonic writers. It seems they read him
for style separately from content and
vice versa. Naipaul's true value to them
is that he is an authentic native using
their tone to say what they need to hear
again, in these post-liberal days, about
natives. They do not praise Naipaul for
the usual vision, etc., but for his tor­
tuous, well-spoken public self­
accusations, for his Caliban's empty
curse.
Like Naipaul, most West Indian in­
tellectuals have not made the effort to ac-
guire the remarkable culture which has
flowered in the West Indies during the
last 30 years. One reason is that the old
Anglophile, imitative West Indian
culture is institutionalized through
writing, education, etc., and the new
culture, whose foundation is in the
African/Indian heritage of the masses, is
oral. Some politicians have occasionally
coopted some of the oral culture to gain
and retain power. The politicians, in
spite of the cooptation, are as terrified of
their assertive native culture as are
Naipaul and his friendly detractors. The
Jamaican government, for example, is
now spending a fortune hoping this late
that America will believe they are more
than a beach, they are a country. But
their relationship to Jamaican culture at
home remains ambiguous.
In the U.S. there has been a steady,
small trickle of publication which is mak­
ing possible to find out what West In­
dians think of their culture. These in­
clude Lambros Comitas' monumental
The Complete Caribbeana, 1900-1975:
A Bibliographic Guide to the Scholarly
Literature, 4 vols., 1977; Rex
Nettleford's Caribbean Cultural Identi­
ty: The Case of Jamaica, 1979; Lloyd
Brown's Wes/ Indian Poetry, 1978;
Leonard Barrett's The Rastafarians:
Sounds of Cultural Dissonance, 1977
and The Sun and the Drum: African
Roots in Jamaican Folk Tradition,
(1978). These are not all the books
recently published in the U.S. about the
West Indies. These are the books (mostly
by Jamaicans whose cultural influence is
great in the region and in the
metropolises to which the West Indians
migrate) which address the fact and
nature of West Indian culture in ways
West Indians find enabling. Caribbeana
liberates the West Indian by giving ac­
cess to the very large scholarly
literature.
Two novels by West Indians and a
critical introduction to West Indian
literature were recently published. They
are Mike Thelwell's The Harder They
Come; Frank Hercules' After Leaving
Paradise; and West Indian Literature,
an anthology of essays by several hands
edited by Bruce King. These novels, the
critical introduction and the reprinting
in paperback of the Barbadian novelist
George Lamming's works might signal a
broadening interest in the West Indies.
Certainly the West Indian metropolitan
focus has switched from London to New
York.
With King's Wes/ Indian Literature,
Brown's Wes/ Indian Poetry and Ken­
neth Ramchand's fullscale study The
West Indian Novel and Its Background
which was published in 1970, Americans
now have full introductions to West In­
dian literature. King's anthology gives
an adequate overview and is richer on
the bibliography of early West Indian
imaginative literature than any other
publication. His authors, many of them
West Indians, are serious and respected
scholars of West Indian literature and at­
tempt some new readings. Unfortunately 27
 the collection does not include any
separate study of the West Indian
language situation or of West Indian oral
culture and their literary implications or
any explicit discussion of the host of
critical problems raised by West Indian
literature. The book is not sufficiently
critically focused. But a mere descrip­
tive introduction was King's aim. It is a
pity that his anthology offejrs little
assistance in reading Thelwell's and
Hercules' important new novels.
Both novels are about the West Indian
assertion of native values: the tensions,
the farce and the tragedy it entails.
Thelwell and Hercules both criticize
were far outnumbered by the slaves.
Twi, the language of the Ashantis of
Ghana, is the greatest African influence
on Jamaican creole and it is not surpris­
ing that Twi personal names survive in
Jamaica. What is surprising until you
recall the power structure is that those
personal names are now all pejoratives
in Jamaican speech. F.G. Cassidy and
R.B. LePage defines these day names in
their Dictionary of Jamaican English,
London, 1967. Quashie is the most cur­
rent of the list that includes Cuffee,
Quaco and Quamin. According to the
dictionary the exception to the pe­
jorative is the name Cudjoe which they
speakey-spokey and kris sum up a basic,
wide ranging criticism of the assimila­
tion of the master's values. There are no
words for the opposite of speakey-spokey
and kris. The slave didn't articulate his
preferred values, at least in this crucial
instance. I call these unarticulated but
clearly implied, lived values Quashie
aesthetics. They are aesthetic because
they are matters of taste, manners,
lifestyle and, pursued far enough, they
are matters of basic belief and
cosmology. That Quashie aesthetics is
silent doesn't of course make it dumb.
Both Thelwell and Hercules imply and
articulate Quashie aesthetics. In fact
the Jamaican equivalent of soul) when he
accused Thelwell of exoticism. For a
long time I couldn't see that the word
nigger could be redeemed as in "my
sweet nigger". Once I understood the in­
articulateness of Quashie aesthetic, of
the Black aesthetic I realized that "my
sweet nigger" was not an attempt at
redemption but the recognition and
identification, using a limited
vocabulary, positive aesthetic values
which are in addition to of whatever pe-
joratives nigger usually carries.
Thelwell understands some of this. He
presents the urban Jamaican ghetto
youth defining his stance by using as his
derelict old man he gratuitously an­
tagonizes the hero barely escapes the
various attacks of the deadly snake the
old man assigns to carry out the
vengeance. The hero has to leave
Trinidad attempting to avoid further at­
tacks. It is his abandonment of his
krisness and his commitment to be a man
and lose his virginity that ultimately
saves him. His virgin fiancee, an Indian
young lady from his home town (maybe a
familiar of her ancestral snake deities)
simply spiritually (?) dominates the
snake when it tries a final attack. But
although Hercules has full reverence for
The Lord Most High, the Emperor
Mapepire Zanana, All-Conquering
Potentate of the Bush, he like Thelwell,
like myself doesn't quite know what to
make of the Quashie universe of the
spirit.
Maybe the point is that there isn't
anything to be made of it. Maybe
Quashie aesthetics, in spite of the ar­
ticulateness of an ever growing number
of West Indian writers is ultimately an
aesthetics of silence, vibes, my spirit and
my blood taking you. Dread and Irie.

West Indian society with clear eyes, wit,
justice, and—most important—healthy
self-acceptance. Thelwell's novel has
been widely reviewed and justly prais­
ed. It has been called a folk novel. It is
no more a folk novel than the work of the
Irish playwrights is folk drama. Maybe
what was meant is that the novel is writ­
ten from inside Jamaican culture, though
both Thelwell's and Hercules' narrators
carefully distance themselves from the
mass values they so empathetically tell
about. Hercules' novel has not been
widely reviewed though it has been sell­
ing well. One engaged Black American
reviewer missed the point and condemn­
ed After Leaving Paradise for not being
a political manifesto. Both novels are
quite political and they actually are as
much about the criteria by which they
can be judged as about their ostensible
subject.
Thelwell's The Harder They Come
details some of the values that contem­
porary Jamaican ghetto youth live and
die by. He also shows how they come by
their particular alienation. A bold, am­
bitious youth leaves his rural Eden and
in the concrete jungle of the ghetto
becomes a confused and bad man. This
is not a new story; it is as old as culture
and cities. Even the setting "isn't really
new, though the telling is. In spite of the
New York Times Black American
reviewer, the novel isn't exotic. What is
new is the close detailed articulation of
the values of the Kingston city-slicker.
Until now these values, like so much of
the oral culture of Blacks in the
Americas, have never been articulated.
In Jamaica the values of the imitative
Anglophiles Froude socialized with in
1887 are still the articulated, explicit,
written down, institutionalized, ruling
class values. The African slaves in
Jamaica, like elsewhere in the New
World, had to make a language out of
the several languages they brought and
the English of their master and the mean­
ings it mediated. Their creation—the
swift, ruthless, imagistic Jamaican
creole—certainly mediated new mean­
ings peculiar to the situation. But the
major determinant of meanings in that
situation was the dominant power of the
28 masters even though numerically they
say meant slave driver. My acquaintance
with it is as a synonym for Quashie. Their
definition of Quashie can be summariz­
ed as originally the Ashanti Twi day
name for a male born on the first day of
the week. This usage is obsolete in
Jamaica where it now means any male
negro, a country bumpkin and/or any
stupid person, a fool, a backward person
who refuses improvement and the
speech of the common folk (Jamaican
creole) as opposed to English, the
speech of the educated. Quashie is used
in this sense in Trinidad and Guyana
though similar Ga, Ewe and Fante
words—not names and meaning
stupid—have been adduced as its source
for Guyana. Cuffee with the same mean­
ing—stupid—is used in Barbados. I
suspect that the Guyanese etymology is
wrong; in any case the evidence from
other countries seems sufficiently con­
vincing.
There are two words in Jamaican
creole which are not in the dictionary
(though mentioned but not defined in
Cassidy's Jamaica Talk, 2nd ed.,
Kingston, 1971) which describe the
results of a Quashie's efforts when he at­
tempts improvement towards educated
English and the values it mediates. They
are "speakey-spokey" which pins down
the results of the linguistic effort and
"kris" which describes the overall quali­
ty of the behaviors that go along with the
effort. Cassidy and LePage define kris as
stiff, not pliable and of a manner of walk­
ing; conscious of one's value, beauty,
etc., proud, hence generally proud. My
experience of the word is that it is always
pejorative, more vainglorious than pro­
ud. It could be that our little self-love
and crabs-in-a-barrel enviousness pre­
vent us from admiring real pride. But
that would be in keeping with the
psychic results of our slavery and col­
onialism.
Certainly the words speaky-spokey
and kris indicate that even while the
slave, in his language, institutionalized
the supremacy of the master's values and
usually at the expense of his own African
or other values, he also dissented from
the dominant values. His dissension it
seems was largely unarticulated
especially in its varying particulars. But
Hercules pornographic, sometimes
scatological, outrageous, witty, com­
pletely successful novel is about the
reconciliation of Quashie aesthetics and
the reigning colonial aesthetics. His
novel which is written in a careful com­
bination of Trinidadian creole, speakey-
spokey laced with irrelevant, humorous­
ly used learning and a little standard
English is about a middleclass Trinida­
dian lightskinned young creole (a per­
son of Negro/Spanish or French descent
speaking a creole) whose socially well-
placed, well-to-do aunt has taught him a
rigid code of gentlemanliness while
allowing him the inevitable freedom of
drinking rum, playing carnival mas­
querade and singing calypso which are
very important parts of life in Trinidad.
He is a virgin and the action of the book
hinges on how he overcomes his kris
gentility and happily, pleasurably loses
his virginity at the disgracefully late age
of 21. Hercules writes within the Trinida­
dian rethorical tradition of the lime (the
tales you tell with a drink and a smoke to
pass the time away). The chapter divi­
sions of the book are an unnecessary aid
to the reader. The book reads con­
tinuously in one very long breath like his
fellow Trinidadian Samuel Selvon's The
Housing Lark, another long lime of a
novel. The hero's future mother-in-law, a
simple enough Trinidadian Indian lady,
advises him that whenever he has to
make a choice between being a man and
a gentleman: be a man! The political
fundamentalist Black American who
dismissed this novel couldn't stop
evangelizing long enough to hear the
cosmic laughter. Poor kris critic!
The problem of the critical reception
and evaluation of West Indian literature
and art is similar to the problem for
Black American literature. In both cases
there are lived, unarticulated Afro
values which must be used, along with
whatever else these creole literatures are
mixed with, to evaluate them. Hence the
need to spell out both a Quashie and
Black aesthetics. While these have a lot
in common they are not identical, not
even in their Afro values. The speakey-
spokey New York Times Book reviewer
seems to have endured improvement
and confused soul and irie (more or less
sobriquet the surnames of white
American moviestars: Bogart, Cagney.
Thelwell is careful to point out that it is
not the characters these actors play that
embody the qualities the youth are try­
ing to pindown. It is the poise of the ac­
tors, their deftness that the young unar­
ticulated Jamaicans are invoking. The
sobriquet announces to their peers
something of how they have determined
to be men in their Kingston ghetto world.
Again it is Quashie aesthetics; silent,
needing voice. Thelwell—in his careful
understanding of this, his vivid descrip­
tions of these youths trying on, trying out
their manhood, his use of Jamaican
creole surpassing all other Jamaican
writers to imply, express much of
this—at last relieves the Jamaican reader
of the illusion that his so often silent
island is exotic. He shows and tells us
some of the values we live by. Both Her­
cules and Thelwell have articulated the
Quashie aesthetics of silence.
But there is a deeper silence neither
Hercules nor Thelwell has breached and
this, for their ideal West Indian reader is
the only limitation (not shortcoming) of
their novels. Both authors move beyond
the limit of the merely aesthetic to the
edges of belief and cosmology. Thelwell
in presenting the bucolic childhood of
his hero recreates the routine, engulfing
commerce with the spirits of the
ancestors most Jamaicans engage in—at
whatever remove. At the wake for his
dead, beloved grandmother the hero is
able, fairly easily to briefly enter trance.
When he comes to the city necessity
forces him into a simulated belief in a
sexually repressive, vulgar, fundamen­
talist Christianity. In time he is able to
flee that vulgarity. But although
Thelwell explores his hero's discovery of
the desolation of his ancestral home due
to both his confused neglect and the
lockstep of urbanization and progress
Thelwell simply doesn't develop the
Quashie spirituality he seemed, early in
the novel, to have understood and given
to his hero. Hercules confronts similar
spiritual realms with a pleasure in the
ceremony, the core for protocol which is
the best evidence of sophistication and a
sense of self-preservation in these mat­
ters. His hero is obeahed (cursed) by a
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PERFORMANCES
• April 20,1977 Demonstration for
Seminar at John Jay College
Performers:
The Ibo Dancers of Haiti
The Big Drum Dance Troupe of
Carriacou and Grenada
Henry Alvarez y Su Grupo Puer-
torriqueno de Bomba
Julito Collazo and his Grupo Afro-
Cubano de Cuba
Normandia Maldonado y El Cen­
tro Cultural Ballet Quisqueya
• May 31, 1978 Opening of Exhibit
"Caribbean Images" at 22 E. 54th St.
Performer:
Julito Collazo and his Grupo Afro-
Cubano de Cuba
30
I
A
a!
11
1979 - Popular Puerto Rican recitationalist, Juan Boria, at First Caribbean Expressions
Festival, Alice Tully Hall. Photo: Adal Meldonado
1977 - Normandia Maldonado y’ su Ballet Folkorico Quisqueya (Santo Domingo) - John Jay
College Photo: Richard Saneichez
1980 - Ismael Rivera Lincoln Center - Photo: Marco Kalisch
1978 - Mongo Santamaria brings an enthusiastic young father to his feet, Delacorte Theatre
Photo: Sylvia Plachy
1980 - Silvia del Villard, Henry Street Playhouse
Second Caribbean Expressions Festival Photo: Marco Kalisch
Th^iv
• September 9, 1979 at Alice Tully Hall, • September 16, 1979 (Delacorte) • September 30, 1979 at Carnegie Hall
• August 21, 1978 Caribbean Folkloric • February 2, 1978 Closing of Exhibit Lincoln Center Performers: Performers:
Festival at Delacorte Theater, Central Park "Santeria y Vodun" Performers: Louise Bennett - Jamaica Ismael Miranda y Tito Puente
Performers: Performers: Big Drum Nation Dance Car- The Black Eagles - Jamaica -Puerto Rico
Mongo Santamaria y Su Grupo Julito Collazo and his Grupo Afro- riacou Marie Brooks Research Dance Jamaica National Dance Co.
Julito Collazo and his Grupo Afro- Cubano de Cuba Juan Boria - Puerto Rico Company - U.S.A. (Singers only) - Jamaica
Cubano de Cuba Miriam Dorisme Kouidor - Haiti Max Romeo and Jahmalla Pello El Afrokan and his Group
Victor Montanez y Sus Pleneros de Louis Celestin Machito - Cuba -Jamaica -Cuba
la 110 Pete "El Conde" Rodriguelez and Fausto Rey y Orquesta Odilio Urfe - Cuba
Jazz des Jeunes fit Miriam Dorisme • September 1979 Festival: Caribbean Orchestra - Puerto Rico -Dominican Republic Duane Jones and Graciela
Teatro Otra Cosa - Felix Romero Expressions Duane Jones and Malin Falu Ken Williams and Denise Floren­ -M.C.'s
Marie Brooks Dance Research -M.C. cio - M.C.'s
Company September 8, 1979 at Alice Tully Hall,
• August 17, 1980 Tribute to Mario
Carib Steel and Mask Band Lincoln Center • September 15, 1979 at the Delacorte • September 29, 1979 at Carnegie Hall Bauza at Lincoln Center's Damrosch
Malin Falu, M.C. Performers: Theater Performers: Park
Olatunji - Africa Performers: Ismael Rivera and Rafael Cortijo Performers:
• October 27, 1978 Opening of Exhibit Julito Collazo - Cuba Silvia Del Villard - Puerto Rico and Kako - Puerto Rico Mario Bauza
"Santeria y Vodun: African Religions in Loremil Machado - Afro/Brazilian Los Pleneros de la 110 - Puerto Pello El Afrokan and his Group Billy Taylor
the Caribbean" at 22 E. 54th St. Louis Celestin and Drums - Haiti Rico -Cuba Graciela
Performers: Graciela con Son de la Loma Ibo Dancers - Haiti Odilio Urfe - Cuba Machito
Julito Collazo and his Grupo Afro- -Cuba Miriam Dorisme and Paulette Molly Ahye - Trinidad Xiomara Alfaro
Cubano de Cuba Mario Bauza - Cuba Saint Lot - Haiti Antar Daly
Miriam Dorisme Felipe Luciano - M.C. Gerson Borrero and Monique Bobby Capo
Louis Celestin Clesca - M.C. Malin Falu - M.C.
31
 1979 - Felipe Luciano, Poet and Emmy Award winningj journalist, hosts First Caribbean Ex-
pressions Festival at Lincoln Center Photo: Adal Me
la Idonado

1980 - members of Loremil Machado's Afro-Brazilian Group,

_>, Second Annual Caribbean Ex­
pressions Festival, Symphony Space Photo: Marco Kalisch
Kalisc 1981 - Millie y los Vecinos, Symphony Space Photo: Marco Kalisch

1981 - Thomas Pinnock, Symphony Space Photo: Marco Kalisch

1979 - Cuban musicians of Pello El Afrokan, Carnegi Hall
Photo: Adal Maldonado
1981 - Dizzy Gille
lespie (center) Town Hall, Chano Pozo Tribute
1981 - The Mighty Sparrow, Alice Tully Hall Photo: Marco Kalisch Photo: Marco Kai ilisch

• September 1980 Festival: Caribbean • September 6, 1980 at Alice Tully • September 26, 1980 at Lincoln • November 28, 29, & 30, 1980 at • September 1981 Festival: Caribbean • September 19, 1981 at Symphony
Expressions Hall - Lincoln Center Center's Damrosch Park Brooklyn Academy of Music Expressions Space, NYC
Performers: Performers: Performer: Performers:
• September 20, 1980 at Henry St. Tito Puente and his Orchestra Calypso Rose with Sid Joe and Rex Nettleford and the Jamaica August 16, 1981 at Lincoln Center's Vicente Pacheco Orchestra
Settlement Arts for Living Center, -Puerto Rico/NY his Caribbean All Stars National Dance Theater Com­ Damrosch Park -Santo Domingo/NY
NYC Julito Collazo and his Afro- -Trinidad pany Performers: Louis Celestin - Haiti
Performers: Cubano Group de Cuba Exhibit Steel Bank - Trinidad Tito Puente and his Orchestra Stafford Harrison and Tommy
Silvia Del Villard - Puerto Rico CalArts African Music Ensemble Molly Ahye's Dance Company of March 14 & 15, 1981 "Concierto de -Puerto Rico/NY Pinnock - Jamaica
Marie Brooks Dance Research - Ghana/California Oya - Trinidad Ritmos Afro/Caribenos" at Symphony Los Pleneros de la 110 Puerto Familia Ayala - Puerto Rico
Company - New York Tato La Viera - Host Duane Jones -M.C. Space, NYC Rico/NY Duane Jones - Host
Louis Celestin - Haiti, New York Performers: The Junior Company of Ballet
Musicians and singers of the • September 13, 1980 at Symphony • September 27, 1980 at Lincoln Tito Puente and his Orchestra Hispanico of New York • September 30, 1981 at Town Hall,
Ballet Folklorico Dominicano Space, NYC Center's Damrosch Park -Purto Rico/NY Felipe Luciano - Host NYC
-Dominican Republic Performers: Performers: Millie y Los Vecinos - Dominican Performers:
Laura Moreno and Elba Cabrera Amos Coulanges and Ti Ro Ro Julito Collazo - Cuba Republic/USA • September 12, 1981 at Alice Tully Mario Bauza and Dizzy Gillespie
- M.C.'s -Haiti Alberto Morgan - Cuba Roberto Borrell y Su Kubata Hall - Lincoln Center - Cuba/USA
Loremil Machado and his Afro- "Chihuahua" Martinez and his -Cuba/USA Performers: Daniel Ponce - Cuba/USA
• September 25, 1980 at Lincoln Brazilian Group - Brazil/NY Band Tato La Viera - M.C. Eddie Palmieri y Su Orquesta Graciela - Cuba/USA
Center's Damrosch Park Los Pleneros de la 110 - Puerto Julito Collazo - Host with Milton Cardona - Puerto Billy Taylor - Host
Performers: Rico/NY Rico/NY
Ismael Rivera y Sus Cachimbos David Jackson and Melody Mighty Sparrow and Caribbean
-Puerto Rico Moreno - Hosts Express - Trinidad
La Familia Cepeda - Puerto Rico Roberto Borrell y Su Grupo
Juan Boria - Puerto Rico Kubata - Cuba/Washington,
Malin Falu - M.C. D.C.
Pablo Guzman Host
32 33
 AFRICAN RELIGIONS IN
SANTERIA AND VOODOO
(The identification and preservation of
our cultural heritage which provide and
maintain our unique perceptions, must
be documented. There are aspects of our
lives which are so much a part of us that
we do not take notice of their importance
as forces which continue our cultural
traditions. The Publisher)
The African slaves, forcibly
transported to the Caribbean Islands,
brought with them an intangible essence
which also could not be destroyed and
provided them the strength to survive
adversity—their religious beliefs. The
slaves brought to the Caribbean rep­
resented a wide range of tribes and
kingdoms from West Africa with dif­
ferent religious beliefs, including the
Senegalese, Foulas, Mandingos, Yalofs,
Arados, Ibos, Yorubas, Mayombes and
many more. The beliefs they brought,
although different in detail, were based
on a foundation of respect for nature,
respect for the gods, respect of family,
community, elders, ancestors and re­
spect for self. They brought to the Carib­
bean a "life style" in which religion was
an integral part. Although the slave
system did not allow for the maintenance
of tangible art skills, it was not able to
destroy the belief of the people.
The exhibition, African Religions in
the Caribbean" Santeria and Voodoo
which opened on October 27, 1978 at the
Visual Arts Research and Resource
Center Relating to the Caribbean, focus­
ed on two religions which are examples
of cultural traditions that have remained
with us as Caribbean people. These two
religions are directly derived from the
Yoruba tribe and the peoples of
Dahomey who came to Cuba and Haiti.
The orishas, rituals, music, language
and behavioral codes brought to the
islands during the 16th and 17th cen­
turies are still very much a part of our
lives today.
The retention by the slaves of their
African religions in a setting of oppres­
sion with colonizing countries imposing
their own religious beliefs, forced the
slaves to develop a system which would
allow for the worship of their African
gods through the use of Christian images
as a camouflage. This process is called
syncretism. This syncretic aspect of the
religions in the Caribbean provided our
people with a basis to continue their
African religious beliefs and ceremonies
in their new environment. Continuation
34 of these religions in the Caribbean
THE CARIBBEAN
by Henry Frank
Reprinted from CARIBE Vol. II, No. 2,
1978
clearly shows the strength of our people
historically.
Of equal significance is the survival of
these religions and others derived from
the same African base in an urban set­
ting. As our people have had to leave
Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Jamaica,
Puerto Rico, Trinidad, etc., they have
done exactly what our ancestors did.
They have brought to New York City and
other urban centers those African
Religions which have been central to our
continuation.
The objective of this article, as was the
objective of the aforementioned exhibi­
tion is not to divulge aspects of our
religions which are sacred and are
private. Rather, it is to make note that
aspects of our livestyles, beliefs and
aesthetic perceptions are directly and
indirectly linked to the religious beliefs
and influences which have surrounded
us throughout our development and
growth process. Moreover, the colors,
the arrangement of altars, rituals, initia­
tion rites, ritual music and language that
comprise these religions are part of a
historical and cultural process which
will continue to be passed on to future
generations.
Further, we must recognize that
sacred artifacts- removed from sacred
grounds, developed by our people in
Africa for religious purposes have been
"acquired" by cultural institutions
worldwide. These objects, which were
not intended for public viewing, have
been taken from our people and placed
on exhibition, out of context and with lit­
tle respect to their significance as part of
the religious process that they were
created to address. The exhibition at the
Visual Arts Center, was developed by
Julito Collazo, ethnomusicologist, Henry
Frank, Assistant Director Caribbean
Department, American Museum of
Natural History and Marta Moreno
Vega, Project Director. In this exhibition
we highlighted the underlying concepts
which form the basis of African Religions
in the Caribbean, focusing on the value
of power and command (ASHE), com­
posure (ITUTU) and character (IWA)
and its effective uses.
The African influence in the New
World is quite monumental especially in
the Caribbean Islands. That is com­
prehensible if one considers that over
15,000,000 Africans were transplanted
from Africa to be enslaved in America.
A researcher interested in African
heritage will not experience any difficul­
ty in finding African traces in the
Jamaican, Cuban or Haitian as well as
those of other Caribbean people ways
of life. These traces are vivid in their
cooking, their eating patterns, their
market setting, their family concept and
above all their religious beliefs and
practices. These religious holdovers
have survived in spite of the extreme ef­
forts on the part of the colonists to
destroy every single trace of them. They
also have outlasted the determination of
some contemporary governments or
religious groups to eradicate entirely
their vestige. The most active religions
are Cumina in Jamaica, Chango or
Nagos in Trinidad, Voodoo in Haiti,
Santeria in Puerto Rico and Cuba, and
Candomble in Brazil. However, I will at­
tempt to furnish some insight into
Voodoo and Santeria since they are the
strongest African religions in the Carib­
bean.
VOODOO AND SANTERIA
Voodoo and Santeria, as well as all the
other African related religions, have
been misconceived by many people in
this country and elsewhere. The fact is
that they have been exposed to bad
publicity. For many, these religions are
synonymous with sorcery or black
magic, (I would rather say "bad magic"
instead of "black magic"). One might
ask: How did this negative image come
about? The answer is simple: Some
social researchers, before they even left
Europe or North America for the Carib­
bean Islands, nourished the idea that
they were going to meet Satan face to
face in these islands. Upon returning
home their report reflected exactly their
preconceived ideas. In addition, there
was the novelist who did not mean harm
but who discovered a lucrative topic. He
would spend two or three weeks in Haiti,
Puerto Rico or Cuba, just for the record,
investigating fake ceremonies. When he
came back, he knew more about Voodoo
and Santeria than the natives
themselves. In fact, his novel would be
no more than the product of his fertile
imagination. His story then would be
picked up by an avid or naive movie
producer in quest of sensationalism. The
result would be a movie on Voodoo or
Santeria showing zombies coming up
from the ground or dolls in which pins
have been stuck and someone gets killed
somewhere.
Adverse publicity came also from
clergymen of other sects, mainly Protes­
tant and Catholic. Knowing that these
religions are very popular among the
masses and therefore an obstacle to the
propagation of their own faith, these
clergymen established a campaign of
degradation, accusing the voodooist or
the practitioner of Santeria of paganism.
I would like to dispel some of the confu­
sion that exists about Voodoo and
Santeria. First, Voodoo and Santeria are
religions whose objective is bene­
volence. They are not to be equated with
sorcery or "black magic." On the con­
trary, religious practices are used to
counteract evil and harmful action of the
sorcerer. In Catholicism there are the
saints, in Voodooism or Santeria, there
are the loas (or orishas in Santeria).
Their main function is to protect the
devotee and to secure his well being.
Though closely related Voodoo and
Santeria are in some respects separable.
The fact is that the former is derived
mostly from the Fon people of Dahomey
and the latter is influenced by the
Yoruba people of Nigeria. Furthermore,
while Haiti was under French rule, Cuba
was under Spanish control. The word
"voodoo" is a corruption of the Fon word
"vodun" which means deity or spirit. It is
the equivalent of "orisha," a Yoruba
word. The Haitians, however, prefer to
use the word "vodun" to identify the cult
and select "loas" a Congo word to
signify deities. On the other hand, the
name Santeria is derived from the
Spanish (saint) of the Catholic religion.
It was given to the cult by the Spaniards.
Lucumi, which is derived from the
Yoruba word "akumi," is the real name
of the religion. It is to be noted in
Voodoo, Fon words are frequently used;
however, in Santeria Yoruba words are
constantly utilized. But basically the cur­
rent language in Voodoo is Creole, (a
mixture of 60% of French with some
African and Indian languages and
dialects, English, Spanish, etc.) By con­
trast, in Santeria Spanish is the key
language.
Despite some divergencies between
these two religions, their rites are not
greatly varied. The Hougan who is the
Voodoo priest is the equivalent of the
Santero or Babalawo in Santeria. (The
female counterpart in Voodoo is
Mambo). The function of both the
Houngan and the Santero is the same.
They officiate at all ceremonies and oc­
cupy the top echelon in the hierarchy of
both religions respectively. The
Houngan or the Santero is the spiritual
leader who guides the devotee and helps
him solve his or her problems, super­
natural or otherwise. In Voodoo there
are the Hounsis (Fon) or servants of the
gods who most of the time assist the
Houngan. Ceremonies are held in the
Hounfor (Voodoo temple) or the ileocha
(Santeria temple). They are utilized for
various occasions: either Thanksgiving,
curing someone, forgiveness or to
celebrate god's day. Conceptually, in
the Voodoo or Santeria religions upon
birth everyone is assigned a protective
guide, a loa or orisha. As a matter of
fact, these religions have a very exten­
sive pantheon. I would like to mention
just a few gods in both cults.
In Voodoo, for instance, Legba is con­
sidered as the god of the gods. Every
ceremony starts by honoring Legba. He
is the god who can communicate with all
the other gods because he speaks their
languages. Legba is the god of doors
and crossroads His equivalent in
Santeria is Ellegua. Oggun is the god of
war and iron, he is the warrior and the
blacksmith of the pantheon of Voodoo as
well as Santeria. Chango is considered
the most popular of the gods in Santeria.
he is the god of thunder and fire. He has
the same attributes in Voodoo. Erzulie
Freda the goddess of love and gold is
very popular among the Haitians. Her
equivalent is Oshun in Santeria. Dam­
ballah is the god of fertility, he is
respesented by Yemaya in Santeria who
is very helpful to women who cannot
bear children. Obatala the god of purity
represents heavens in Santeria. There
are, however, gods in Santeria who do
not have an equivalent in Voodoo and
vice versa. Orunla is one of them. He is
he god of divination, the master of past,
present and future. He is the owner of
the Table of Ifa. The Table of Ifa which is
not used in Voodoo, is composed of
eighteen sea shells. The babalawo makes
use only of 16 for his predictions.
The gods, in effect, are very specific
about what they want in terms of
sacrifices (food, drink, etc.) and their
color of preference. For instance Oggun
drinks strong white rum while Erzulie
prefers champagne. Oggun likes red
while Damballah prefer the color white.
By the way, there is a tendency for some
people to believe that human sacrifices
take place in Voodoo or Santeria
ceremonies. There are no such sacrifices
during these ceremonies. However,
there are specific ceremonies which re­
quire animal sacrifices such as goats,
pigs, roosters, etc.
Although the gods are benevolent,
they are capable of reacting violently if
the devotee does not keep his promise.
They also can react with violence if so­
meone wants to harm their protege.
Protection means very much for the
voodooist or santero. In Santeria, for ex­
ample, in very difficult cases, the
Santero may address himself to "Las
Siete Potencies Africanas," (The Seven
African Powers). They are Obatala,
Ellegua, Chango, Oggun, Orunla,
Yemaya and Oshun. These gods are ex­
tremely powerful together. In the
theology of both religions the existence
of God is known. He is referred to as the
Great Master. However, the believers
don't aim at seeing God. He is too far
and too preoccupied with various needs
of human beings. It is easier to reach the
spirits who were created by God to help
them solve their everyday problems.
Voodoo and Santeria are
family religions. Which
means that one may inherit a
loa or orisha from his or her
parents.
Religion, in the African theological
spectrum, is viewed as an exchange bet­
ween man and supernatural beings in
order to secure human life on earth.
Therefore, the character of the African
religion, in contrast to Christianity
which is theocentric, is geocentric. The
concentration is not upon the hereafter
as for the Christians but upon life here
on earth. The devout aim at joining their
ancestors in the spirit world.
One of the main features of preserved
African religions is possession. The gods
communicate with the practitioners
either by incarnating themselves in them
or by appearing to them in dreams. In
"possession," actually, the loa or orisha
moves himself into the head of the in­
dividual who becomes his mouthpiece.
The person becomes the horse of the
god. The action and the words of the
possessed are action and words of the
god by whom the person has been
"mounted." The Houngan, when he is
possessed, becomes a super human be­
ing who can accomplish unthinkable
deeds.
Psychiatrists or psychologists
always quick to diagnose, falsely label
this state of trance as neurotic symptoms.
The explanation for "possession," accor­
ding to Voodoo belief is the following:
everyone carries within himself two
souls. One is "Tibon ange," (little good
angel) which is responsible for a
person's general condition such as
tiredness, sleepiness, hunger, etc. The
other is "Gros bon ange" which relates
to the faculties of thought and feeling.
When . someone is about to be
"possessed," the "Gros bon ange" is
driven out by the god who takes over his
position. This explains why the possess­
ed always gives the impression in the
first state of possession that he has lost
control of his motor system.
Possession is specific to the god. The
person who is possessed by Damballah,
the snake god, crawls like a snake or
may climb the highest tree while who is
possessed by Erzulie, the goddess of
love, becomes very sensual and may
decide to kiss everyone-around him or
her.
There are two types of possession:
bossale and controlled. In the bossale
possession, the person is uncontrolled. It
is said that the loa by whom he got
possessed has not been baptized. The
baptism of the loa takes place during the 35
 initiation rites which is called Kanzo in
Voodoo and Asiento in Santeria. Initia­
tion is a very complex rite during which
the loa or orisha is fixed in the head of
the devotee by a houngan or a
babalawo. The initiated person has
much more control of himself or herself
when possessed. In the case of Santeria,
the babalawo has to make sure that the
right orisha has been fixed in the head of
the santero. Multiple problems can be
engendered for the santero in whose
head the wrong orisha has been fixed.
It is to be noted that Voodoo and
Santeria are family religions. Which
means that one may inherit a loa or
orisha from his or her parents. There is,
in fact, a special ceremony to take the
sprit off the head of the devotee when he
is dead. The spirit is put in a govi (pot)
and placed somewhere in the Hounfor
under the direction of the Voodoo priest.
As can be observed from the accom­
panying list, a god in Santeria may have
the same attributes as a god in Voodoo
but each one is represented by a dif­
ferent Catholic saint, such as in the case
of Oshun and Erzulie.
A good explanation concerning this
god-saint identification is that the slave
owners wanted their slaves to practice
Catholicism and repudiate their African
beliefs. To reinforce that approach they
supplied them with images of Catholic
saints and taught them Catholic prayers
(in Voodoo as well as in Santeria,
Catholic prayers are still preserved).
Those who resisted being converted
were flogged until they bled. In order to
avoid such punishment the African
slaves accepted the images from their
masters but attributed to them qualities
of their own gods by looking for points of
analogy. For example, Damballah, the
snake god, has become Saint Patrick
because of the snakes at the feet of this
saint; Oggun, the god of war, is
represented by Saint James because the
latter was a warrior and is usually por­
trayed as such. Actually the slaves fool­
ed their masters by kneeling in front of a
Catholic saint, because in reality they
were communicating with Chango,
Damballah, or one of their own African
gods.
The Arawak Indians, commonly called
Tainos, have also contributed to the syn­
cretism of Voodoo and Santeria. The
constant use, for example, of tobacco
(pipe, cigar) by the Houngan or
Babalawo in some ceremonies reminds
us of the use of Tobacco during the
Cohoba ritual by the Bohite (Indians
high priest). One of the most important
contributions of the Tainos to Voodoo, in
particular, is the drawing of Veves.
Veves represent the emblems of the
gods. Symbolically they replace the
statues of saints identified with the loas.
They are traced out mostly with corn­
flour by the Houngan on the ground
35 where the ceremonies take place. It has
been observed that there is a very close ground during their religious EDITOR'S NOTE: African Religious Traditions in Brazil
resemblance between veves and the ceremonies; unfortunately not enough
petroglyphs of the Taino Indians which by Michael ). Turner
research has been done in this area.
are found carved in rocks in Cuba, I hope that this article has provided
Haiti, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, etc. some insight into the religions of reprinted from CARIBE, festival supplement Vol III, Brazilian culture.
The drawing of Atabeyra, the goddess of Santeria and Voodoo. Although I have No. 2, 1979 As African societies were affected by
fertility for example, was used by the In­ emphasized that these religions are not Several writers in this issue refer to Afro-Brazilian religious cults repre­ new and different economic trends,
dians ritualistically, the same way the to be equated with sorcery, I do not want syncretism, the merging of religious sent the most tangible form or manifesta­ cultural and religious movements, these
veves are being used by the Voodooists. to give the impression that sorcery does forms, as it took place in the diaspora. tion of the historic African presence in variations would also indirectly affect
Although in Dahomean Voodoo veves not exist in Cuba or Haiti or other coun­ Ishmael Reed calls it "camouflaging". Brazil. Beginning in the sixteenth cen­ the slave trade. Slaves arriving in 19th
are also traced out, they are in a single tries in the Caribbean. Yes, it is strong in Often Catholic icons—statues, pictures tury, ending only in 1888, the trans- century Brazil were often Islamized, a
straight or circular line, while in this part of the world; but remember of saints, etc.—became the embodiment Atlantic slave trade forcibly removed to direct result of the Islamic holy wars or
Voodoo, they are very elaborate with sorcery also exists in France and Ger­ of African deities. Henry Frank's article Brazil several millions of Africans who jihads which had swept through the
multiple lines similar to the Tainos many. There is a tendency for many to with its accompanying chart further transmitted their cultures along with western Sudan and West Africa during
petroglyphs. However, there is no in­ identify all evil practices with Africa or amplifies our understanding of syn­ their physical presence in the New the 18th and early 19th centuries. These
dication that the Indians drew their ritual African "derivatives." It is an incorrect cretism in some parts of the Caribbean. World. The present day nations of newly arrived Africans had little in com­
symbols on the ground as the voodooists way of thinking. A more correct percep­ We are cautioned, however, not to Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, Benin, mon with other slaves who continued
do, but it has been observed that the tion is to look upon Voodoo and Santeria assume that syncretism took place in the Togo, and Ghana served as the major their adherence to traditional African
southwestern Indians particularly the as religions whose basic objective is same manner universally throughout the source for the Brazilian slave dealers, religious beliefs, or who had accepted in
Navajo Indians in Chile and Arizona, benevolence. Moreover, like most diaspora. Sometimes the Christian icon thereby indelibly stamping and influen­ whole or in part the Catholicism of their
who can be considered as cousins of the religions of the world, these ancient is indeed a mere cover-up for worship of cing the development of a national Brazilian masters.
Tainos, have their sand paintings on the African religions involve invocation, of­ the African deity. At other times, as is
ground and traced out by the Shaman, ferings, initiation rites, drum beats, the case in Brazil, Catholic and African
the Houngan's counterpart. The sand chants, dance and music in accordance icons co-exist with clear and distinct
paintings and the veves play the same with the gods and goddesses of their identities. The following photos were
ritualistic role. We have concluded that pantheon, a pantheon based in antiqui­ taken earlier this year by VARC's staff
the Tainos probably drew also on the ty. photographer Marco Kalisch in Bahia,
Brazil during the "Festival do Senhor Do
Bonfim". Syncretically speaking, the
Voodoo and Santeria have very extended pantheons. The gods and goddess are
called Loas in Voodoo and Grishas in Santeria. Most of them have been syncretized senhor do bonfim is symbolic of both
with Catholic saints because of the pressure exerted upon the slaves by colonists who
Christ crucified and the African deity •-
OBatala simultaneously.
wanted them to practice Catholicism. The following is a list of some gods and god­
desses of Santeria and Voodoo, their equivalents within the two pantheons, and their The festival is a traditional observance „ J
Ir-Tl 'I
i
corresponding Catholic saints. of the Yoruba legend wherein Obatala,
LEGBA (Voodoo) god of doors and crossroads
eguivalent to
ELLEGUA (Santeria) keeper of doors
SAINT LAZARUS
HOLY GUARDIAN
on his way to visit the kingdom of
Change, came upon the white horse of
Change which had wandered away.
Recognizing the horse as that of his son
L Jj
ANGEL Chango, Obatala captured the horse
CHANGO (Voodoo, Santeria) god of thunder and fire SAINT BARBARA and took it along with him to the
(Santeria) kingdom. When they reached the gates
ERZULIE DANTOR (Voodoo) goddess of love MATER SALVATORIS of the kingdom, the guards arrested
ERZULIE FREDA (Voodoo) goddess of love and gold Obatala accusing him of having stolen
equivalent to MATER DOLOROSA Change's favorite horse. After Obatala's
OSHUN (Santeria) goddess of love and gold OUR LADY OF LA imprisonment the affairs of Chango's
CARIDAD DEL COBRE kingdom took a turn for the worse. Each
ORUNLA (Santeria) god of divination; owner of the SAINT FRANCIS year things grew still worse and worse
table of Ifa OF ASSISI without apparent reason. Chango finally
OGGUN (Voodoo-Santeria) god of war and iron SAINT PETER (Santeria) decided to consult IFA (Orunla, the
SAINT JAMES (Voodoo) Yoruba god of divination) and went to a
ZACCA (Voodoo) god of Agriculture equivalent to SAINT ISIDORO babalawo to find out what was wrong. Ifa
ORISHA-OKO (Santeria) god of fields and harvests told Chango that there was an old man
OCHOSI (Santeria) god of hunters SAINTS ISIDORO unjustly being held captive in his
IBEJI (twins) (Santeria) god of infants equivalent to SAINTS COSME and kingdom and that until this wrong was
DAMIAN corrected the kingdom would continue
MARASSA (twins) (Voodoo) god of infants SAINTS COSME and to decline. Chango immediately
DAMIAN ordered the release of the old man.
IFA (Santeria) god of the impossible SAINT ANTHONY OF Upon recognizing his father, Chango
PADUA felt great remorse and ordered the peo­ f1
OBATALA (Santeria) father of the gods OUR LADY OF MERCY ple of the kingdom to atone for this
DAMBALLAH (Voodoo) god of fertility the sea misdeed by washing Obatala clean.
equivalent to SAINT PATRICK
YEMAYA (Santeria) goddess of fertility and the sea also In commemoration of this myth,
equivalent to OUR LADY OF REGLA members of the Candomble religion in
AGOUE (Voodoo) god of the sea SAINT ULRICK Bahia annually observe the Ablution of
BABALU-AYE (Santeria) god of th sick SAINT LAZARUS Obatala. The washing of the steps of the
GUEDE (Voodoo) god of death equivalent to EGUN SAINT GERARDO Catholic cathedral in these photos sym­ ■7
bolizes the washing of Obatala by
Most of these gods are also worshipped in Dahomey and Nigeria. It is important to Chango's subjects. The water and
note that the Voodoo pantheon is divided into two main groups: Rada which consists flowers carried by the Mais do Santos
represent the sacred ablutions of Ob­ 1982 crowds in attendance at the Festival in honor of "Senhor Do Bonfim". Brazil
mostly of Dahomean deities, and Petro which encompasses creole or local deities as Photo: Marco Kalisch
tain. 37
well as those of other African regions.
 Drummers celebrating the festival do Senhor Do Bonfim, 1982, Brazil ba as the Supreme Deity, became an im­
Photo Marco Kalisch portant symbol of worship and venera­
tion. Macumbeiros, or those adherents
Libation Pourers, Festival do Senhor Do Bonfim, 1982- Brazil of macumba, also entered into a com­
Photo: Marco Kalisch plex initiatory process. The admixture of
the Bantu religions with Catholicism and
Brazil, 1982- Festival do Senhor Do Bonfim Photo: Marco Kalisch other beliefs has resulted in the creation
of yet another organized religion ' in
Brazil, Umbanda.
Afro-Brazilians are aware of these
contradictions and are seeking to regain
control of their own cultural institutions,
which should be understood within the
context of their social, economic, and
political problems vis-a-vis the majority
Brazilian society; it should be stated that
this cultural acceptance by the dominant
society in no way indicates a concomi-
TABLE I
CANDOMBLE MACUMBA
Exu Bombonjira
Ogun
lyansan
Xango Kibuko
Omolu
Oxunmare Angoro
Yemanja
Oxala
Orunmila
tant social or economic acceptance of
the group, Afro-Brazilians remaining
severely marginalized within their coun­
try. Their religion is a clear indication of
their cultural survival and importance,
despite harsh slavery and post-abolition
societal neglect and indifference. That
the cults continue to speak in such
vibrant and ringing tones of Africa and
its Afro-Brazilian permutations should
be a source of pride and inspiration for
those of African descent everywhere; the
orixas are alive and commanding
respect in Brazil.
Umbanda should be seen as an eclec­
tic variation of spiritism, Catholicism,
Bantu traditional religions, inclusions of
Brazilian Amerindian beliefs with strains
CATHOLIC
St. Peter (Exu the Elder)
St Anthony (Exu the Younger)
St. George
St. Barbara
St. Jerome (Xango the Elder)
St. Michael, the Archangel
(Xango the Younger)
Nosso Senhor de Bomfin (Christ)
Nossa Senhora de Conceicao
Nossa Senhora das Navegantes
The Holy Ghost
St. Joseph
of Oriental philosophies and European
mysticism. It has served as the conduit
for rapidly increasing participation of
the white Brazilian community in what
was a minority religion and culture. The
white dominant class finds itself
spiritually troubled because of rapid
shifts in Brazil's urbanization and
schemes for industrialization and na­
tional development; the changeover
from a predominantly rural agricultural
society, to one increasingly urban, also
served to underline the inadequacy of
the Catholic church to attend to the emo­
tional and spiritual problems of
Brazilians. More immediate relief was
felt to be possible by adhering to the
Afro-Brazilian religions, thus providing
the new and willing congregations for
Umbanda. Cults heretofore Black began
receiving white members, who in time
passed from simply seeking spiritual ad­
vice from Blacks, to actually presiding
over the cults and starting their own.
One female North American researcher
conducting an interview in Rio de
Janeiro last year with a white pai-de-
santo was amazed to be told that the
priest denied any African influence in
his cult (to the American, Bantu in­
fluence was obvious), all antecedents
seen by the pai-de-santo to be derived
from European mysticism!
What has happened or is happening to
the Afro-Brazilian religious cults, the ac­
ceptance and later co-optation by white
Brazilian society, is mirrored in other
aspects of Afro-Brazilian cultural life, as
exemplified by the traditional Escolas de
Samba or samba schools, which while
retaining a predominantly Afro-
Brazilian membership have been con­
trolled by whites and used to attract in­
ternational tourists for the yearly Car-

Brazil, through its enormous physical
size, geographic and natural diversity,
also attempted to influence or mold
Afro-Brazilian slave culture; while there
is a significant difference between a
Bahian fieldhand, a goldminer in Minas
Gerais, or a fisherman working out at
Florianopolis, Santa Catarina (all slave
occupations in Brazil), in their cultural
or religious life the Africans successfully
retained their fraditions; not only retain­
ing these traditions throughout centuries
of slavery, but in the post-Abolition and
contemporary period, they saw their
own traditions taken over by the white
dominant society, the masters turning to
the slaves for spiritual salvation. . . .
Candomble, while traditionally
associated with Afro-Brazilians in the
Northeast of the country, Bahia, Pernam­
buco, Maranhao, in its origins is Yoruba
or Nago, each cult house headed by
either a priest (pai-de-santo/babalorisha)
38 or priestess (mae-de-santo/iyalorisha).
The priest or priestess must engage in
the divinatory process which is the cen­
tral function of the cult house or terreiro.
The head of the cult house designates
who will receive the orixa or god during
The ceremony, also setting the rhythm
and pace of a ceremony. Initiates in the
terreiro, if men, are called ogans, ekedi
if they are women. Initiation process is
determined in years, with each group
considered to be a boat, barco, its
members joined in an enduring cult
relationship, sharing the ritual of
initiation.
The important "nations" of candom­
ble, relating to the geographical areas in
West Africa that serve as the origins of
the cults, are Ketu (Yoruba), Ilesha
(Yoruba), Gege (Fron from
Benin/Dahomey), Oyo (Yoruba). The
African deities in Brazil are popularly
referred to as santos, and over time have
been syncretized with saints from the
Catholic religion. The cult of the dead,
egun, also occupies the attention of each
Review
naval. The poor remain unable to see the
procession of the escolas, as the Rio
Tourist Bureau constructs grandstands
cult house, as special shrines are con­ with seats costing $200.00 to ensure only
a well paying foreign or domestic public
structed to attend the needs and re­
quirements of those members who have access to what originally was a popular
festival and cultural manifestation. Sam­
passed "over"; offerings for the soul of
the initiate are made on the first, third, ba, Carnaval and increasingly candom­
ble, macumba and umbanda have all
fifth and seventh anniversaries of the
death, the last offering serving to send Latin American Literature and Arts begun to lose their authenticity as ex­
pressions of Afro-Brazilian culture and
away the spirit of the dead.
In central and southern Brazil, history and to serve as a means to
macumba replaces candomble as the Subscribe Now! assuage the psychic and emotional pro­
blems of the white middle and upper
most significant manifestation of Afro-
Brazilian religion; candomble does not Individual Subscription $10.00 • Foreign $12.00 class.
disappear in these regions (also Bantu U.S. Institution $15.00 • Foreign Institution $20.00
culture, particularly in language, is now
Published three times a year. Back issues available.
seen to be important in Brazil's Nor­
theast), however macumba has
characterized Afro-Brazilian religious NAME
behavior in Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo. Cults derived from religious
ADDRESS
traditions indigenous to Central Africa,
Angola and northern Zaire, East Africa
via Mozambique, flourished among
these central and southern Afro- A publication of the Center for Inter-American Relations
Brazilian communities, as candomble 680 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10021
was doing in the Northeast. Ganga Zum- 39

Novelist/Publisher Ishmael Reed- 1980-
On African
Retentions
ISHMAEL REED
Editor's note: the following
ng is an edited excerpt of a
speech delivered as part rt of the seminar series en-
titled "Memory of Africe ca in New World Artistic
Forms" in 1980.
Steve Cannon and I publish magazines on
the West Coast. We published an article
which was an interview with Max Bond and
Carl Anthony. They talked about African
retentions in so-called "American architec­
ture." There are certain styles in the South that
people are unable to identify; I think Carl An­
thony is writing a book about this.
I mention the magazine because we're
also publishing an article by a young
scholar who talks about how Walt Disney
modeled Mickey Mouse after what he
thought were African or Afro-American
characteristics—you know, we got real
jittery and all this stuff. That article is go­
ing to be published in a new magazine
we called "Quilt Magazine." So I'm very
impressed with African retentions. I'd
like to know how we can put some of
these retentions to work, and I'd like to
talk about some of that.
I was very impressed by "They Came
Before Columbus," Ivan Van Sertima's
book. So we organized a foundation call­
ed "The Before Columbus Foundation"
40 which is now, according to publishers of
Weekly Magazine, a trade magazine of
the book industry, "the largest distrib­
utor of multi-cultural books west of the
Rockies." So we're trying to put some of
these African retentions "out there" and
as George Wallace says—I'll quote
him—" down there where the goat can
get at it." Some of the people on our
Board are native Americans and some
are Asian Americans. It's not a
"brotherhood" movement; you know, I
don't want to be around these guys all
the time, but we've been able to really
promote multi-cultural literature—to get
it in the book stores and the universities.
I was thinking about another African reten­
tion; I went to Salem, Massachusetts—now
there's one African retention that they'll never
forget in this country. Tituba who was from
Barbados. They still call it "the witchcraft
delusion." You know, the guides will take you
around and say—"this is what happened—the
witchcraft delusion". . .made those Puritans
so paranoid that they started hanging dogs
and things—they figured the dogs were
"possessed," you know. I was reading Cotton
Mather this Summer. And if you read Cotton
Mather's works on the witchcraft
phenomenon, you will be able to identify
some of the "loas" who possessed those young
girls in Salem, Massachusetts. Somebody
ought to get a grant from the Phelps-Stokes
Fund and do an article on it; now that's
something some scholars can do. So we take
the material that we get from scholars and try
Photo: Marco Kalisch
to use it.
I don't want to get into a taffy-pulling
contest on who came here first. The
Chinese say they came here first; they
went to California. As a matter of fact, I
read recently in Time Magazine where
they found a piece of pottery that has
been traced to some dynasty in China.
Everybody had boats—I don't see why it
is so amazing.. . So, you know, we all
got here! And I don't know, the way
things are going in the United States
these days, I don't think anybody wants
to claim credit for discovering it. So I
don't want to get into that.
I do want to talk a little bit about how
badly I was educated in Buffalo, New
York where I received the customary
"Bantu" education by which Afro-
Americans, Asian-Americans, Chica­
nos, Puerto Ricans are taught to regard
the "white race" as the alien brother­
hood and sisterhood to which we would
remain inferior until we were initiated
into their "mysteries." We weren't
qualified.
We were taught that the people who
discovered, developed and owned
America were white. We were taught
that history, art, philosophy, architec­
ture, music, literature were created by
whites and that the rest of us were merely
spectators. We were taught that the
benevolent white man went to Africa and
snatched us from our pagan ways and
excesses and brought us into the clear
light of Christianity. We were infidels
and heathens which, in Webster's Dic­
tionary, means ethnic—did you know
that ethnic in Webster's Dictionary
means heathen.
Anyway, we were so ungrateful that
we repaid the white man's generosity by
clowning and worrying him so, that he
had to fight a war to decide what to do
with us.
We were taught that when the Puritans
came here, they found red devils. They
landed in Plymouth Rock and that the
devil, the red devil, was so ashamed of
being discovered naked... — the
Puritans felt that the United States of
America was inhabited by demons. They
also thought if you went up the Hudson
River you'd find devils... So these red
devils were so ashamed of being
discovered in their "primitive
nakedness" that they rushed to the West
Coast and drowned themselves in the
Pacific, after losing a struggle against
the forces of Christianity and civiliza­
tion. These devils were depicted in our
i- xtbooks smeared with war paint and
terrorizing "pioneer" women and
children with their tomahawks.
The Africans fared no better. I
remember when we had United Nations
Day, Africa was presented to us as some
kind of day gio cartoon. Africa was "full
of snakes, marauding tigers searching
offer human meat." Africa was an em­
barrassment. So when they had the U.N.
pageant in high school nobody wanted
to represent Africa. When the teacher
asked somebody to play Africa, the
black students would crouch under the
desks. They wanted to play Norway or
Finland! Africans were presented to us
as ignorant savages who went about in
grass skirts, holding spears as they
chanted a heap of mumbo jumbo.
Presently, a coalition of Asian-
Americans is complaining about the
Hollywood image of Charlie Chan. Next
to the way the black characters were
treated in the Charlie Chan films—
movie-mugging,' scared of ghosts—
Charlie Chan seemed dignified, ma­
jestic even. Even the native Americans
had Cochise and Geronimo. We always
had Willie Best and Mantan Moreland.
Hollywood depicted Afro-American
religion as a religion full of blood-
curding rites: "Voodoo Island and "I
Walked With A Zombie" Voodoo was
something to be scared of. The
boogeyman. I had heard voodoo men­
tioned about the house in whispers;
nobody wanted to tell me what it was
(ibout. I remember the women in Chat­
tanooga, Tennessee dropping things in
people's paths, washing the steps with
strange lotions, and warning about the
proper way to dispose of hair and finger­
nail pairings.
In the late '40's and early '50's, there
was little information to counter what we
learned in school or saw in the movies or
heard on the radio. When I was in fifth
grade, I used to go to a book store on
Williams Street in Buffalo, New York to
buy curious books and pamphlets by a
man named J. A. Rogers—One Hundred
Facts about the Negro—and—Man and
Superman. We were told that J. A.
Rogers was crazy and he did not have a
degree. If we wanted to amount to any­
thing, we'd have to become acquainted
with French, English, and German
"civilization"—thats the only way we
could get ahead would be to do this. Our
music instructor at East High School
waved his hand indignantly when we
tried to sneak in some jazz while perfor­
ming with the high school band. He told
us that jazz was noise.
We were quaint, mission natives
learning the catechism of western
civilization. Our heads were in an idyllic
world while the real world was about to
crumble about us:
The Supreme Court decision outlaw­
ing segregation of Schools.. . Martin
Luther King, Jr. was on the march.. .
One afterhoon I was listening to the
radio—I think it was about 3:00 P.M. on
CBS when a newscaster said that Eisen­
hower had sent troops into Little Rock,
Arkansas. .. The Newscaster said—"It is
a sad day for America"... I'd never
heard of a sad day for America. . . I
remembered seeing pictures of lynch­
ings in Afro-American newspapers I sold
as a boy. . .but that was stuff that hap­
pened down South. Live television could
do what the officials colonial classroom
couldn't.. . Live television could, occa­
sionally, slip truth before the censor
could "red, white and blue" the truth:
Adlai Stevenson disarmed and ruffled,
looking up from his papers as black na­
tionalists disrupted his speech at the
U.N. . . Kruschev banging his shoe on
the table and complaining about the
United States lynching Negroes. . .
Patrice Lumumba tall, lean, nattily
dressed in a Time Magazine photo
enroute to the United States studying
papers, sitting next to a bucket of cham­
pagne—the African poet, a thug clutch­
ing his hair, humiliating him; the CIA
paid his enemies to do it. America was
no longer "Our Town." Or the cover of
The Saturday Evening Post. Or John
Philip Sousa.
We had been lied to; we were confus­
ed; we felt betrayed; we got mad. They
could take their classics and shove 'em!
We began to contemplate the apo­
calypse.
Theater of the Absurd was popular
and our professors praised books in
which the heroes expressed no emotion
when their mothers died. We were Afro-
Europeans and our Europe had gone
through a period of particularly bar­
barous and savage tribal warfare using
advanced weapons. The old order was
crumbling. And, so, that despair felt by
western writers became our despair.
In my first book published in 1967,
The Free Lance Pallbearers—hoodoo
was used for comic relief —comic
"belief": an old woman getting a degree
through the mail on the Mojo Retraining
Act. Funny! I was in my middle 20's and
thought that this book would be the most
avant garde of the avant garde books
published. Experimental. What would I
do for an encore? Hoodoo!
The original cover of The Free Lance
Pallbearers carried a veve, a geometric
Haitin vodun symbol. The cover was
commissioned after the manuscript was
in production. I had begun to read
material about a system which previous­
ly I had used as a comic relief—old folks
babble:—a veve, though, would be
abridged to the next work, Yellow Back
Radio Broke Down. A painter I knew was
using veves, Haitian symbols, in his
work. They were of a sophisticated
geometric design. How could this sign, I
wondered, be associated with something
primitive, something backwards? How
could I use a system derived from Africa
when I had never been to Africa and
didn't know Africa? Though I knew
enough to know that Africa of the 1960's
was not the Africa I had learned about in
"Bantu" school.
I read that West African cultural sys­
tems had an amazing ability to adapt to
other places and times. I had also read
that "loas," those forces which take over
the host during possessions—were refer­
red to as "horsemen." These forces, by
the way, have recently been captured by
camera. There's a new book out, which
shows strange, unidentified lights, weav­
ing in and out of these ceremonies. I
think it was published by St. Martin's
Press. How as a writer could I use some­
thing African in origin in a stateside en­
vironment?
I had read that in Vodun the past, pre­
sent and future could intertwine. The
African loas were not like the old testa­
ment God many of us grew up with. They
liked to dance; they liked to party; they
were poetical; they were warriors; scien­
tists; artists; they were wise; they were
shrewd.
I learned that witchcraft in the African
sense was a benevolent thing; it's only in
the states that people be puttin' hexes on
each other.. .in Detroit and Chicago.
World health agencies have testified
to the benefits of African medicine. I
learned that the ideas of African religion
had anticipated the findings of "Modern
Physics" in realizing that extra-natural
events were common occurrences. If you
don't believe me, there is’ a very conser­
vative scientific magazine called
"Nature" published in England which
says that telepathy is a very common,
everyday occurrence.. . That it's possi­
ble to aim malice towards a dangerous
foe!
I wanted to write the equivalent of the 41
 doll I had seen in voodoo books. I was
not trying to write based upon what I had
read. When you read the letters of
writers, they always talk about what
they're reading. I wanted to do a doll—a
primitive doll. A writing that would "lay
a trick." In 1970 a raw, seemingly
disorganized primitive work called "The
Hexacism of Maxim de Awful, a Ritual
Curse On Richard Nixon" was publised
in Amistad Magazine. Using political
leaders as characters is very common
nowadays, and when white male
heterosexual writers do it, they are listed
as avant garde writers by white male
critics. The Free Lance Pallbearers,
written during 1966 and 1965, contained
scenes in which Richard Nixon greets
crippled soldiers a year before Nixon
was nominated for the presidency and
two years before he was engaged with
the Viet Nam War.
I continued to mix popular American
forms with my idea of "stateside vodun"
or hoodoo. A lot of people call it
"hoodoo" which is a word, I understand,
scholars say appeared in New Orleans
about the 1870's.
In the 1960's we were looking for alter­
native mythologies from the ones we had
been taught in mission school. I wrote in
poetry employing images from Egyptian
mythology. I had been introduced to the
eye of Horus—the private eye—mystery.
I would write a mystery. My private eye
would be the loa of the crossroads,
Legba, or as the Creoles said, "Papa Le
Bas." Yellow Back Radio Broke Down—a
hoodoo western, was reviewed in a
rodeo magazine. Mumbo-Jumbo a book
concerning the repression of Afro-
American culture by the forces of Chris­
tianity made the detective and crime
writers listing, as referred to by Steve
Carter in a book which carries articles
on Dashiell Hammett, and Ross
McDonald as "the first experimental
detective mystery." Le Bas appears
again in The Last Days of Louisiana Red:
the hoodoo parts dissolved in the text. I
had learned that the essence of neo-h
oodoo was camouflage. We know that in
Haiti, for example, behind every saint
resided an African loa. Since St. Patrick
is usually depicted with snakes, Haitian
vodun used statues of St Patrick as the
embodiment of Damballah, an African
god.
I call it Neo-hoodo because there is a
tradition—and it's not just Zora Neale
Hurston; there are volumes and volumes
of hoodoo literature in the 19th Century,
18th Century. Marie Leveau wrote a
book which I have—I'm going to publish
on how to clean up your house, the right
way. There were a number of other peo­
ple. One man, an Episcopalian minister,
has done a formidable four huge
volumes, which he published himself
Robert Tide who is in Wisconsin, I
believe. And I think Oxford University
42 Press—Oxford University Press is going
to publish this stuff on hoodoo in
America.
Anything written by Afro-American
writers during the 1960's and '70's was
lumped together by critics as belonging
to a school of blackness. "The black
aesthetic," a commercial industry built
around the mystical idea of blackness.
The former black aesthetic critics are
now pretending that they had nothing to
do with it or were misled. One even
blamed the whole thing on critic Larry
Neal. When Larry Neal was the one who
created the growth industry from which
they benefited and are still benefiting.
Neo-hoodoo was multi-cultural not the
black aesthetic; some of the black
aesthetic critics didn't know what to
make of it. Occasionally their missionary
training would poke through. One of
them said that The last days of Louisiana
Red was something like a "Swiftian
Opus." This guy talks about writing for
the international working class; I would
like to see him go to the Ford plant dur­
ing lunch hour and get up and talk about
"The Swiftian Opus." You can imagine
what would happen.
I replied to that critic that he ought to
read about guede which is a loa in Haiti
that has no African antecedent; such is
the genius of this system. It's able to
create new forms. I wouldn't be surpris­
ed if ragtime and the blues didn't
emerge from this. If you'd listen to some
of the blues lyrics like prison Blues,
many of the other blues, you will hear
the blues addressed as a loa—"Hello,
Mr. Blues"—or things like that. There
are a lot of grants that people ought to
apply for. To do work on all of this.
So I replied that the critics should
read about guede or gue, a loa of satire
in Haitian vodun. To show you how
much has changed in the American
Academy, a student at Dartmouth this
summer reguested that she write a paper
on guede and my work. She knew
nothing about the exchange I had with
the black aesthetic critics. She had
studied with Professor William Cooke.
Now, Yale, and Dartmouth are hot beds
of voodoo; everybody is on to it. And the
kids up in Colorado Springs are in­
terested in all this stuff and they're all
white—they all look like Johnny Denver.
Many scholars have come under the
influence of William Cooke, a Chairman
of the Afro-American Studies Depart­
ment and Professor of English at Dart­
mouth, as well as scholars from Yale
University who have come under the in­
fluence of Professor Robert F. Thomp­
son, author of 'African Gods and Kings"
among other works. Mr. Cooke and Mr.
Thompson are among the growing
number of scholars now interpreting the
works by Afro-American writers on the
basis of forms used by Afro-American
writers—forms influenced by the mod­
ifications African legend underwent in
the new world.
Miss Pool, the student, wrote—"guede women kiss all the black ones, when the duct. They offered services. They knew tege. His father was a distinguished Am­
is with Legba, the loa of the crossroads, < juards have raped all the jail birds, and about the business. bassador, John Priest Morris, one of the
Legba gives life; guede is the loa of • liter all the whores make love to their None of my readings of Afro- founders of Negritude. So, I mean,
resurrection. Between Legba and guede • n annies, after all the faggots get their American intellectual thought had they'll believe him. A few months ago,
is death. Guede is cynical; his jokes are mother's trim, when Lindberg sleeps prepared me for this. And much of Afro- he sent me a postcard from Warsaw
outrageous. He brings laughter even to with Bessie Smith and Norma Shearer American intellectual thought was where he had lectured on Vodun as a
the most serious moments and mocks makes it with Steppin' Fetchit, after all unreadable. Those texts aimed at the in­ possibility for becoming a rival or alter­
mushy sentimental, but he does it affec­ the dogs have fucked all the cats and ternational working class. native psychiatric technigue. You see,
tionately, winking at the houngan who • •very weather vane on every barn flies In 1973, Steve Cannon and I went into this starts off as folklore and then it gets
has guessed his game. If I am comparing off the roof to mount the hogs, then the service industry by publishing a into the clinic room and you see all these
Reed to Guede am I saying he is the loa there'll be a little love left for me. And I book. To show everybody where we were guys on Park Avenue going off to Brazil,
of death? No—that would be treating know just what it will feel like.' " Erzulie! coming from, we put a veve Voodoo Haiti-you know what I mean? See, they
both Guedg and Reed too superficially. or Zula! or Sula! Good, bad, right, symbol on the cover. When by "coin­ won't believe some poet—they'll say—
What is Guede? Guede is history. He is wrong—who is to say? cidence" the celebration for the book "there goes some poet making up
the repository of the past and the The 1980's has begun with the coincided with an exhibit of Haitian things."
possibility of the future; he is the most publication of a brilliant neo-hoodoo paintings in the same room—we knew We published a book by Faith Mit­
wise of all loas because he holds the novel by Toni Cade Bambara, entitled we were on the right track. The first book chell—this is also cited by Mickey Fried­
knowledge of the dead and the living." The Salt Eaters in which Mambo Minnie we published was primitive, charming man, Faith Mitchell's Hoodoo Medicine.
This is one of the many papers I have Ransom, who confers with the. dead and beautiful. People said they took it She does a comparative study of native
received from scholars and students cures, Velma who had been "fixed" by everywhere they went. An amulet is what American or Afro-American and Euro­
throughout America from different 1960's politics, the movement and you take wherever you go. In our ser­ American medicine as practiced in the
backgrounds and regions of the country. macho, self-centered men—milk boys, vice, the books, the products, were Georgia Sea Islands where for months at
Much Neo-hoodoo poetry has been welfare children, who leech off Welfare amulets. It was neo-hoodoo service. In a time, the slave master would leave the
published as well as several magazines. mothers. And those black Black 1979, we developed our skills so that we plantation and the slaves had to rely on
One is edited in Galveston, Texas, Aesthetic critics, critics, black and were able to publish the first novel ever their own ideas. Some of these med­
which has now become a neo-hoodoo white, they don't know what she is talk­ published by an American-born Chi­ icines probably work; I wouldn't be sur­
stronghold, called "Hoodoo." If you ing about. Nothing Victorian or Edwar­ nese male, which I think is a disgrace. It prised if there isn't a cure for cancer in
want to read what's really going on in dian literature has trained them for this. received the Pacific Northwest's some of this because when I read the
Afro-American poetry across the coun­ They wouldn't recognize the real black Bookseller's Award and the State of hoodoo literature, I read about symp­
try, I would recommend that you aesthetic if it walked up and asked them Washington's Governor's prize. Mickey toms which remind me of what happens
subscribe to "Hoodoo" Magazine. lor a light.-Minnie Ransom performed a Friedman of the San Francisco Examiner in cancer: people wasting away—pining
One only has to read the letters, ar­ service in her infirmary. The workers said that the "Crisis of Possession of away—the Mambo, or the houngan,
ticles and biographies of Afro-American didn't spend any time discussing Ger­ Vodun" which we published, which is would come in there and give them
writers and intellectuals to find that they man philosophy or fighting over who is written by the distinguished scholar, Dr. Panelists Ishamel Reed, Lavinia Williams,
spent a good deal of the last twenty years the most revolutionary, discussing the Louis Morris. Nobody can say he is some Hector Vega and Michael Auld- New
arguing about Marxism, Freudianism, late of the black community from a table kind of novelist or making up things— York University, 1980-
Existentialism—analyzing one another's In the Tin Palace; the workers had a pro­ the man has credentials. . . been to col- Photo: Marco Kalisch
unconscious and political motives,
fighting over bourgeois attention,
fighting over publisher's money, serving
as guides for those with a bent for the ex­
otic, or using literature as a way to gain
political power. All one has to do is press
a button—there goes one of them popp­
ing up, telling us how black he is or how
much he is devoted to the international
working class.
Hoodoo did not reflect a world of good
and bad or right and wrong. Hoodoo
reflected the world. Marie Leveau was a
reactionary, sided with the confederacy
in Louisiana, while Mammy Pleasant of
San Francisco was a radical who helped
to finance John Brown's raid onHarper's
Ferry and had more power than any
single individual in San Francisco of the
19th Century. They still talk about Mam­
my Pleasant.
Erzulie, the Voodoo goddess of Love,
could love you or destory you. In one of
the most successful neo-hoodoo works of
the '70's, Toni Morrison wrote about a
stateside Erzulie, Sula, Peace...who
says on her death bed—" 'Oh, they'll
love me all right. It will take time but
they will love me.' The sound of her
voice was as soft and distant as the look
in her eyes. 'After the old women have
lain with the teenagers, when all the
young girls have slept with their
drunken uncles, after all the black men
fuck all the white ones, when the white 43
 something like blackberry tea and they'd
mix it up. So we need, you know, some
Afro-American pharmacists to look into
these possibilities. Mickey Friedman
Saul Sosnowski said in the San Francisco Examin­
er... that the book we published was as
5 PUEBLO COURT
attractive as any book published by the
GAITHERSBURGH, MD. 20878 - U. S. A.
New York companies with their multi­
million dollar budgets and lists of junk
food. We have found that neo-hoodoo
Libros de Ediciones Hispamerica
was not only an aesthetic but part of a
Maria Luisa Bastos, Borges ante la critica argentina: 1923-1960, 356p., U$S8.00. large international system, a system
Hernan Vida, Literatura hispanoamericana e ideologia liberal: Surgimiento y beyond race and class, which will pro­
crisis, 120 p., U$S4.00. vide the key to advance in psychiatric
Saul Sosnowski, Borges y la Cabala; La busqueda del Verbo, 120 p., U$S3.50 medicine and biological medicine.
Oscar Hahn, Arte de morir (poemas), 186 p., U$S5.00. By 1980, no one was laughing or call­ ■V '<
Rose S. Mine, editor, Latin American Fiction Today: a symposium, 98 p., ing people crazy anymore. The New
U$S9.95. York Times Magazine Section carried a
Beatriz Pastor, Roberto Arlt y la rebelion alienada, 120, U$S7.95. long, serious articles on Voodoo—and 4
The San Francisco Chronicle, which, by
the way, is edited by cowboys; I think
maybe the Chronicle was founded in $
HISPAMERICA some kind of gunfight or maybe people
were shooting each other in the streets—
revista de literatura
gambling debts they couldn't pay and
some guy got the Chronicle—The San
TARIFAS DE SUSCRIPCIONES Francisco Chronicle reprinted the arti­ >
cle under the head "Is Woodoo Taking
Bibliotecas e instituciones: U$S 21.00 Over."
Suscripciones individuales: U$S 15.00 I just left uptown where we are doing a
Patrocinadroes: U$S 30.00 pilot of soap opera—a full-length soap
(Excepcion: Ano I, nos. 1-2-3 U$S 25.00) opera. Steve Cannon and I are now go­ JF If \rthur
ing into video because we believe that
neo-hoodoo is not just another attempt to
give western political ideas blackface.
We are talking about a process which
reaches across the centuries from the
time when there existed a worldwide
STONY HILLS religion. Because you find it all over, I
go among the Indians in the Pacific
northwest—they practice dance and BOOK COVERS THAT
TELL A STORY
possession; they have loas. In the
southwest, the same thing. One of my
native American students wrote on the
news & reviews of the small press similarities between Native American
Religion and the kind of things that Toni Although you can't tell a book by its at school or at a public library There's no
“. . . maintains the clear thought and valuable informa­ Cade Bambara is discussing in her book. cover, Con Edison believes you can charge. The book covers will protect your
tion similar reviews sorely lack.” — Home Planet News So this is a worldwide religion of posses­ learn a lot from book covers, especially books and give you something wonderful
sion and dance that we're talking about; if they tell the story of great Black to read on your way to school. If your
it's old as Kenya—you know—Kenya! people in history You can read about school or library doesn't have these book
When we went to school they always Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lorraine covers, just ask your
talked about the Tigris Euphrates Valley
Hansberry Paul Robeson, —teacher to write Leandra H.
as the source of civilization, but I just
Fannie Lou Hamer, Abbott, Manager of Urban
read an article where they said they
found grain—10,000 years old in Kenya. Madame C.J. Walker, Ralph Affairs, Con Edison,
So voodoo is that old and as advanced as Bunche, Langston Hughes, 4 Irving Place, New York,
Interviews, Poetry, Reviews, News, Photos... Lewis H. Latimer, and others. Il
the most advanced technology. New York 10003.
Coming Up: A look at nuclear power & now The author of a book called The Slave lb get your book covers I
Religion has pleased the missionaries that tell a story ask for them 1
SMALL PRESS NEWS with his announcement that the African
Single copy: $2.00 a monthly newsletter of small gods, died in North America. Whereas,
Subscription: $4

Still available: #10 - THE BEATS, with

Holmes. Huncke, Tytell. loans. Charters.
McNally. Nicosia & others —
Anti-Reaganomics Offer: $12 will get you 2 years of Stony Hills
arid 1 year of Small Press News.
44
press information & commen­
tary. edited by Diane Kruchkow
— “the l.F. Stone of the small
press.” (Downeast Librarian)
$5/year.
Weeks Mills
New Sharon, ME
04955
if he had asked me—I could have given
him the address of three botanicas in San
Francisco alone. They even have one in
the mission district in San Francisco;
YOURS FROM CON EDISON
they have them uptown here in New
York.
We do not believe that the gods died.
If they are observed seriously enough
we'll find that being the great Mummers
they are, they've only changed their
costumes.
II

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