African heritage is soul of Caribbean

The learned Prof Maureen Warner-Lewis spoke on “African Heritage in the Caribbean” at the National Library (Hart and Abercromby streets) before a packed audience. The professor said work was perhaps the main legacy contributed by Africans in the Caribbean.

“It was the main reason for the African presence, and it was because of our (perceived) capacity for labour, Africans were brought to the Caribbean,” she said. Africans, she said, have contributed centuries of unpaid labour to the Americas, and even afterwards they have been poorly paid for their contribution to labour. She outlined that plantation/agricultural labour was centred mainly on sugarcane, tobacco, coffee and coco cultivation.

“Clearing lands, building roads, bridges, forts, aqueducts, windmills, lighthouses, public buildings and so on were therefore all centred on agriculture and the profit to be had from it, and of course all these tasks were carried out by Africans,” she told an attentive audience.

Their contributions to food supplies as well were significant — subsistence farming, commercial agricultural trade, Sunday market, etc, all have significant African backgrounds. “The role of women in the Caribbean as market sellers is also a West African trait. Women selling certain kinds of crops is also West African because there would generally be a gender-based division of labour, that is men specialised in certain kinds of crops — yams etc, and women grew and sold green leafy vegetables, creepers like pumpkin, and so on. Inter-island trade in ground provisions/ veggies is still significant today,” she said.

The professor said the heritage of certain foods — yams, dasheens, eddoes, bananas, plantains and the ackee, all have their basis in African culture. The ackee, for example, which is extremely popular in Jamaica, was and is well liked by the peoples in and around the Dahomey area in West Africa.

There the ackee is eaten with meat, in Jamaica it is similarly eaten with salt fish. Bene (sesame seeds) from which we make “bene balls,” is another example of a common African food finding its place in Caribbean cuisine.

She noted that the Africans didn’t necessarily bring these foodstuffs to the Caribbean (at least not during the period of enslavement), but they were fed them. The Guinea corn in Barbados is another example of a staple African food from which we have derived our affinity for cornmeal foods. Coo-coo (a cornmeal dish) is cooked with okra commonly in the Caribbean. Meals such as oil down (known as rin down in Jamaica) are also African-based.

A number of words that came from the West African heritage form part of the Caribbean dialect. “Day clean,” is a reference to the light cleaning the face of the world. It means “first light/dawn.” This is a West African metaphor. “Wari” is a game from the Gold Coast that is similar to draughts and is still played in Antigua today. “Susu” is a word based on the Yoruba word “esusu” meaning a rotation of funds to persons who have contributed to a central banker; a sharing of capital.

This practice is done commonly throughout West Africa. A general misconception is that the word had its origins in the French word for “cent.” “Moomoo,” a word meaning stupid, or dumb, and “booboo,” meaning “cold” in the eyes, are also African based words. “Anansi” likewise is a chief character of folk tales in the Gold Coast. “Jumbi” is a word from Angola meaning a ghost, an entity that returns from the dead. “Locho” is a Congo word meaning “cheap; mean; stingy” that has found its way to the Caribbean. “Tabanka” or its variant (without the nasal consonants “n or m”) —“Tabaka,” is a Congo word meaning sold out or bought out completely. So from this we have the Caribbean word “tabanka/tabaka” meaning completely lost in love.

Warner-Lewis said “Caribbean musical instruments” have also been significantly influenced by our African heritage. The shapes and constructions of drums, the way they are made, are West African in nature. The drum-making process in Suriname can be traced to Ghana. “Tambu” is a Congolese word for drum. And the tamboo bamboo, bottle and spoon and steel percussion from cowbells, iron wheels and steelpans produce tones that are very West African.

The development of a steelpan orchestra is an African concept. In Africa, there are entire orchestras made up of a single type of instrument — similar to the steelpan concept. With elephant horns, for example, an orchestra can be built, and the major difference, like with the steelpan, is one of tone. Drums can form an orchestra as well.

In the traditional African world view, there is a nearness of the spirit world and an importance attached to dreams — the idea that people believe that spirits talk to them is a Caribbean trait based in Africa.

The concepts behind obeah and the use of charms/amulets relate to the belief that some people can exercise greater spiritual, psychological and mental force over the person who does not have adequate energy to repel them.

For example, if you believe someone can hurt or cure you, half the battle is already lost or won.

So the concept is that of a contest of energy fields, and the victim must believe that such a sign can affect them, and that weakens their energy and renders them fallible.

Reconciliation with the dead ancestors for paths to be prosperous and for all to be well is an African concept translated in the Caribbean. In St Lucia, unsalted foods are offered up to the dead, and remnants of this practice can be seen in the Rastafarian community which believes that eating salted foods will weaken one’s spiritual force.

Warner-Lewis said street parades began in Africa as part of their public functions. “Kambule” is a Congo word meaning a parade/procession accompanied by call and response and percussion.

The idea of spirits being hidden behind masks of shredded banana leaves or other materials, as well as having the body daubed with paint or mud are also African.

The concept of dangerous spirits being restrained by chains is also African — the Devil Mas and Dragon Mas are examples. Moko jumbies trace their roots to Africa as well, and many dance choreographies are almost unchanged coming from the continent to the islands.

Warner-Lewis’s lecture was generally informative and was very well received. A question and answer segment followed for about ten minutes.