Origins of the Cultural Relic of Junkanoo

by Larry Smith

"It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle. Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations."

This is not a description of the lead-up to Junkanoo. It was written by a Roman not long after the death of Jesus. The writer, Seneca, was referring to the celebration of Saturnalia, a time marked by “drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, and singing naked.”

During this time the slaves also had licence to ridicule their masters - something scholars mistakenly refer to as 'social inversion'.

But Saturnalia has even more ancient roots. It was all about the winter solstice - which has to do with the tilt of the Earth as it spins on its axis. As someone once said, "The cycles of nature have been here since before there were people to even mark their turning."

The midwinter celebration of the solstice is perhaps the world's oldest and most universal cultural event. It is the time after which the days get progressively longer and warmer. It is a calendrical hinge -- the day that the sun returns, or is reborn.

This might escape most people today, but it was clearly big stuff in ancient times. For example, Newgrange - a 5,000-year-old site in Ireland that is older than Stonehenge - was built to receive a shaft of sunlight into its central chamber at dawn on the winter solstice. And a 6,000-year-old stone circle in southern Egypt is said to be the world's oldest astronomically aligned site.

The early Church superimposed Christ's mass on the old celebration of the sun, and Christmas gradually took on the form we know today, borrowing from many pagan traditions across Europe. In the Bahamas, Junkanoo has always happened at Christmas - the time of the winter solstice - as a matter of necessity. It was the only holiday that enslaved Africans in the New World were allowed.

That's because Junkanoo is a cultural relic - "a vestige of African rituals" that survives today only in our little country. But since agricultural calendars and rain schedules were as important in Africa as elsewhere, there are literally hundreds of stone circles scattered across the continent. And among some West African peoples, the sun god traditionally presides over December and the doors of houses are aligned to the midwinter sunset.

According to the late Bahamian scholar, Clement Bethel, Junkanoo originated as "a fusion of disparate elements" from West African cultures. Among them were the harvest festivals of tribes in what is now Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. These festivals featured secret societies, masked and costumed dancers, as well as feasting and drinking.

There are many theories as to where the actual term, Junkanoo (or John Canoe), came from, but Bethel and others seem to lean towards the Kono dances of the Bambara people of Mali and the Ivory Coast. In these cultures, the Kono society was a custodian of tradition, and dancers used animal masks in agricultural rituals.

In fact, masked folk dancing, involving the stamping of feet and the wearing of animal headdresses, is an early part of most cultures. And since we all emerged from Africa some 80,000 years ago, the origins of Junkanoo can be seen as an expression of primal religion - a homage to the ancient Earth goddess.

Once the most important slave celebration of the English New World, Junkanoo was a Christmastime activity in Belize, St Vincent and Jamaica - all the way up to Bermuda and North Carolina.

As Yale University professor Jonathon Holloway explained: "When slaves found themselves on plantations without another member of their own African community to turn to, the merging of their similar rituals and traditions soon took place, rituals and traditions...based on numerous West and Central African cultures brought together collectively..." to preserve connections with the past.

Junkanoo died in America soon after emancipation, but the following description by a former slave named Harriet Jacobs is reminiscent of the Bahamian Junkanoo of the time:

"Every child rises early on Christmas morning to see the Johnkankus...These companies of a hundred each, turn out early in the morning and are allowed to go around until midnight...Cows' tails are fastened to their backs, and their heads are decorated with horns. A box, covered with sheepskin, is called the gumbo box. A dozen beat on this, while others strike triangles and jawbones, to which bands of dancers keep time."

Speculation is that the celebration withered in the face of racial disdain. In fact, American experts say the derogatory term 'coon' is derived from John Canoe. And we all know what being a 'Junkanoo' used to mean among Bahamians. The activity survived here largely due to the thousands of liberated Africans who were settled on the islands by the British after the abolition of the slave trade.

The pre-Lenten carnivals held in Trinidad, Brazil, New Orleans and other places have similar African roots, but are regarded as a blend of European influences that fit appropriately into the Catholic calendar. Junkanoo, however, was seen more as a challenge to Christmas and the European establishment - a resistance to domination.

But whatever its origins, Junkanoo today is not African at all. It is uniquely Bahamian. As Clement Bethel's daughter, Nicolette, wrote recently, "Junkanoo is fundamental to, not incidental to, Bahamian identity...the festival can take anything into itself and remake it."

And it does just that - twice every year.

Comments

[Haldane Chase]

Thank you for your very informative and engaging article, which I read with much interest.

I must, however, first of all, take issue with the term "cultural relic", as I consider it far too reductive, given its state of development and the enormous space that Junkanoo occupies within the Bahamian psycho-cultural and aesthetic reality.

Secondly, your concluding assertion that "whatever its origins, Junkanoo today is not African at all" left me wondering where to locate the drums, rhythms, dances/movement, preference for bright colours -- all aspects of the tangible and intangible African cultural heritage.

To state superlatively that "Junkanoo today is not African at all" is, in my opinion, not at all correct. Remember, the products resulting from the processes of creolization/hybridization, while new and unique creations, affirm rather than negate the original contributing components. For example, pasta may have come to symbolize Italian cuisine, but the informed diner recognizes its undeniable link to its Chinese origin. So then, I think it would be more accurate to say that Junkanoo may not be "purely African", but it is indeed "more than just African", thanks to other cultural influences found in the present day manifestation of the practice.

In closing, I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to you for your fine and consistent efforts to present important ideas and themes for general information and discussion.

[larry smith]

I am always grateful for comment and advice.

I used the word 'relic' in the same sense that Clement Bethel described Junkanoo as a "vestige of African rituals".

As an African activity I think it can be characterised that way.

And it was also Clement who claimed that Junkanoo was 'uniquely Bahamian'. I admit to adding the 'not African' part to pique the interest of readers.

Noodles may not be uniquely Italian but pasta with pesto sauce probably is, or was.

Thanks for the kind words.