Blackwood Meeks
Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
"The Jamaican culture is not dead. Maybe some Jamaicans are dead to it. It is simply made available to those who care about it enough to recognise it as it presents itself to them".
THAT'S A ROUGH paraphrase of a conclusion arrived at by Elean Thomas and myself as we sat recently discussing aspects of our uniqueness and the similarities of that uniqueness to present features of various West Indian cultural practices. This time it was about how we bid farewell to those who have made the transition.
In December 2002, the sister of my close friend Dorothy Noel, died. At the Nine Night in January 2003, there was an older Jamaican gentleman who, according to Dorothy "took a shine" to me. He led the singing most lustily and called us to Nine Night protocol whenever we strayed. Several times during the night he referred to the deceased in the masculine gender.
Knowing that we have inherited this from our ancestors it did not in the least seem odd to me. Everyone assumed that he either lived in the community, Braeton, or else came with someone who was legitimately connected. Let me hasten to add that he rushed neither the food nor the drink and it was clear that his was a different mission.
Well, after the funeral Dorothy was to let me know that she had a story about "my boyfriend." At the close of the Nine Night she offered to assist him get back to Stony Hill. Somewhere in the vicinity of the Causeway he began to express his delight in the proceedings and more in the fact that "the man deserve it for him was a good man." That is where Dorothy concluded that he must have come to the wrong Nine Night. No, he had listened to the death announcements during the week and selected the Nine Night he was going to attend.
Furthermore, based on the date for the funeral he had worked out when the Nine Night had to be.
After Dorothy and I laughed and talked all kinds of stories about Funeral Tetess I had to find this man to discover why it was so important to him to travel by bus from Stony Hill to a place in Braeton I could not have found without an escort, to sing for someone whose gender he did not even know. "Because some Jamaicans don't give the proper send-off".
Did you know that there are people in this country whose mission it is to ensure that those who have completed their journey on this plane make it safely and properly to the next level? They decide, from all the "twings and twangs" they hear on the death announcements, which family needs help to "do de ting de rightful way" and singly or in groups they find themselves to the venue. "My boyfriend" is only one such.
My father died on March 4. As far as I was aware, from my Kingston upbringing, nobody in this new place in which we have lived for only two months would do anything but the usual "Sorry to hear". For the first three nights, just family and immediate neighbours, (read those living a mile away), set up and did the usual. Day four, with the convenience of it being a Friday was for the wider family, friends and neighbours. The Lord would have used the occasion to answer the question, "Lord, who is my neighbour?" The following day I heard about the occasion in Highgate, Port Maria and Annotto Bay. Night fell and I prepared to sleep since my siblings and I had decided that the next time we did this would be the night before the funeral. Wrong again. The next night and the next night and the next night...I counted more neighbours, for the protocol of the "dead year" is that it is to be continuous gathering until the burial. And there was no room for any Kingston adjustment.
Did you know that people charter taxis to go to dead yard? It is a big village happening and you need not know the deceased, neither do you need an invitation...much like a country wedding. You simply turn up because someone needs you. One day my yard was full of villagers, some of whom had taken time off from their paid jobs to "take charge of the digging" and fetching bamboo and making the booth and benches and whatever else had to be constructed for those who would be attending. And I am still getting reports of everything else that went on around me as well as apologies from persons who "sorry we cudden attend de dead yard".
At the first "public" set up, where non-family members were "invited" most people sat around politely till my friend MBala sounded the first note on his drums, then they loosened a bit. Things really got loose after I did the first round of Dinki Mini, and became a "person" as opposed to Amina Blackwood Meeks, at which time information flowed about where to find the lead Dinki Mini man in the parish and which songs were a must for the occasion.
For the final night, my friend Sister P came with her Kumina drummers from Portland and people along the route some 20 kilometres from my house could tell her where they were going and cheered them on. Imagine this...late into the night I am standing at my gate inspecting traffic...a chartered taxi arrives (one of three that I counted) and out come some bashment girls. They survey the gathering and one of them exclaims, "Me neva know Amina Blackwood Meeks come to dese tings".
One day my brother who lives in Spanish Town visited the funeral home in Port Maria minutes after I had left there. He reported to me that persons stopped him on the street to inform him that his sister had just been there then paid their respects.
Patrice Malidoma of Burkina Faso informs us that in the culture of his people, grief and loss cannot be considered individual affairs. The community is duty-bound to take charge of the grieving so that they can also take charge of the healing. According to Malidoma, those in charge of the pertinent rituals are known as the gatekeepers but you have to be involved in the rituals to know who they are.
No, the Jamaican culture is not dead. It is guarded jealously by those who choose to reveal it to persons they believe will have respect for it, especially in this globalised environment.
I use this opportunity to thank everyone in Crawle, Kilancholly, Highgate, Port Maria, San Side, Annotto Bay and others "too numerous to mention" who came out as "gatekeepers" to ensure that "de ting done properly" and who taught me so much in the process about a Jamaican farewell.
