Jacqueline 'Jackie' Lawrence (left) and Dares 'Ma B' Dobbins share their memories of Naggo Head, St Catherine.

If you tell most residents of Portmore, St Catherine, to meet you in Rosemary Castle, they will not have any idea where to go.

However, if you tell them to meet you in Naggo Head, they will know the quaint community which is the gateway between Greater Portmore and the rest of Portmore. But Rosemary Castle is the correct name of the community which all Jamaica has come to know as Naggo Head, and persons who pay property tax in the area will tell you that official documents still reflect the decades-old name.

Naggo Head, in South St Catherine, is bordered by Cumberland, Braeton, Bridgeport and Greater Portmore and is a stone's throw away from the popular Hellshire Beach.

Name change through usage

According to folklore, the name change came about through usage.

"A long time ago there was an Indian man whose name was Naggo, and he was beheaded and his head placed on a pole in the square where everybody passed pointed to Naggo's head, and a so the place get its name," Dares 'Ma B' Dobbins told The Gleaner recently.

'Ma B' has lived in Naggo Head for all her 50-plus years and, while she has no clue if the story is true or not, it has been retold so many times that she has come to believe it. And she is not the only one.

"Yes, I hear the story about Naggo's head from as long as I can remember," said Jacqueline 'Jackie' Lawrence, who has lived in the community for more than 40 years.

Jackie noted that other sections of the community have also had their names changed over time.

For example, the banks of the canal in the community is now known as 'West Bank', while there is 'Casino Lane' which the women said was named after the Cassey family which once owned all the land in that area.

Kings Lane, Foster Lane and Vietnam Lane are some of the other names added to the area over time.

"Is when town (Kingston) get bad (1970s) and people pack up them things and come over here them started to name the places," Jackie said.

"The area now have more buildings with brick and mortar instead of the trees and bushes which were here when me was little," added 'Ma B'.

"We did have two standpipe where we did go catch drinking water and one and two people did have electricity. We used to bathe in the canal where water used to come from over United Fruit Company. But the water did clean and we used to catch fish and shrimps in it," 'Ma B' quipped as she remembered the days.

"But when the other factories built over here them make them waste run into the canal and the water get dirty so we no bother go inna the canal anymore," she said.

More motor vehicles

The movement of motor vehicles through the community is also a major change which the women have seen over the years.

"There was a time when a only on Saturday when racing at Caymanas Park we would see many vehicles, the other days you could lay down in the road fi all three hours an' no vehicle no pass," Jackie said.

She was supported by 'Ma B', who noted that two buses served the entire community and bicycles were the main form of transport.

"You would see the men and women riding them bicycle to Spanish Town to go watch movie, or the women with them load on them head on them bicycle," added 'Ma B'.

As expected, Naggo Head has gone through many changes over time, but for the women there is no better place in Portmore, St Catherine.

"We have we crime like everywhere else in Jamaica but Naggo Head still all right."

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com

A lone motor vehicle moves through the streets of Naggo Head. - Photos by Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer