African Cultural Forms in the Caribbean up to 1838
Religion
Though the planters tried to stifle the indigenous religion, much cultural retention
occurred. The slaves held on to their beliefs and practices as much as and where
possible. Here are some of them:
- Life after death.
- The spirit world: duppies or ghosts.
- The forces of good and evil and the constant struggle between the two.
- That the dead are still a part of the community.
- Two types of magic. Obeah- used to inflict hurt or harm and Myalism- used to promote
life, love, health, and success. Both involved the use of herbs, oils, potions, etc.
- A lot of music and dance in their expressions of worship.
- Ancestral spirits and that one can actually make contact with them and that they are
constantly watching over us.
- Chanting of songs.
- Gods of nature- rain, thunder, lightning and fertility.
- Highest respect for Mother earth.
Food
The slaves had to prepare their own meals. They did it the way they were taught back
home in Africa. Also, the fact that they were allowed to grow their own provisions meant
that they were able to choose what to grow- example, yam, coco, dasheen, etc. They
continued their culinary skills. Trinidadian slaves had the luxury of beans and palm oils
as they would have had in Africa.
Dress
They were given either two suits of clothing per year or the equivalent yards of
osnaburg. This is a type of rough khaki also called guinea blue or Dutch stripes. The
women would wrap themselves with the cloth the way they would have in Africa to form
dresses or skirts. And of course, they did not forget their “tie head’’.
Language
The slaves came from different areas and ethnic groups in West Africa and so spoke
different languages. This forced them to create a new tongue we now know as patois or
local creole. But several African words survived such as mumu, all yuh, nyam, pickney
and jumbie.
Music and Dance
They had all sorts of songs, work or digging songs as we have learnt, love songs, songs
of sorrow, songs of joy and so on. In fact, it seems as if they had a song for every
occasion just as they had a proverb to fit every situation. Their music had a lot of rhythm
and beat. It involved the use of instruments such as: Tambourines, Banjos, Flutes,
Rattles, and Xylophones. Their dance had a lot of movement and passion, involving
gyration of the hip and pelvic areas and the shaking of the rear. This was seen as vulgar
by many of the whites, though secretly they were aroused by it, no wonder they
understood its sexual importance and described it as debauchery. Types of dance
included: Dinkie, Minnie, Kumina, and Brukins.
Medicine
Traditional African Medicine is a holistic discipline involving extensive use of indigenous
herbalism combined with aspects of African spirituality. The Africans fiercely resisted the
medicinal practices of the Europeans and preferred to use their indigenous methods of
healing. The Africans used a lot of herbs and plants to treat ailments. They also
believed that not only the physical body should be free from illness but the spirit as well.
African healers not only used plants and herbs to cure ailments but also charms,
incantations, and the casting as spells. The individual should be both physically and
spiritually sound.
Storytelling
The spoken word was important to Africans who used it to transfer vital information to
the next generation. This was called oral tradition, which allowed them to keep their
history, culture, values and language alive. Griots would sing, recite poems or act out
themes around fire. Many use imagery and analogy to teach young people life lessons,
values, morals and skills. Enslaved people continued this tradition on the plantation.
They used it to keep the people together in solidarity, rally them for a cause and inform
them about events on the island. The most famous stories that have survived are the
Akan stories of Anansi the trickster spider. These stories taught important moral lessons
which were used to guide the young generation to develop acceptable habits.
Reasons it was difficult for slaves to retain their Culture
1. The opposition which they faced from the planters who instituted laws to suppress
aspects of the culture, like drumming and obeah.
2. Planters discouraged the slaves from practising their dances, which some mistakenly
described as devil worship.
3. Slaves were not encouraged to practise their tribal religions but, instead, were
sometimes baptized into the Euro-Christian churches so as to try to destroy their link
with their native religion, since they worked for most of the daylight hours.
4. During the ‘’seasoning’’ period, definite attempts were made to ‘’deculturize’’ the
slaves as they were taught the language of the master and forbidden to use their own
tribal languages.
5. The planters tried to ensure that their slaves were from different ethnic groups so that
they would not unite around common customs.
6. Marriages and families were never encouraged in the British colonies.
7. In some cases, planters deliberately separated family members so as to deprive the
male of any other object of his loyalty other than the planter himself.
8. Slaves were robbed of their African names that would allow them to identify with their
African origin, and given European names.
9. The slaves’ fear of the severe punishment that could result from disobeying anti-
African cultural laws and regulations.
10. Their need for survival, which was guaranteed only by loyalty to, and cooperation
with, the whites, meant that some of them were extremely cautious about continued
participation in traditional cultural activities which planters frowned upon.
Ways in which slaves resisted planters and retained some aspects of their
Culture
1. The slaves congregated late at nights and in secret which was against the law.
2. Some plantation owners used obeahmen as supplements to doctors. This was
intended to be a cost effective measure but provided the slaves with the opportunity to
pass down herbal secrets and practices of their forefathers.
3. Others used or allowed the obeahmen to continue his practice as a means of driving
fear in the slaves.
4. The slaves conducted their own funeral services and so the tradition and practices
were preserved with each successive funeral that they performed. Of course, the
planter did not attach any significance to these ceremonies so he did not attend them.
His absence gave the slaves the opportunity to do their own thing and so preserve their
heritage.
5. The slaves used their own language when communicating. This includes the
language of the drums and other musical instruments. As more slaves were bought and
brought to the estates, the languages revived.
6. They kept their dances and songs, and the planters, at times, believed that when they
danced and sang, it was a sign of their contentment, and so left them alone.
7. They held on to the rhythm of African music and revelry.
8. The slaves were given some amount of leniency at Christmas time in particular. They
managed to mix and hide their religion within the established faith. For example,
Pocomania is a mixture of the Roman Catholic faith and the African religion.
Reasons slaves were able to keep aspects of their Culture
1. Firstly, mortality rate was very high on the estates. This meant that the planters had to
constantly buy new slaves. Though he tried to buy slaves from different areas, the
reality was that most planters liked to buy slaves from a particular area of the West
African coast because they were known for their hard work and industrial skills.
2. The slaves had a strong determination to continue to practice their culture.
3. They practiced some aspects like drumming and obeah secretly because any
evidence of these cold have dire consequences including death for the adherents.
4. The large number of slaves helped to keep the culture alive as they were able to
strengthen the will and the memory of one another, so that what some were afraid to do,
others would dare to do, and what some forgot, others would remind them of.
5. Many of the slaves who came were young, and they had a strong recollection of their
cultural practices and so, although they were robbed of the material aspects when they
were taken from Africa, they could use what was available locally to recreate what they
had lost.
6. The planters’ ignorance of the significance of some aspects of the culture caused
them to encourage or ignore some and outlaw others and so, even though the John
Canoe dance, for example, was fraught with rebellious overtones, the planters did not
understand that, and so they allowed the slaves to practice it freely.
7. They were able to pass on aspects of their culture to succeeding generations through
their strong oral tradition, which was encouraged by the quasi-communal lifestyle, which
they maintained.
8. Their obeahmen were responsible for the survival of the culture as they provided bold
leadership and defied the odds in order to maintain their practices.
