By Kerrie Bynoe |
In the harsh years of slavery, the men and women in the Caribbean still found a
way to hold on to their cultural identities.
In their small circles, enslaved men and women referred to each other by their African names, they danced and sang to the beat of the African drum and they still found ways of satisfying their African tastes.
Dr. Marcia Burrowes examined the activities of the enslaved in the Caribbean during the Barbados Museum and Historical Society’s Tuesday night lecture, which saw a number of interested persons turning up at the Solidarity House to learn more about ‘How the enslaved lived’.
As she focused on the culture of the enslaved, Burrowes said that some of the everyday practices of the men and women on the plantations in the Caribbean were customs that were still being carried out to this very day, by 21st century West Indian men and women.
“They were seen shelling pigeon peas, grinding corn, boiling yam, roasting corn… and fishing. These were the everyday activities that plantation managers made note of,” said Burrowes.
Speaking specifically about the practice of roasting corn, the historian said that the plantation owners saw this as a very unusual activity.
“As the years go on, it is interesting to note that many of the White Barbadians and others who are living in the island are also eating roasted corn as well. So that is an example of the creolisation process,” noted Burrowes, who went on to point out that the food practices of the enslaved were a good indicator of how culture is produced and reproduced.
“The actual activity of grinding corn provide an excellent opportunity to understand how the enslaved produced and reproduced their culture,” she continued.
Several observers have commented about the integration of corn into the diet of the slaves, specifically highlighting the strength needed to carry out this activity manually.
Barbadians have benefited greatly from its ancestors persistent effort to keep this food in their diets, despite the hard work needed. Cultural foods like corn bread, cou-cou and conkies are all by-products of cornmeal which is a by-product of the labour intensive ground corn.
Burrowes went on to make reference to the medicinal and spiritual practices of the slaves, noting that these activities went hand in hand, especially since the African background influenced and informed these practices and created a strong link between illnesses and supernatural forces.
The concept of Obeah is one that has been derived from the times of slavery, and because of the many opinions and ideas attached to this practice, it is actually being revisited. Burrowes said,
“There is such an ethnocentric view of what Obeah is, and what it has been throughout the territories, but present scholars are finding that we really need to rework our way of looking at Obeah”.
One cannot examine African social and cultural activities without looking at time spent in dance and song. The historian quoted several plantation owners who had observed the practices of their slaves, and while many of them found the celebratory activities to be loud and somewhat chaotic, the many comments on African song and dance proved that these practices were hard to ignore.
Speaking about the ability of the slaves to sing and dance while their freedom was being taken away, Burrowes said, “There was a system of oppression, but the enslaved found ways and means of recreating a human existence and they struggled to create a sense of being”.