Join us over the course of this year for our “Look We!” series as we spotlight familiar, and perhaps not so familiar, sights and sounds of Antigua and Barbuda, and publish updates on the Antigua and Barbuda ICH Project.
In this first edition of Look We!, we spotlight the familiar colourful sight and melodious sounds of Mark Washington, pan-maker and souvenir vendor, who plies his trade during the tourism high/peak season at his long-held spot on lower St. Mary’s Street in St. John’s, outside of the City Store.
“I can make any size of pan, small tin pans or the regular steel pan,” Washington will be sure to tell you!
Exciting times are ahead! By January’s end, Antigua and Barbuda will be launching a first-of-its-kind mammoth project that will inventory, promote, and safeguard important elements of our cultural heritage.
Cultural Advisor and the project’s manager, Dr. Hazra C. Medica, will be joined by Reginald Murphy CN, MBE, GOH, PhD, Antigua and Barbuda’s UNESCO National Commission Secretary-General, to guide the implementation of this crucial intersectoral and inter-ministerial project.
Dr. Hazra C. MedicaReginald Murphy, CN, MBE, GOH, PhD
In 2020, the nation secured US$ 97,754, / EC$ 264,185.07 in funding from the highly competitive UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund for a 19-month-long project. The project title: Strengthening Capacities for the Implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in Antigua and Barbuda. In the coming months, it will be referred to as “The ICH Project”.
Similar to the now-concluded UNESCO IFCD-sponsored project, the Antigua and Barbuda Cultural Industries Mapping Project, The ICH Project will create several firsts for the nation. It will result in the nation’s first-ever national living heritage inventory/registry, with the input and involvement of communities across Antigua and Barbuda. The inventory/registry is meant to raise awareness of key living heritage elements, their viability status, and sustainable pathways to safeguard them.
There will also be a one-year Warri revival programme that will involve legendary Warri players, including Grandmaster Trevor Simon (CN), train five hundred and fifty (550) students and fifty (50) members of the business community, churches, community, and sports groups in the history and sport of playing Warri.
Warri is an African cultural retention whose survival undermines the amnesia thrust upon our enslaved African forebearers and their descendants. The skill of playing the game and the intricacies of making Warri boards has persisted through intergenerational transmission. In 1993, a Caribbean Beat Magazine article declared Antigua and Barbuda “the last bastion of Warri in the Caribbean”. Our players have long been highly visible internationally as world champions.
A typical Antiguan scene: Warri being played at the West Bus Station in St. Johns.
As a part of this programme, eighteen (18) young people— one group drawn from vocational programmes, and another from within our prison—will also receive training to create Warri boards for local purchase. This will allow for the transmission of the knowledge and continuity of the skills associated with making Warri boards, and allow greater public access to them.
Competitively priced Warri boards will also ensure earning opportunities will arise for the newly trained artisans. Moreover, tree-planting exercises will be undertaken to increase the number of Caesalpinia Crista trees, the source of the seeds used in Warri.
Additionally, there will be a boatbuilding programme, in which six (6) selected youths will be trained by a traditional boatbuilder to build a tradition-inspired seaworthy vessel. The process will be thoroughly documented for posterity and public dissemination. The intention is to use the programme to elaborate localised occupation standards, certification, and curricula in the field and widen our youths’ maritime skills and the maritime opportunities available to them.
Traditional sailing boats were once built and used in large numbers in Antigua. The backbone of commerce, they transported goods and people from the land to larger ships anchored in deeper water offshore. In the early years before automobiles and asphalt roads were established, they also transported produce from coastal areas around the island. Over the years several varieties were developed according to their intended function. But in general, the most common vessel type was the sloop. While larger vessels, such as schooners were built for long range trade and transportation, the smaller sloops were versatile, fast, and easy to handle.
Text courtesy Reginald Murphy CN, MBE, GOH, PhD.
Photos courtesy boatbuilder Mr. Alford Cochrane (who also appears in the foreground in the third photo).
Other components of the project will include diverse cultural exhibitions, the publication of a short book based on the Precision Centre’s cultural heritage documentary series, and a programme designed to teach youths traditional toy-making using recycled and indigenous materials.
The ICH Project originally meant for a 2022 launch and to span 19 months will be launched, with a revised timeline, by the end of January 2024. It was formulated by Cultural Advisor, Dr. Hazra C. Medica, after eight months of consultations with representatives from the private, public, and civil sectors. The project’s proposal was refined with assistance from the Heritage Department of the National Parks Authority—Reginald Murphy CN, MBE, GOH, PhD (now retired), Dr. Christopher Waters, and Desley Gardner (MA)—and (then) researcher in the Department of Culture, Mr. Anderson O’Marde.
The ICH Project is designed to address the urgent need, long voiced by the public, to safeguard important elements of our living heritage before they vanish. It will also bring to the forefront hitherto untapped economic activities and opportunities existing within our traditional knowledge, skills, and cultural heritage.
What do you remember or know of some of our ole time Christmas traditions? Do you know of the John Bull, the Long Ghost, or the Portuguese Band? What about the Jazz Band, the Minstrel Band, and the Monkey Band? Courtesy, the National Museum of Antigua and Barbuda, let us travel back to ole time Christmas with a brief look a two popular masquerade characters: Long Ghosts and John Bulls.
The Long Ghosts
LONG GHOSTS with their heads levelled to the galleries above the ground floor of merchant’s homes, once numerous in the city, roamed the streets in search of Christmas donations.
Drawing by Dan Mendes
If a donation was not forthcoming, a string inside the ‘ghost’ was pulled. This made the arms wave about, giving an added sinister effect, and it showed that the operator was displeased!
Long Ghosts were about 12 feet from the head to street level. The top section was a cylindrical shaped mask with cuts for eyes, nose, and grotesque figuration of teeth through which a lighted candle would throw its illumination sufficiently to light the immediate surroundings.
The mask was inscribed on both sides. This gave a kind of Janus Head (two-headed) effect that gave the illusion of the ‘ghost’ facing you though the operator’s back was turned.
John Bulls
John Bulls were tended by a ‘Cattle Tender’. With the crack of the whip, the ‘cattle tender’ would tease the bull. The bull would then shoot off in the direction of the crowd of children or grownups and plough through them and they would scatter.
The John Bull costume was sometimes just a sugar crocus bag with the head cut out and two armholes, with a big piece of rope around the waist.
To absorb the blows from the whip, the back of the John Bulls’ costume would be stuffed with grass or straw, giving them a hunchback appearance.
On the head, bulls had a cow’s horn clamped onto a rigid piece of cloth. The head was also padded with a big ‘catacoo’, which was a soft support.
Drawing by E. T. Henry
The John Bulls generally wore a mask, but sometimes blackened their faces with grease and paint and sprinkling with a little fine chalk dust. They looked very grotesque.
Some of the best John Bulls came from the villages to town, but most of them were porters or stevedores, men who would hang around the rum shops on Long Street.
The description of these two masquerade characters was reprinted, in large part, from the Historical and Archaeological Society (HAS)– the National Museum of Antigua and Barbuda Newsletter No. 144.
Photos and drawings courtesy of the National Museum of Antigua and Barbuda.
On November 1st, 1981, Antigua and Barbuda became a fully independent sovereign state. We celebrate the nation’s 42nd Anniversary of Independence with a glimpse through the “family album” of text, images, and videos; snapshots of our journey to Independence in the decades leading up to 1981 (and beyond).
Tell us, what images, videos, and memories would make your Independence “family album”?
The 1900s to the present: The journey to the Antigua Recreation Grounds.
Released in 1955, three sixteen-person steel bands—Big Shell, Brute Force and Hell’s Gate—come together to provide a sampling of lively music from Antigua. ↩︎
For this Cook recording, the Brute Force Steel Band of Antigua performs mambos, rumbas, sambas, calypsos and meringues plus a march and a bolero. (Released 1955.) ↩︎
In the streets of Antigua shortly following WWII, The Brute Force Steel Band began as one of the ensembles that would pioneer Caribbean steel pan music. These calypsos, meringues, sambas, tangos and pops were a staple of the annual Carnival, which feature vocals by Calypsonian Herbert Howard and Lord Lally of Antigua (Released 1957.) ↩︎
Trinidadian vocalist Dot Evans joined the Antiguan Brute Force Steel Band for this collaborative project that displays the luxurious melodies and rhythmic rigors of steel pan music and the Caribbean calypso. (Released 1957.) ↩︎
Did you know that Antigua and Barbuda has claim to a 19th-century novel that is regarded as an early example of Caribbean women’s writing? (Interestingly, for a long time, it was thought that the region’s literature had its beginnings in the mid-20th century.)
Did you know that this same novel, With Silent Tread, by Frieda Cassin, is, most likely, the first Antiguan novel?
It was long lost to Caribbean literary history, and only began receiving wider scholarly attention in the early 2000s following the discovery of its 1980s reveal by Antiguan linguist and scholar Bernadette Farquhar.
Arguably, the novel remains ‘lost’ outside of academia and so you might be unfamiliar with the following opening scene, and the pleas of an old, hungry, black-Antiguan leper character directed towards his former ‘Missis’ :
The leper hobbled forward to meet the carriage, and his successor, who knew him well, paused for a moment as he spoke.
‘Me dear Missis, me beg you a penny. So help me Gard I ain’t got a penny fo’ buy bread dis blessed night.‘
‘Drive on, Joseph,’ said the lady inside the carriage, calmly
‘Missis you don’ know me?’ exclaimed the man. ‘Me ole Pete dat sarbe you faitful fo’ nine year. Missis, me starving. Me darter dead, an me aint got nobody fo’ look fo’ me.‘
‘I never give to beggars,’ said the lady in the carriage. ‘Joseph drive on.’
‘Me don’t no beggar!’ cried the man passionately. ‘Missis knows me one decent man. Missis knows I did sarbe her faithfully! Fo’ de Lard sake me dear Missis….'(With Silent Tread, pgs. 35-36)
With Silent Tread was re-published in 2002 as part of the Macmillan’s Caribbean Classic series, with an introduction by Caribbean literary scholar, Evelyn O’Callaghan. With Silent Tread is set in “one of the smaller West Indian islands,” but all clues point to Antigua; place names–All Saints, for example, and the ‘dialect’ of the ‘black’ characters.
In her introduction to the reprinted novel, O’Callaghan reveals that she became aware of the novel through a Bulletin of Eastern Caribbean Affairs article written by fellow scholar, Bernadette Farquhar, who had found a copy of the book in the waste bin of the (old) St. John’s Public Library.
According to O’Callaghan, apart from the St. John’s copy, another (damaged) copy resides in the archives of the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda with yet another “rather battered copy” housed at the Institute of Jamaica Library.
The consensus is that With Silent Tread would have been published in 1890 or around 1888 to 1895.
It has been identified by scholar and Macmillan Caribbean Classics Series Editor, John Gilmore, as an “early example of a Caribbean novel by a woman writer… and probably the earliest novel of Antigua and Barbuda.”
O’Callaghan’s suggestion is that Frieda Cassin’s family were likely English derived, resident in the Eastern Caribbean for some period and members of the Antiguan elite. She also notes that Frieda Cassin’s involvement with The Carib, one of Antigua’s first literary journals, and her novel being so “very much grounded in the specifics of the place and period” is an indication of “a long familiarity with, if not birth in, the island.”
The subject of the novel? Reader, be aware! It is a novel published less than sixty years after Emancipation, about, and in, a society still very much entangled in the dark legacy of slavery. It is racist. Pointedly so. One ‘black’ character, as observed by an English visitor, is described as having a “heavy cunning face with lowering monkey-like brows, and a sulky pouting mouth”(pg. 69). There is a “mammy” figure/caricature. And, in one scene, ‘black’ characters are referenced as ‘these people’ who ‘have no conversation’ (pg.70).
19th-century Antigua and the West Indies in general are re-presented as tropical locations that are inherently damaging to the Creole (white) female body and psyche, and also to that body’s claim of ‘whiteness’ and ‘Englishness’. The novel represents the damage to all four as caused by the proximity of the ‘white’ body to the ‘black’ and the ‘mixing’ of the ‘races’.
Leprosy looms large as a ‘terrible scourge’ in the novel as it did in 19th-century colonial history at the time. Around the time of the novel’s publication, there was a contentious debate as to whether the increase in leprosy cases in the colony and the colonial world was a threat that required compulsory segregation of lepers.
The annual colonial report for the Leeward Islands for 1891 made sure to clarify that there were few cases of the diseases in Antigua, citing a census that returned a figure of forty-five cases in a population of 36,119.
Meanwhile, in Cassin’s With Silent Tread, leprosy, a ‘terrible scourge’, operates predominantly, as O’Callaghan summarises, as a “trope for the hidden shame of miscegenation, and more generally, for the contagious sickness of West Indian post-slavery society.”
How about a little pop quiz? Topic: Our Cultural Heritage.
Are you able to easily guess/tell the “who”, the “what”, the “where”, and even the “when” in these pictures and videos featuring iconic places, creatives/people, and events?
(Clues are in the tags!)
Category: Iconic Creatives/People.Who,What, Where, and When?
Category: Iconic Places. What, and Where?
Category: Iconic Creatives/People. Who, and What?
Category: Iconic Creatives and Places. Who, What, Where, and When?
Category: Iconic Creatives. Who, What, and Where?
Category: Iconic People and Places. Who, What, and Where?
Let us take a glance at some familiar places and objects around Antigua and Barbuda that are brimming with cultural memories and historical significance.
We might realise that we sometimes take them for granted. They have become so familiar to us, always present, as we regularly journey past them. But it is unlikely that we would ever deny their cultural/historical significance to the nation OR that they are uniquely Antiguan and Barbudan.
What places/spaces and objects would you add to the list below?
LMR Community Bench.
This community bench in St. John’s, installed by Mr. Ludwig M. Reynolds, also known as LMR. It bears a religious text: “Since you are my rock and my fortress. For the sake of your name. Lead and guide me” .
This bench and others like it often bearing religious/ inspirational messages have long been familiar sights/sites in Antigua, particularly in St. John’s.
Photo credit: Dr. Hazra C. Medica
The Potters Tank.
This tank is located a short walk from the Potters Primary school. Its accompanying plaque reveals that it was constructed in 1935 by Luther George, and refurbished eighty-six (86) years later!
Luther George was a figure who loomed large in Antigua’s political culture and its trade union history.
Photo credit: Dr. Hazra C. Medica
Redcliffe Quay in St. John’s often referred to as “Historic Redcliffe Quay” dates to the 17th Century. It boasts buildings that are considered well-preserved or re-created reminders of historic 19th-century Antiguan architecture.
The plaque sign (pictured centre) is a reminder of the restoration and refashioning of the area in the 1980s. How many of us would be able to list, from memory, at least three of the images that appear on the plaque sign?
When you know you just know. And those in the know — longtime carnival and mas enthusiasts — would definitely know the significance of this Ottos village building and the historic place of Showcase Mas Camp in Antigua’s Carnival/carnivalling history.
Photo credit: Dr. Hazra C. Medica.
Fisheries Facilities in Barbuda.
This plaque stands outside the Fisheries Facilities in Barbuda. Besides the importance of the facilities to the industry, the fisherfolk and their patrons, it also doubles as an events space.
During the passage of Hurricane Irma in 2017, this facility was reported as providing a haven for Barbudans who had to wait out the passage of the devastating hurricane in safer surroundings.
Photo credit: Yuri Peshkov
The historic and famously well-preserved Blouse and Skirt House in Swetes.
This famous house in Swetes stands as a living monument to working-class Antiguan architecture, ingenuity, and aptitude for repurposing. It was previously featured in one of our January post’s here. Want to see this marvel in person? The Unlock the Museum series continues July 1st, 2023, in Swetes and this building will be a main attraction of the tour. Visit Unlock the Museum on the Events Map for more information on what promises to be an intriguing and educational event!
Photo credit: Dr. Hazra C. Medica
The Martello Tower, Barbuda.
A 19th-century (1800s) construction that was designed as a British defence base, which has now been reclaimed by Barbudans as one of their most popular historical sites/tourist attractions.
Photo credit: The Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority
The former Official Residence of the Prime Minister.
Last occupied by the nation’s first Prime Minister and National Hero, the late Sir Vere Cornwall Bird KNH, this building is in Tomlinson’s (Tomlinson’s Estate). Prior to this, the building also served as the residence of head of the Antigua Sugar Estates Syndicate, the late Sir Alexander Moody-Stuart, and his family. The building sits above what has become known as the Heroes’ Park Cemetery. Both the late Sir Vere Cornwall Bird KNH and the late Sir George Walter KNH (former premier and national hero) are interred in the walled garden below the house.
Photo credit: Dr. Hazra C. Medica
The Bethesda Tamarind Tree
The park area created beneath this tree and the installed plaque commemorate the sugarcane estate workers’ strike (1951-1952) and the meeting under this very tree that, as history tells it, resulted in the strengthening of the workers’ resolve to continue with the historic, long strike for better wages.
Photo credit: Dr. Hazra C. Medica
And finally…
The Life Saver.
There are ‘back in the day’ calypsonians and calypsos or clubs/liming spaces that will always be on a top ten list. Likewise, there are eateries that existed ‘back then’ whose names will always be featured in any case of “remember when…”. The Life Saver is one such eatery. The sign still stands on this Tanner and Market Street building invoking memories by the dozens for those who enjoyed its late-night takeaway offerings. A reminder then and now of a local culinary institution that was indeed a ‘life saver’!
Remember when stamps were ha’penny? Some of us do!
Many thanks to archaeologist, and Secretary-General for the National Commission UNESCO Antigua & Barbuda, Dr. Reginald Murphy, for providing the following riveting photos of 1970s stamps of Antigua.
You will notice that most of the stamps featured here spotlight Antigua’s carnival celebrations. With the nation’s Carnival looming, we do hope that you find this glance into the past both intriguing and informational!
Tourism-focused stamp. 1/2 cent/ ha’penny.
Stamps celebrating Carnival 1973 July 29th – August 7th. 5 cents, 35 cents, and 75 cents.
1974 Stamp celebrating the 25th Anniversary University of the West Indies. 20 cents.
Tourism-focused Stamp.
Stamps celebrating the 21st Anniversary of Antigua Carnival 1977 Stamps. 30 cents, 50 cents, 90 cents, and $1.
(Reprinted from the Historical and Archaeological Society(HAS)–Museum of Antigua and Barbuda Newsletter No. 105)
Did you KNOW?
Once upon a time…
Antigua and Barbuda was just one piece of land? Barbuda separated from Antigua geographically about 9,600 B.C. when sea levels of the world rose due to polar glaciers melting during a warm period.
Photo credit: Mapcarta
For 100 years the most south-westerly point of Barbuda (Palmetto Point) has grown at an average of 30 feet to the south in every year?
A white sandy beach in Barbuda is so long that the end dips below the horizon due to the earth’s curvature! It extends from Palmetto Point to Cedar Tree Point for nearly eight miles.
Frigate birds (Weather birds) can fly at an altitude of 2,000 feet, and their usual flying speed is 22 mph? The wingspan is 8 feet and the weight is only 3 lbs as their bones are hollow.
The last sailing workboat of Antigua and Barbuda was the “Lindy” owned by George Webber of Barbuda in 1990?
It is known that about 127 ships have been wrecked on Barbuda’s treacherous reefs? The oldest was a Spanish Galleon in 1695 and the largest was a 7,800-ton steamer in 1927.
A 1956 Smithsonian Expedition discovered eyeless shrimps in the deep dark waters of Dark Cave in the Highlands?
In 1989 40 llamas arrived by air & barged to Barbuda and Barbudans refused landing.
Have you ever wondered how Devil’s Bridge got its name or why Bendals is “Bendals”? Let us take a look at some place names in Antigua and Barbuda and their stories, as reproduced from Places Names And their Stories (Desmond V Nicholson and expanded by Brian Dyde (2012 edition))
All Saints Chapel was built in 1839 on Obsborne’s Pasture. The Chapel was called All Saints both for the Anglican All Saints Day (November 1st) as well as the adjoining parishes — St John’s, St Peter’s and St Paul’s — which all meet at the point where the chapel was built. As houses sprung up around the chapel and schoolroom, the village was named All Saints.
A community at the foot of the Sherkeley Mountains, four miles south of St John’s, and believed to have been named after a former estate. A deep water well named after Sir Eustace Fiennes, the Governor of the Leeward Islands from 1921 to 1929, is located at the site, and there are several other wells in the area that still supply water to St John’s and surrounding districts. One of the island’s three sugar factories was built here in 1905 when sugar production became mechanised and the planters moved away from wind-powered mills. It closed in 1940 when all sugar production moved to Gunthorpes.
Blue Waters:
The name given to an area of housing and holiday villas surrounding the Blue Waters Hotel in the north of Antigua close to Boon Point and adjoining Crosbies. The area was originally known as Soldier’s Ghut, presumably after a long-gone military station situated in the ‘ghut’ or valley.
Cedar Valley:
This area was named after the Cedar Valley sugar estate on which the old mill still stands. Many white cedar trees also grow in the area.
Carlisle:
A former estate situated between Barnes Hill and Cassada Gardens, the name of which comes from ownership by Captain Francis Carlisle in 1678. It overlooks the main runway of the V.C. Bird International Airport and is now an area of residential and light industrial buildings.
Codrington, Barbuda
Barbuda’s only village is named after the Codrington family that leased Barbuda for 185 years from 1685 until 1870.
Originally called, for an unknown reason, Dead Sands, the beach changed to Darkwood after a bar of that name at the south end of the beach. This is a very popular beach. At one time it was lined with coconut trees which have been demolished over the years during hurricanes.
Devil’s Bridge:
A natural limestone arch in the low cliffs to the eastern side of Indian Town Point in the north-east of Antigua. Legend has it that due to the unhappy conditions of slavery on the sugar estates, many escaped slaves committed suicide at this spot, giving people rise to think that the devil must dwell there (Smith & Smith 1986: 109) It is now one of Antigua’s most popular tourist sites, famous for the dramatic Atlantic waves.
Ebenezer:
A roadside village just north of Jennings. The origin of the name is sadly lost in time.
Freetown:
Along with Liberta, this village was named to commemorate freedom after emancipation in 1834. Both settlements were amongst the first ‘free villages’. Freetown was originally called Farr Hills.
Goat point, Barbuda
The name given to the northernmost point of Barbuda, presumably after the resident population of goats.
Green Bay:
This south-western suburb of St John’s is named after the bay of that name, so called because in former times, before the reclamation of land, it was green with mangroves. The village was originally called Fitzroy Town after the 1842 Governor, Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy, and is shown on maps up to about 1943. In 1933, there was a Pan American Seaplane anchorage in Green Bay (Camacho Map)
Colonel John Gunthorpe owned Gunthorpe’s Estate, the site of the 20th century Central Sugar Factory. The Central Sugar Factory was built in 1904-5 and closed in the early 1970s/ At one time it was the island’s major employer.
Hodges Bay:
Here, in the 1740s, Henry Hodge owned a sugar mill. Even up to the 1880s the estate was owned by the Reverend W.O.B. Hodge but was then sold to one Oliver Nugent.
Indian Cave, Barbuda:
A series of interconnected caves contain petroglyphs close to Highland House on the east coast, thus making it the island’s most notable prehistoric site.
Jennings:
This village was named after Samuel Jennings who owned a small estate with a cattle mill south of the present village in 1749. By 1772, heirs of the Codrington Family owned the estate, which was also known as Herman Hill. Jennings village was famous for the Moravian Church and Mission House built in 1921.
McKinnons
It is named after the former estate owned by the McKinnon family from around 1750.
Mill Reef
A hotel and villa complex on the east coast, created by a group of Americans seeking an exclusive getaway in Antigua after World War II. The name derives from the mill tower which belonged in the 19th century to the Sheriff estate, which is at the main gate to the property.
A village in a fairly remote position on the east coast. Its name is believed to derive from a past increase in the layout of the estate on which it later developed i.e. a new field.
Rubbish Bay, Barbuda:
Rubbish Bay near Spanish Point is named because of the quantity of flotsam and jetsam that washes up in this particular area.
Spanish Point, Barbuda:
Spanish Point, studded with coral reefs, is the most south-easterly point of Barbuda and is most likely named after the wreck of a Spanish merchantman by the name of Santiago de Cullerin.
And finally (for now) …
St John’s:
The capital city of Antigua was named after Saint John the Divine. The town was built after the French invasion of 1666 and had become as large as Falmouth by 1689. The first St John’s Cathedral was built in 1681 but this simple wooden structure was damaged by an earthquake in 1745. A second brick building was constructed, but that again bore the brunt of an earthquake. The present cathedral was built in 1845.
