Today, we celebrate being able to publish the two reports from the Department of Culture’s UNESCO IFCD-Sponsored Cultural/Creative Industries Mapping Project. The data collection phase of the project came to an end in the last quarter of 2022, and the reports were delivered in 2023. Their intent and contents are very much in keeping with the spirit of the SIDS conference.
Participants of the UNESCO-sponsored 3-5 February, 2020 Cultural Industries Mapping and Implementation Workshop at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium. The workshop represented the official start of the 2020-2023 project.
Report 1 examines the contribution of the cultural and creative industries to the economy and society of Antigua and Barbuda. Report 2 provides an excellent roadmap/guide for unprecedented propulsion of the Creative Industries and related sustainable national economic development.
We would again like to thank all the creatives and institutions who responded to the project’s surveys. We would also like to thank our local, regional, and international colleagues in sustainable development who provided us with assistance.
To access the summaries and reports, please visit our Repository page or click the individual links below:
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.
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.) ↩︎
Cannibal “Caribs”? A volcano under “Big Church?” A cave (populated by thousands of bats) that leads to Dominica? We welcome the New Year with a look at some enduring legends, separating the facts from the myths.
Careful! There is a volcano under “Big Church”!
Claim: The Anglican Cathedral (a.k.a. “Big Church) in St. John’s is built on a volcano.
False! The Anglican Cathedral is in fact built on a fossilised reef.
The first Antiguans were the Siboney.
Claim: It was commonly held that the first people who lived on Antigua were the Siboney.
False! The Siboney never existed on Antigua. We use the term Archaic People to describe these Stone Age settlers.
The peaceful Arawaks vs the Warring Caribs.
Claim: When the Europeans arrived in the Caribbean, they suggested that the Amerindians they met and recorded in their journals were two different peoples, the peaceful Arawaks and the warring Caribs. Even older Caribbean history textbooks would repeat this suggestion.
False! In fact, the true Arawak and Caribs lived side by side in the Guyanas and still do to this day.
The Caribs were cannibals.
Claim: Not only were the “Caribs” the warring type but, according to the early European arrivants in the Caribbean, they were also cannibals. Again, another claim that was repeated in older Caribbean history textbooks.
False! The need for the “Caribs” to be labelled as cannibals was linked with the need for the arriving Europeans obtaining permission for acquiring and exploiting their land.
Wadadli me come from! (I am from Wadadli!)
Claim: The actual Amerindian name for Antigua was Wadadli.
False! The name was Waladli. “Wadadli” became popularised thanks to a popular Antigua band, Wadadli Experience.
Bat’s Cave leads to Dominica.
Claim: Bat’s Cave (located in St. Paul’s) leads to Dominica and in the past, enslaved in Antigua used it as an escape route. So also did raiding “Carib” warriors, who carried off governor’s wives.
False! The depth of water between the islands means that the cave would have to be more than three thousand feet underground. So, definitely false. But what a story!
Photo courtesy HAS NEWSLETTER NO # 113
Columbus landed on Antigua.
Claim: Columbus landed on Antigua and Santa Maria Hill near Cedar Grove was named by him.
A lie about Columbus! The reality is that Columbus never landed on the island. On his second voyage in 1493, Columbus sighted Marie Gallant close to Guadeloupe and Dominica and from there headed north, naming many islands in the chain of Lesser Antilles—Santa Maria de Guadeloupe, Santa Maria de Montserrate, Santa Maria la Redonda. It was close to Redonda that Columbus saw Antigua on the horizon and named the island Santa Maria la Antigua. He continued sailing until he reached Hispaniola.
Nelson’s Dockyard was built by Admiral Horatio Nelson.
False! Nelson sailed into Antigua 80 years after the Dockyard was built. He was not here in wartime, but in time of peace. Nelson’s duty was to enforce trade regulations, that is, the Navigation Act. This made him very unpopular with the St. John’s merchants!
And, finally:
There is a Kingdom of Redonda, complete with a line of Kings, Coat of Arms, and Stamps.
True, in the fantasy world. But, entirely FALSE in the real world.
This legend was birthed as an early 20th-century publicity stunt in which M.P. Shield, fantasy fiction and adventure author claimed that his father was made King of the island by the colonial office and he himself was crowned King at the age of fifteen on the island of Redonda by the Bishop of Antigua.
The legend has survived the ages allowing for so-called succession of literary figures to the throne to this day as well as stories of “impostors” attempting to lay claim to the throne! The “throne” of the Kingdom of Redonda became vacant after Javier Marías, a Spanish literary figure who took the title as King Xavier, passed away in Madrid on September 11th, 2022.
Photo: The coronation of Michael Howorth in 2009 as King Michael the Grey.
Can you recall any other Antigua, Barbuda, and Redonda legends/stories? Do share them or your thoughts on the legends in this post in the comment section!
This post borrows heavily from the Historical and Archaeological Society (HAS)– the National Museum of Antigua and Barbuda Newsletter No.108 entry by Dr. Reginald Murphy (pgs. 7-8).
