Traditional games Archives - Antigua and Barbuda

Exciting times are ahead! The traditional game of Warri, an important African cultural retention, is in for a revival of EPIC proportions in Antigua and Barbuda!

Our nation is renowned as the “last bastion of Warri in the Caribbean”. It is the one Caribbean country where Warri is still very much visible as a heritage game/sport. Indeed our players are renowned as international champions/grandmasters!

A typical national scene: Warri being played at the West Bus Station in St. Johns.

Photo courtesy Trevor Simon (CN)

To ensure the safeguarding of our Warri-playing and board-making traditions, the UNESCO ICH-funded National Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Project, led by Cultural Advisor, Dr. Hazra C. Medica has launched the Warri Revival Programme.

According to Dr. Medica, The Warri Revival Programme is one of the flagship pilot safeguarding exercises within the larger National ICH Project. She revealed that the revival programme will be coordinated by the Antigua and Barbuda Warri Academy (ABWA) under the watchful eyes of founding member and International Grandmaster Trevor “Simple” Simon (CN), with assistance from public, private, and civil partners.

During the first week of July 2025, the ABWA will train six students to become Warri trainers. Following this, the history and fundamentals of the game will be taught to five hundred and fifty (yes, 550!) students. These five hundred and fifty students will be selected from private and public educational institutions in Antigua AND Barbuda. Their training will occur throughout the 2025 summer and Christmas school holidays, and possibly extend into the 2026 Easter holidays.

Excitingly, fifty (50) members of selected NGOs will also benefit from similar training sessions. What is more, eighteen (18) young people will be trained in the craft of making Warri boards. One group of youths will be drawn from vocational programs and the other group from within our national prison.

Warri Boards created by Mr. Karl Henry. Photo credit: Trevor Simon (CN)

Attention will also be given to the seeds of the game. Throughout this and the next year, ABWA will embark upon a project to plant two hundred (200) of the Caesalpina Crista, the “nickal”/”Warri seed”-producing tree. Three varieties of the seeds are typical in Antigua/Barbuda: the grey, the brownish orange, and the black.

International Grandmaster Trevor Simon (CN) is urging the public to rally behind the programme. He acknowledges the current lull in the traditional sport/game noting that in the past Warri was played in all the villages throughout the nation. According to him, participating in the playing of Warri enhances social bonding, problem-solving, and mathematical skills.

The ABWA is promising that all training sessions and activities will be interactive, entertaining, and geared towards reigniting the entire nation with the Warri fever we once had. Training sessions for students will be held at the National Public Library, and the Multipurpose Cultural Centre.

It is anticipated that during, and following the Warri Revival Programme, competitive and frequent Warri championships will be staged. It is also anticipated that the Programme will increase women’s participation in the game.

To learn more about the Warri and the Antigua and Barbuda Warri Academy, click here.

To learn more about the Antigua and Barbuda National ICH Project, click here.

Remember long ago when children took to blowing into Nintendo cartridges whenever a game appeared frozen or did not launch? Well, long, long ago, before the frustration with the cartridges, there were the games that did not freeze (unless it was an actual game of “freeze tag”) nor glitched (unless someone got angry and took the skipping rope or ball home).

As Joy Lawrence tells us in her Caribbean Creoles (2005 edition):

Before the electronic revolution, Caribbean children played outdoor games among themselves. We played game of every description — games that allowed the kind of interaction and togetherness that was so effervescent that today’s adults look back at those days with nostalgia and feel a sense of pity for today’s children.

There was a wide variety of games including hand-clapping games, ring games, marble, cashew and stone games; skipping games, ball games and games that called for dexterity, agility or ingenuity. (Pg 51.)

Remember “There’s a brown gyal in de ring”? That indeed called for some dexterity of the waist!

There’s a brown gyal in the ring

Tra la la la la

Brown gyal in the ring

Tra la la la la

For she loves sugar and I love plum

Show me your motion …

(Lawrence, pgs 55-56).

Benjamin, Lindel. Show me you motion. Caribbean Creoles by Joy Lawrence. 2005 pg.55

Also, remember the ACB 1999 calendar that fed our nostalgia with depictions and descriptions of childhood games of a time gone by? They say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. May the following five thousand words be pleasingly nostalgic. May they even persuade you to revive these games!