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They were the creatures that we feared as children. When the fife and drums started playing, small children would scurry to hide behind their mothers’ skirts as the high-pitched, shrill sound signified that Jonkunnu was coming. All the colourful characters in the band seemed like something out of a nightmare, set to taunt and tease us with their weird shapes, odd figures, and props. Sadly, the music and mystique of Jonkunno seems almost extinct as children born in the 21st century barely know that they exist. Indeed, the dancing and merry-making done by the Jonkunnu band is fast becoming a dying art form, with few bands still able to keep the tradition going.
One such band is the South West St Andrew Jonkunnu Band out of Delacree Park in Majesty Gardens, St Andrew. Led by band leader Rainford Foster, the 11-member band is instrumental in keeping this form of expression alive, but as Foster explained, it is very challenging to keep going with little support and limited resources. “This band has been around since 1962, but we really formalised it in the 1990s when I took over management around that time,” Foster told The Sunday Gleaner.
According to the Jamaica Information Service, Jonkunnu is practised mainly in Jamaica, Belize, and the Bahamas and in some parts of the United States that have a large West Indian population that migrated during the post-emancipation era. Just as with the performances, there are variations in the spelling, but all forms of Jonkunnu contain elements of masquerade, dancing, and drumming. The version often witnessed in Jamaica got its origin from West Africa and evolved from the festivities held by enslaved people during Christmas as a form of expression of resistance. Over the centuries, the elaborate costumes and revelry, fused with European-style jig, offer a musical hiatus and an opportunity to dance and make merry.
Making merry and memories, Foster shared, is why he and his band keep performing. “I just love it. Sometimes I feel like giving it all up, especially when people don’t see the value in what we do. I may feel like staying home, but at the end of the day, I’m a performer, and I love to put smiles on people’s faces,” he said.
The characters they portray are truly unique and consist of the Devil, Belly Mumma or Belly Woman, Pitchy Patchy, Jack-in-the-Green, Wild Indian, Horse Head, Cow Head, Bull, and Warrior. In some bands, there is a policeman, but currently, they do not have that character. Because they have been together for so many years, they feed off the energy they get both from the music and the antics they see when engaging with an active audience. “We don’t need any rehearsal. If we want to do a choreographed piece, we have pieces that we practised over the years, or we can freestyle depending on the occasion and the vibe we get from the crowd,” he shared.
When asked about how many active groups he estimates are still around, he shared that there were two more that he knew of. “There is one in St Mary that is active and one on the Portland side, but I haven’t heard anything about the latter in a while. Jonkunnu is very important to our culture. They say it’s the first real expression of black people who were slaves. It is right up there with Dinki Mini and Kumina and those kinds of traditional dance forms. Somehow, we’ve allowed it to kind of die out. School children are not being taught about Jonkunnu because some people see it as weird. All of the characters disturb them. Something is definitely wrong. When a Jamaican calls Jonkunno weird, they don’t know anything at all about their culture,” he lamented.
Foster added that over the years, his band has been approached by several persons who tell them that they are trying to advance the culture, and so they take them to various places to perform. However, after these performances, they turn around and ask for money as they said they have assisted in getting them work and exposure. These instances have left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“We don’t do as many performances as things have dried up a lot. People do call, but when they hear the cost to transport the band, especially to rural parishes, they just don’t bother. If we say pay us $100,000, they say it’s too expensive, but when you divide that amount by all the group members and then take into consideration toll and transportation, we don’t make a lot of money. Sometimes they may want half of the band or want us to reduce our prices. Everybody acts like $100,000 is a lot of money. It’s not,” he said.
Because of this, it is hard to get new members to join, learn the tradition and perform as proper remuneration is oftentimes severely lacking. Added to this is the fact that everything the band uses is old, worn, and badly in need of either replacement or repair. Requests for support from government agencies or the private sector have been unsuccessful. “We are badly in need of costumes because we’ve been using them for years. We need materials, someone to take the measurements, and assemble new costumes. We don’t even need the money. We just need someone to build the pieces. We need new drums as the ones we have burst, and we don’t have someone to fix them. It takes a lot of moving parts to keep entertaining a Jamaican audience, and we don’t know how much longer we will be able to do it, but for now, when the music plays, we will keep dancing,” said Foster.
English (US) ·