By SARA MILLER LLANA
Christian Science Monitor Staff Writer
NASSAU, Bahamas, December 19, 2019 — On Christmas night, after church services are over, after the children have finished unwrapping gifts, after the turkey is finished and the plates are washed, most people fall, if they don’t collapse, into a deep lull.
But not in the Bahamas. Here, Christmas night means Junkanoo, an exuberant expression of Bahamian culture with African slave roots. In Nassau, residents head not to bed but to downtown Bay Street, in raucous and deafening groups that shake cowbells and beat goat-skinned drums. The junkanooers “rush out” into dance, wearing fanciful costumes of rainbow-colored crepe paper glued onto cardboard and held together with aluminum rods. Some can weigh over 100 pounds.
Dudley Gilbert, a retired engineer, is ceaselessly blowing a whistle that doesn’t leave his mouth, using his hands for the constant ringing of two cowbells. This is a November rehearsal for his group, the Saxons Superstars, in downtown Nassau. To the tunes of “Amazing Grace” and “Down By the Riverside,” the trance-like beat is so irresistible that bystanders join the troupe, dancing and twirling alongside them.
It’s a far cry from solemn Christmas caroling that is more commonly associated with the music of the season. But for Bahamians, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without Junkanoo,” Mr. Gilbert says.
Junkanoo is among the most unifying traditions in the Bahamas, and perhaps this year more than ever after Category 5 Hurricane Dorian devastated parts of the island nation in September.
Junkanoo isn’t just for Christmastime, but its biggest parade takes place on Christmas night, starting at 10 p.m., through Boxing Day the following morning. Then the groups do it again just after the clocks strike midnight on New Year’s Day – not to mention for Independence Day celebrations, summer festivals, and jam sessions year-round.
The parades are competitive, and much like Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the entire year is spent saving money for costumes, creating them in “shacks” – structures typically in the back of someone’s house, dedicated exclusively to the whimsical outfits – and to rehearsing the beat, the rhythm, and the choreography of each group’s show.
Arlene Nash Ferguson is a junkanooer and cultural historian. She runs a museum dedicated to the practice, called Educulture Bahamas, in her childhood home in Nassau where she showcases all of the costumes she has worn over a lifetime (created by her husband Silbert Ferguson, a former president of the Junkanoo Corp. of New Providence, the island where the capital Nassau is located). See complete CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR story at https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2019/1219/It-wouldn-t-be-Christmas-without-Junkanoo.-How-Bahamians-make-merry?fbclid=IwAR3NzYckdIbtgvCjuwZIjU8-xpquPnyDzUUKRFZq4xzpZohJLoii8R0dPZs
