Remembering Kojo: History, Music, and Gender in the January Sixth Celebration of the Jamaican Accompong Maroons
The January Sixth celebration of the Maroons of Accompong, Jamaica, commemorates both the birth of the Maroon leader, Kojo (Cudjoe),(1) and his victory over the British, which resulted in the signing of the peace treaty of 1739. The Accompong Maroons(2) are descendants of Africans taken to Jamaica in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who successfully resisted enslavement by the British rulers of the island and settled in a remote, mountainous region called the Cockpit Country. Accompong is a town of about 1,600 inhabitants located in St. Elizabeth parish in the western part of Jamaica approximately thirty-five miles southeast of Montego Bay. Much research has been done on various Maroon groups in the West Indies and Latin America, and literature on the Accompong (or Leeward) Maroons is particularly plentiful because of their dramatic and turbulent history. However, except for the work of Kenneth M. Bilby, whose research focuses primarily on groups in eastern Jamaica, studies of Jamaican Maroon music are rare. Fragments of information about the music of Accompong Maroons appear in several works, but a comprehensive study on musical traditions of the Leeward Maroons is lacking.(3) The January Sixth celebration does not represent the retention of a specific African festival or event. It is a performance tradition that originated in Jamaica, but the music and dance performed at this event clearly are African-derived. My primary focus here is not to identify the resilience or maintenance of African practices, although a strong argument can be made for approaching the subject in this way. Instead, I will examine how the Accompong Maroons, in the process of adapting to their new environment, integrated features from a variety of African and European traditions to create a musical culture that asserted their distinctive Maroon identity.(4) As Barbara Klamon Kopytoff (1979, 52) explains: "The radical change in the Maroons' existence brought about by the treaties [with the British] marked a new beginning for their societies, and the Maroons came to see the treaties as marking their origin, rather than their rebirth." While they do not deny their African heritage, the people of Accompong take greater pride in being Maroons and strongly challenge any institution or individual that denies their right to sovereignty. Because the music event encompasses so many aspects of a music culture, several scholars have used it as the object of study. J. H. Kwabena Nketia (1990, 79) argues that an examination of the music event provides "a richer and more dynamic view of a music culture than other approaches that do not integrate contextual considerations in the analysis." For Marcia Herndon (1971, 340), the musical occasion "may be regarded as an encapsulated expression of the shared cognitive forms and values of a society, which includes not only the music itself but also the totality of associated behavior and underlying concepts. It is usually a named event, with a beginning and an end, varying degrees of organization of activity, audience/performances, and location." Ruth Stone (1982, 136) believes that "the event is more than a reflection of something else: it is a processual creation within a finite sphere of reality." According to Martin Stokes (1994, 3), "The musical event ... evokes and organises collective memories and present experiences of place with an intensity, power and simplicity unmatched by any other social activity." The January Sixth celebration represents some of what these scholars have indicated, but it also has deeper meanings. For the Accompong Maroons, the event is not only a reminder and signifier of their collective identity, it is one of the few occasions in their culture when music, history, religion, politics, and economics intersect to create an experience in which all are free and proud to actualize their heritage. As Victor Turner (1982, 16) puts it, "When a social group, whether it be a family, clan, village, nation, congregation, or church, celebrates a particular event or occasion, such as birth, harvest, or national independence, it also `celebrates itself. …
Origins of marronage: Mitochondrial lineages of Jamaica's Accompong Town Maroons
The Accompong Town Maroons are descendants of enslaved Africans who successfully waged war against British colonial rule and established an independent community in western Jamaica. There are discrepancies regarding Accompong Town Maroon ancestry with some scholars noting ancestry from both Africans and Taínos, Jamaica's indigenous population, while other scholars only acknowledge African ancestry. We considered the mitochondrial lineages of contemporary Accompong Town Maroons to address the question of ancestral origins.
Proliferative kidney disease: first reported outbreak in North America
Abstract. Proliferative kidney disease (PKD) was diagnosed in rainbow trout, Salmo gairdneri Richardson, at the Hagerman, Idaho, State Fish Hatchery. Wild fish from Riley Creek, one of the hatchery water supplies, were infected with PKD organisms. Clinical signs, gross pathology and histopathology of affected fish were typical of those reported for PKD in salmonids from European hatcheries. In addition to lesions normally seen, we observed a severe vasculitis and occlusion of renal and hepatic vessels. Ultrastructure of the PKD organism and possible inclusion body production sites are described. The disease outbreak was complicated by the presence of other infectious diseases. This is the first recorded outbreak of PKD in North America.