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. …
The Dugu Ritual of the Garinagu of Belize: Reinforcing Values of Society through Music and Spirit Possession
This article examines the relationship between music and the spirit realm of the Garinagu (people of African and Amerindian descent) of Belize as displayed in adugurahani ("Feasting the Dead"), a three- or four-day ritual to appease neglected ancestor spirits (Cayetano and Cayetano 1990, 78). This ritual is commonly known as dugu. This examination of dugu is based on the hypothesis that music is a mediating agent that connects people and their ancestors for the purpose of maintaining family solidarity and reinforcing traditional norms and values of society. The objective here is to show how spirit possession and music are used to reinforce social values during an ancestor placation ritual. Language,(1) music, and spirituality in ritual expression are essential components of culture and society. The maintenance and retention of these components affect processes of enculturation and preservation of social values. Ritual participants believe that without singing, drumming, and rattling, dugu--the most salient ancestor propitiation rite of the Garinagu--could not be performed. Furthermore, they believe that without the ritual, the culture--as it is known today--would cease to exist. To better understand and interpret how music and ancestor spirit possession in this rite reinforce social values, concepts concerning the reorientation of time, cultural relativism, and consanguineous descent are discussed. Western philosophies such as hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) and phenomenology (the descriptive philosophy of experience) are particularly applicable to this study. Steven Friedson (1996, 2) stated that "doing phenomenology ... requires a reflexive engagement with the things themselves [the music and its practitioners]" and suggested that dialectics--interactions and transactions between the researcher and researched--is of significance in doing ethnology. Reflexivity and dialectics were important to the collection and interpretation of data concerning dugu. Data for the study are based in part on fieldwork conducted during the summer of 1996 in Dangriga, Belize. Because of the personal nature of the subject matter (ancestor spirit possession in the context of family gatherings), pseudonyms are used to protect the anonymity of most informants.(2) Garifuna History and Ancestor Ritual Practices The Garinagu (commonly known as the Garifuna) are people of Amerindian and West African descent who live along the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua and share a common origin, language, music, and system of ancestor placation. They are the product of genetic mixture and cultural syncretization between Amerindians (the Carib, Arawak, and Taino peoples) on the island of St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles and West Africans (believed to be of Yoruba, Ibo, and Ashanti descent) who were brought to the New World to be enslaved in 1635 (Cayetano 1990b, 32).(3) Scholars also suggest that the Garinagu on St. Vincent were frequently augmented by runaway slaves from nearby islands from ethnic groups that include the Efik and Yoruba (Coelho 1955, 6-8) and the Ashanti-Fanti, the Fon, and the Congo (Bastide 1971, 77). In 1796, the Garinagu were defeated in battle by the British and the following year deported to Roatan Island near the coast of Honduras. Beginning in 1802, Garinagu in Honduras made numerous landings on the coast of Belize (Cayetano 1990b, 43). On November 19, 1832, following massacres and civil unrest in Honduras, a large number of Garinagu landed in what is now Dangriga, Belize. Today, November 19 is recognized annually as Garifuna Settlement Day and is celebrated as a national holiday. Adugurahani, commonly known as dugu, is a ritual for the extended family that consists of both the living and the spirits of their deceased relatives. It is based in part on the Island Carib belief "that departed relations [ancestors] were secret spectators of their [the Island Carib's] conduct; that they still sympathized in their sufferings, and participated in their welfare" (Bryan Edwards quoted in Kerns 1983, 31). …
A Study on Greenhouse Automatic Control System Based on Wireless Sensor Network
The system proposed in this paper collects temperature of leaves and humidity on leaves of crop. As well as greenhouse environmental information such as temperature, humidity, etc. Crop diseases, especially, have deep relationship not only with indoor environmental factors but also with humidity lasting time on leaves and temperature of leaves. Accordingly, monitoring crop itself is as important as monitoring indoor environments. Using these collected greenhouse environmental data, indoor environments can be more effectively controlled, and monitoring crop itself can contribute to improve productivity and to prevent crops from damages by blight and harmful insects. In addition, it will be possible for farmers to do control plant growth through closely studying relationship between indoor environmental information and monitored information on crop itself. Collected data can be stored to database either in server installed in greenhouse or to remote server. It is made possible to collect information and control effectively and automatically greenhouse in the site or from a remote place through web browser. System components are: temperature sensor, humidity sensor, leaf temperature sensor, leaf humidity sensor, Zigbee based wireless sensor node, relay nodes for automatic control, and data server to store greenhouse information. The system is implemented using low power wireless components, and easy to install.