Diane E.S. Prentiss

We are nine American researchers in a rented minivan, racing from Kingston to the eastern coastal region of St. Thomas parish. This end of the island doesn’t sport timeshare resorts and high-priced bungalows. There are no freckled young men in Vuarnets, printed boxers, and zinc noses playing volleyball on the beach. No drinks with umbrellas, Hard Rock Cafes, or expensive dance clubs. There are no telephones, few cars, and only an occasional shop. Electricity is in a few households, but only for two or three hours each evening. No hustling. Tourist cocaine has no place out here on the flat plains worked by laborers.

As we follow the dark and winding road to Duckenfield, the full moon, a fiery red, rises above the grass silhouette of the cane fields. Michelle, who has been investigating various aspects of Jamaican culture for twenty years, drives the van. Grant, in the front passenger seat, relates an experience from his days at an elite boys school in Post World War II England. Keith laughs. He also went to English boarding school. The rest of us are not interested. This is not our experience.

Mandy and Alan are from Georgia. They have been living here for two years. She visits and writes about the Jamaican people in our research project and he teaches art in Kingston. They move easily among Jamaicans and have made many friends here. Joan is a statistician and visits the island twice a year to straighten up problems in the data. She prefers the abstract, numbers on a page that represent populations, rather than the people whom these numbers represent. While here, she rarely strays far from the field office, and never goes out at night. This is the first time I’ve worked in the field. I represent the junior member of our research team, but I have already many times questioned our role in this pseudo-social event, the Kumina dance, which we will observe tonight.

After many working visits, Michelle is respected by locals. They generally welcome her and accept her inquiries about medical and family histories, household economics and marijuana use, but her effort to arrange a Kumina has tapped my suspicion. Under most circumstances, a Kumina is a traditional dance which takes place during “nine nights,” which are the nine days of mourning that follow the death of a member of the community. Occasionally, a Kumina helps celebrate someone’s birthday or other rite of passage. It originated in West Africa and is practiced in various forms in the Haiti, Brazil and other Caribbean countries. In this case, however, there is no death, no birthday, no local event. Instead, Kamina will be performed for the benefit of the American anthropologists armed with notebooks and video cameras.

It is about eight o’clock as we head out to the site and we look for a place to eat dinner. Many of us carry cameras. I have a micro-cassette recorder, though I haven’t decided whether I will use it. Grant, my least favorite member of the group because of his nervous provincialism and grating arrogance, cradles his expensive video camera. My apprehension is enormous and so too is my hunger.

After three attempts, we find a place with brightly painted walls and tables that serves good jerk chicken and Red Stripes, the local beer. While the bass of dancehall reggae thunders from speakers the size of a Volkswagen, out insides vibrate as we eat. Each new song brings a round of Mandy and Alan identifying the artist and song and relaying various reggae and social trivia. A particular favorite rhythm gets a few of us dancing. After paying, we file out of the restaurant and back into the van, speeding to Duckenfield.

*

Michelle arranges the Kumina primarily for our entertainment, a diversion from several days of site visits and interviews. Grant would videotape a “traditional” ceremony. Since we are commissioning this event, we agreed to supply all the necessary materials. In the week prior to the dance, we purchased and delivered candles, incense, matches, white rum, soft drinks, and a live chicken.

I began to sense a conscientious effort to stage the event for our benefit, and I was not comfortable with the exclusivity that was emerging. A Kumina usually takes place in a public space, so that anyone may attend, but this Kumina will be held in someone’s private home. Michelle had asked her friend Moses to organize the details in Duckenfield. He arranged for us to use the yard of a friend, Miss Angela, who owns the nicest home in the town. By moving the site away from the town center to a private yard, he excludes many of the townspeople who would otherwise attend. Dancing is ordinarily open to anyone who wants to dance. Moses deliberately selected the dancers for the Kumina, as if it were an audition for performance. He instructed people how they should behave for us, and this created resentment toward him and I suspect distrust, if not animosity toward us.

It is nearly ten when our minivan pulls into the yard of Miss Angela. Jamaicans of all ages are gathered under and around a gazebo that was constructed yesterday when we came out to check out the site. As we emerge from our van, we are surrounded by music and the townspeople are dancing.

Four wooden poles support a canape from draped with palm leaves, and a single electric bulb casts the only light over the five drummers seated in the shelter of the frame. Moses sits on a metal chair with red vinyl, hammering a handmade drum, and it is clear from the eye contact between him and the others that he leads the event. He is nearly seventy with a severe hip disability. He is especially small by Jamaican standards, yet he commands considerable power in the community. Playing next to him is another man, approximately twenty years younger, whose name is Ace. A bright-eyed young man of East Indian origin straddles a drum and beats it intensely. He is an apprentice to Moses, training to become a master of the Kumina. Another and and a woman stand close by and add the rhythm of shakers—two tin cans filled with stones attached to eight-inch sticks.

Circling this tight group of percussionists are the dancers who absorb the magic of layered rhythms. While circumscribing the drummers in a counterclockwise orbit, they dance with each other. It is erotic. Chest to back. Back to chest. Hips undulate and knees swim. Two young women whom I believe are identical twins face each other, and move as a reflection in a mirror. Around the periphery I see the faces of the cane workers and other rural laborers. Their dark brown skin glistens in the humidity and heat of the evening. Some are smiling. Almost everyone moves in some way to the music. They rhythms are infectious and hypnotic. Intense, unlike anything I have heard before. My body is compelled to respond. To stand without moving would be arrogant and betrays the force of Kumina’s sensuality.

And then the smells hit me. The warm moisture of the dancers collides with the floral sweetness of the white rum. Candles burn and ganja sweetens the air. I close my eyes and breathe. The drumming reenters my consciousness, and I, too, begin to move in my place at the edge of the crowd.

While the dancers move frenetically, Grant, the psychoanalyst, videotapes individual dancers and musicians. He moves among dancers and spectators. He aims the lens and limits his own vision. He is both fascinated and appalled at the exotic dance and the camera allows him the distance he needs to feel safe, while in the midst of this event.

The others from our group stand in the crowd and watch. Occasionally, a camera emerges and a flash goes off. At first, it is disconcerting to me and I feel our presence is invasive. But after a while, the local people seem to ignore our cameras and enjoy themselves in spite of us. In a mixed blessing, my flash battery goes dead. I abandon shooting photographs and consequently feel a small liberation from the responsibility to visually record the events. I briefly record the sounds of drums and vocals, then I shut off the recorder and just experience it. Put the analysis aside I say to myself. Just be there. Feel. Dance. Enjoy.

The outside circle of observers is nearly five thick, so I can’t see the inner circle of dancers, but the rhythm quickens and frenetic movements make it clear that Kumina is reaching a climax. A young woman of about seventeen wears red pants and a buttondown shirt. She moved in broad exaggerated steps. She is the first to catch the “myal.” She loses her balance, then regains it momentarily. She sways towards the center, the out toward the spectators, then in, again. All the while, like the others, she dances counterclockwise around the circle of drummers. Eventually she falls to the ground: she writhes about, her eyes are closed, she faces the sky. She screams. The others laugh, clap loudly, and cheer her on. Grant immediately turns the camera on her He comments, in a distanced voice, that she “appears to be having a seizure of some kind.”

The woman’s name is Diana. She appears in a trance, and continues to roll on the ground. She has caught the “myal.” The dancer seduces the spirits into her body so that they may be exorcised and put to rest. This ritual is especially important after a member of the community dies, because death unsettles the spirits. The Kumina serves to dispel the spirits and return, if only temporarily, peace and order to the community.

The music continues. Her shirt has worked its way up her body revealing her bare breasts until another woman covers her. An older man, a friend of Moses and fellow Kumina priest, approaches her and passes a lighted candle over her body, outlining her arms and legs. He pulls her to her feet and continues to pass the candle around her arms and through her legs. He then wipes the sweat from his forehead and rubs it on her face. He repeats this gesture. He reaches into her hair and repeatedly pulls it as though he’s pulling spirits from her. Someone passes him a bottle of rum, which he swills and then spits in her face. Suddenly, she opens her eyes and looks around. She appears conscious and alert. Everyone cheers and the drumming continues.

*

Ace, one of the drummers from earlier in the evening asks me if I am enjoying myself. I say yes. He talks at length about the Kumina talents as “great entertainment.” He wants very much to earn money performing it in America. He asks me if I can help them become successful and famous. He believes it’s worth millions—the infectious drumming, the mesmerizing dancers, and the excitement as dancers catch the myal—and he wants to tap the ritual’s financial potential. So do the others.

I remember a group that performs the Kumina for tourists on the northern coast. To remove the dance from its cultural context and present it as exotic, bizarre fun for foreigners saddens me. This ritual is significant, powerful. Torn from daily life, the event would invite outsiders to criticize its “primitive” nature and allow tourists to confirm their ethnocentric superiority, but it is not my role to preserve the traditions of Jamaica. It is their culture, their life. The dire economic circumstances that plague this island nation may require drastic and often undignified responses to ensure survival.

“Me think you like to dons,” he offers, and I agree. I am engrossed by the priest’s actions. As I observe the woman writhe on the muddy ground, he asks, “Do you want to learn to do that?”, gesturing toward her. No, I tell him, not like that. He laughs and insists that he could teach me how to catch the myal, but I resist in spite of the temptation. I believe he could teach me, but I am reluctant to put myself in the spotlight before my research colleagues, who I am sure would disapprove, and the locals, whom I fear I will offend. He invites me to dance, but I don’t feel ready. He leaves. I stand a while reflecting on his invitation, swaying a little with the rhythms.

*

People mill about a pink concrete house in the manicured yard and in the street. Townspeople slowly leave, though others arrive to take their place in the dance. I wonder if they are curious about the presence of Americans. I follow the tile pathway to the doorway into the house. Inside, women talk at the kitchen table and I greet them. On a double bed in another room, four small children sleep soundly, despite the music and commotion outside. I like that children are welcome here, even late at night. When they become tired, they sleep until their family is ready to leave.

I return to the yard and a young man asks me where I’m from. He is nineteen and works for Tropicana cutting sugar cane. He received twenty-eight Jamaican dollars a day (roughly four American dollars) for his labor. He tells me how difficult the work is, and, like many others, he wishes to “go foreign” to work.

Three or more other dancers have gotten the myal. Each, in turn, is cheered by the crowd, and the priest performs the exorcism.

*

The dancers and the crowd around the periphery begin to dissipate, so I move closer to watch the drumming. At the center, the smell of rum and ganja are concentrated, and I am again wafting in their aromas. By now, the dancers have taken a rest. There are new drummers, except for the apprentice and Moses. The others have taken a rest. Like Fundamentalist Christian churches of America, the Kumina priest and the townspeople perform a call and response. Moses leads a solo chant, the others chant back to him in a language I don’t recognize. A Jamaican tells me simply “It’s African.” The energy is palpable. It feels good, and everyone responds and moves to the rhythm of the drum beat: a head bobs, a body sways, legs and feet tap the beat. The other researchers mill about or watch from the periphery.

Ace begins to dance next to me with a woman I met earlier. Suddenly, he takes my hand and invites me into the center. I feel shy and I look to my fellow researchers and my “boss.” Am I getting too involved? Am I defying my role as an anthropologist, the “objective observer?” The crowd gathers again. I look to the Jamaicans, and they wait. I follow my gut and dance.

Once in the circle, I am intensely self-conscious, Ace and I being the only dancers. My knees ache from having hiked Blue Mountain, the island’s highest peak, two days before, but I keep moving. My legs, I fear, will buckle from shaking so hard. I can no longer hear the music and I laugh to hide my fear. I am terrified that my dancing will appear a mockery to the townspeople. I try to relax, but they cheer me on. “Look, mon, the white lady’s dancing!” I turn my attention inward. Close my eyes and regain the rhythm. To lose myself is the only way I can calm myself. Ace leads me around the circle. Others enter the circle and dance as well, following our lead. I relax more and more and I begin to feel that, as Ace says, “me business widen.”

The rhythms dissolve my inhibitions. I feel a strange sensation enter my body from the ground. It is peace. Gradually, my legs are transformed and this sensation moves up toward my waist. This is the myal. It’s about letting the inhibitions take their course, allowing me to express myself through dance. If I let go, my myal will overcome me.

Suddenly, I remember my colleagues, my obligation to behave, at least on my first trip into the field, according to accepted anthropological practices. I am exhausted and disoriented, so I stop in spite of the rhythms that call me. I feel like I’ve jumped dizzy off the merry-go-round. I rest. I must rest.

Later, I dance again, but with greater ease. One man in long Rasta braids shouts, “Hey Whitey! You lookin’ nice!” Many more join in the circular dance as we bump and grind around and around: men with women, women with women, young with old, black with white, black with black. It is wild. Erotic. Fun.

*

Folks become tired and retreat from the circle. The final event begins. An elder priest-drummer, who had earlier become possessed, is alert once again and carries the live chicken. He holds it close to his ribs with one arm, and with the other he carries a lighted candle. Everyone gathers beneath the bare light of the gazebo. The drums and voices persists, and the priest encircles the crowd to bless us. He dedicates the Kumina to the Americans who will travel the next day. He prays for a safe landing back home.

Under the light, Moses says something. More rum splashes. He takes the chicken by its breast and head and twists it so forcefully, he breaks its neck. He tears the head off the body and throws it to the ground. From the headless body, he pours fresh blood into a cup and mixes it with white rum. He drops the chicken body to the ground. It writhes, then runs off. Moses blesses the deep red liquid and turns to the crowd. He dips his finger in the blood and draws what could be a cross or an X upon his forehead. He draws the same sign on each drummer. Eventually, with the blood, he anoints me and each of my colleagues. I am stunned and a little queasy. The drumming resumes and those with energy embrace the rhythm. To my relief, Mandy and Alan dance. Then Michelle, Joan and Keith. Grant is too horrified to dance. To lose such control of himself, as the myal requires, is unthinkable to him. Instead, he films it. The camera defends him against the unknown, the unconscious, the uncontrollable.

There is comfort, for some, in believing that science is objective. Objectivity in the science of human behavior is a myth, however. How detached can we be when we see ourselves in others? Is it appropriate to distance ourselves from our own spirit?

We dance till nearly three in the morning. We are exhausted and board the van that will drive us through the dark winding road into town. If only for a short time, I become an ocean of peace.  

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Diane Prentiss now works as an epidemiologist in Northern California. She evaluates behavioral health programs designed to facilitate individuals’ recovery from mental illness and addiction. Most of her writing now takes the form of evaluation plans and reports, very important emails and absolutely essential Facebook posts. Occasionally, she writes in a journal.