Jonkonnu
People often associate Christmas time with Pine Trees, presents, and Santa Claus, but never stop to think about how other Christian cultures such as the African American ones in New Bern,Jamaica, and the Caribbean celebrate this time of year.The contrast between the African-American celebrations called Jonkonnu, and American Christmas celebrations is profound to anybody. The celebrations are with tightly knitted communities that use music,dance, and songs to express their appreciation of one another instead of the tradition of gift-giving. Jonkonnu is an African-American Christmas celebration which takes place in New Bern, Jamaica, and the Caribbean.
Jonkonnu can be traced back to West African slave ships which carried slaves to
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The day begins with the official announcement of Jonkonnu by the Town Crier, which is followed by revelers dancing for people on their doorstep to collect donations.(Mims). The Town Crier usually yells a chant such as “John Canoe is Coming John Canoe is coming!”(Mims). According to Mckown, Participants in the celebrations dress in their best clothing, or in a costume. Typical costumes include horse heads,horned masks, and tails which are usually made of cloth,wood,colorful rags and leather(Mckown). The most important figure known as the Rag Man, is covered head to toe in colorful rags and is often danced around once the celebration begins; however, the Rag Man’s importance pales in comparison to his significance during the era of slavery(Mims). The Rag Man essentially had the social hierarchy of a white man during the short period in which he was allowed to shake his slave master’s hand(Mims). This was unheard of the rest of the year and anything of this sort would be devastating to the owner’s reputation among other whites(Mims). The celebration begins with people dressed up in their costumes dancing to music and the beat of the drums. Children dance to the chant “Funga alafia, ashay ashay! Funga alafia, ashay ashay!” which roughly translates to “I welcome you into my heart”(Mims). The festivities spread throughout town and can be heard from any corner of Tryon Palace.
A black jeremiad is a writing or a speech that constantly emphasizes the need for and methods to achieve social change. David Howard Pitney in his book The Afro-American Jeremiad, rightly suggests what the components of a jeremiad are: "1) citing the promise, 2) criticism of present declension or retrogression from the promise, 3) resolving prophecy that society will shortly complete it's mission and redeem the promise"(Howard-Pitney 8). The authors we have chosen have written prominent jeremiads, and we will show why they can be considered jeremiads; why they were important when they were written; and why they are still important today.
Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and America’s Creole Soul. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c2006.
Kwanzaa was first celebrated in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, his family and Friends. Dr. Karenga, a professor of African-American History at CSU, Long Beach, was effected by the Watts Riots of the summer of 1965. He felt that African-Americans had lost touch with their African heritage. He began to study ways that they could help themselves and each other. Dr. Karenga wanted to unify his people and instill a pride in their joint culture. He felt that there should be a special time of the year set aside to reflect upon and reaffirm the black community. He studied the harvest and "first fruit" celebrations on many African tribes, and although they all celebrated differently there were similarities in many ways. These similarities are some of what Dr. Karenga incorporated into the celebration of Kwanzaa. Even the name for this celebration was taken from Swahili, which is a nontribal language spoken in many parts of Africa. Kwanza in Swahili (AKA Kiswahili) means "the first" or "the first fruits of the harvest". Dr. Karenga added the final "a" to distinguish the holiday from the Swahili word.
"Mardi Gras Indians." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 02 Dec. 2009. Web. 02 Dec. 2009 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Since the forced-migration to the Americas, African-Americans have been assigned between two cultures: being African and being American. Both cultures are forced upon African-Americans who lack a culture of their own. Neither Africa nor America is truly home to the African-American and the connections between both cultures have been separated. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the duality of African-American race is explored within the characters of Joseph Asagai and George Murchison – boyfriends of Beneatha Younger. Asagai and Murchison portray the struggle African-Americans encounter when they try to be either African or American. African-Americans face a great deal of strife when they seek to be both African and American.
When one thinks of African American spirituals, images of a church service with a choir singing in beautiful harmony swaying in rhythm to the music usually ensue. Spirituals are far more significant than hymns sung by Christians in a church setting, as we shall soon see.
The Mardi Gras Indians have been a tradition that has lived on in new orleans for many years, the secrecy of the indians is what has made the mardi gras indian such an event, the mardi gras indians do not plan parade times or even publish any documentation. The Mardi gras indians do not take order from no one, and it because they believe in such belief due to years of harassment and it empowered them as much as their ancestor did back in the days of enslavement, I became interested in the Mardi gras Indians because of how elegant and colorful their costume were, the amount of time and energy to create a costumes and how they do not get any sort of profit and solely create them because of tradition and because of many of the old resident trying
This essay will examine what was new about the new negro from 1920-1936. During the years 1920-1936 African Americans began to rebrand themselves and change their image. African Americans wanted to create an image of themselves that was more positive, educated, and cultured, with an emphasis on African culture, hence began the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro movement.
African Minkisi have been used for hundreds of years in West Central Africa, This area where they are traditionally from was once known as the kingdom of Kongo, when Europeans started settling and trading with the BaKongo people. Kongo was a well-known state throughout much of the world by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The BaKongo, however, had probably long used minkisi before ethnographers and anthropologists ever recorded them. Minkisi are complex items that are used to heal and to harm people, and there is no equivalent term for nkisi in any European language. A seventeenth century Dutch geographer first wrote of the nkisi, and said that, “These Ethiopians [that is, the BaKongo] call moquisie [minkisi] everything in which resides, in their opinion, a secret and incomprehensible virtue to do them good or ill, and to reveal event of past and future” (Williams, 13). The term illness, in this context, is quite different than what we refer to illness. Illness, to the BaKongo, meant anything from sickness, to loss of property, and the inability to succeed in things like school and work. . “The perpetual struggle with the unseen forces that cause illness and misfortunes was (and is) called “war” in Kongo” (MacGaffey, 98). A war is ended when one side of the struggle proves that they have better magic. The objects themselves are extremely complex, and most of them require hours of, “painstaking labor to construct” (MacGaffey, 33). “All minkisi, whether in the form of wooden figures, snail shells, raffia bags, or clay pots, are containers for “medicines” that empowers them” (MacGaffey, 43). “The usual containers included the shells of large snails, antelope horns, cloth bags, gourds, and clay pots. Although minkisi in museums are usually wooden figurines and statues, containers of this kind may well have been the minority” (MacGaffey, 63). Without medicines, the minkisi are nothing, they are not alive, nor can they perform their functions. “To BaKongo, all exceptional powers result from some sort of communication with the dead” (MacGaffey, 59). Chiefs, witches, diviners/prophets, and magicians could all do this, especially through and with the help of the minkisi. There are rules and ways of doing things with them, to them, that exemplify so many aspects of Kongo cultu...
African- American folklore is arguably the basis for most African- American literature. In a country where as late as the 1860's there were laws prohibiting the teaching of slaves, it was necessary for the oral tradition to carry the values the group considered significant. Transition by the word of mouth took the place of pamphlets, poems, and novels. Themes such as the quest for freedom, the nature of evil, and the powerful verses the powerless became the themes of African- American literature. In a book called Fiction and Folklore: the novels of Toni Morrision author Trudier Harris explains that "Early folk beliefs were so powerful a force in the lives of slaves that their masters sought to co-opt that power. Slave masters used such beliefs in an attempt to control the behavior of their slaves"(Harris 2).
Imagery is one of the topic that described racial pride during the Harlem Renaissance. There was alot of imagery in document’s A and B that described racial pride. In document A it say’s ‘Trampling tall defiant grass.’’ This quote is racial pride becasue in your head you can see how Africa looks like with the tall trees. In Africa there are tall grass that the animal’s get to camouflage to protect them from predators.
Being a resident of South Carolina, African-American Culture was chosen as part of the applied learning project for the Intercultural Nursing class, because African-Americans make up more than a quarter of this state’s population. According to the 2010 United States Census Bureau, the total population for South Carolina (S.C.) is 4,625,364, with 27.9% being of African-American descent. The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding and sensitivity to issues and cultural variances or phenomena that are unique to the African-American Culture. Another goal is to identify nursing interventions that are important for the nurse to consider in caring for this population. These phenomena’s include variances in social organization, communication, space, perception of time, environmental control, and biological variations associated with the African-American culture. (Giger, 2013 and South Carolina minority, n.d.)
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). African American history plays an important role in American history not only because the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one Month out of the year to studied African American history. Of course we learn some things about the important people and events in African American history, but some of the most important things remain untold which will take more than a month to learn about.
During my early years of school, I remember being taught white accomplishments and wondering if blacks and other people of color had made any significant contributions to today's world. I noticed that television consist of all white people. Throughout my research paper I hope to cover certain aspects of African American heritage. Aspects such as blacks making up the largest minority group in the United States, although Mexican-Americans are rapidly changing that. The contributions blacks have provided to our country are immeasurable. Unfortunately though rather than recognizing these contributions, white America would rather focus on oppressing and degrading these people. As a consequence American society instinctively associated white with light and all good things; while black is associated with darkness or evil.
Traditions are practices/beliefs that are passed down from generation to generation. In traditional African societies, a kinship ties people through birth or marriage. There are two kinds of relationships in customary African tradition; those bound by blood, which are called consanguine, and those constructed by marriage, called affilial. There are four key descents that determine inheritance and marriage. However, the most common descent is patrilineal, which traces ancestry through one's father. While in America, we are vary tolerant of tracing our descent from both parents.