The Crix of the matter

Culture Matters

DARA E HEALY

In the first half of the 20th century, the Jab Molassie was one of the most popular Jouvay morning characters. They were a small group of not more than three or four members…The third member of the group was the drummer who beat a complex rhythm with two sticks on the ‘sweet oil’ tin. His beat was incessant and provided the basic energy for the movements, while the whistle blowing of the big Jab established a counter rhythm.

– Prof Jeff Henry, Under the Mas

THE ENTIRE Tobago airport stopped to watch what we were doing. People waiting in line to check in for flights and even people across the roadway buying bene balls seemed fascinated with our antics.

We were quite literally attempting to shove a biscuit tin into one of our travel bags. The airline did not understand that this was an instrument and should therefore be treated as such. Reminiscent of the 1880s, we were told to pack it away. Yet with the help of a jumbie we landed in the UK, biscuit tin intact.

First, we tried to avoid squeezing it. But the delicate approach was not working. “Boy, stan’ up on the ting,” someone called out. We started to shift clothes around, in a flashback to the 80s when Caribbean people over-packed and over-shopped and made spectacles of themselves everywhere they went. Not that they cared. Not that we cared. Anyway, I digress.

The next phase was to follow the advice and attempt to squeeze it in place. Significantly, through the ordeal, no one ridiculed us; nobody laughed. Instinctively, people understood the cultural significance of the biscuit tin. This was serious business and the entire airport (well, maybe not the airline) was on our side.

Music and Carnival are inseparable, but over the centuries the musical forms of ordinary Africans were demonised and persistently declared “illegal.” The celebration of emancipation evoked a ritual that became known as Canboulay or Cannes Brûlées. The use of bottles, dustbin covers and virtually anything that could be turned into an instrument became part of the joyous celebration of freedom.

However the chants, screams, flambeaux and cracking whips also recalled the trauma that the former enslaved experienced for hundreds of years. They remembered too the burning of the cane. It was a potent symbol of how their labour was extracted for free, how many died in the process of enriching a privileged few, and how they received nothing from the British for everything that was taken from them. Music was thus more than enjoyment or release; it was resistance.

For a brief moment after emancipation, the beating of drums was allowed. But, fearing its power, this was banned in 1884. The elites tried to make European-styled instruments the norm for the festival. String instruments from the Venezuelan community began to feature in the musical tableau of the space. Amongst the Africans, the
tambour (French for drum) bamboo emerged.

Researchers theorise that the rhythmic pounding is a continuation of the defiance. Eventually the people wanted more and the music transformed into biscuit tins and other materials that could produce a much sharper sound than bamboo or chac-chacs. More importantly, these new instruments could be tuned.

WWI resulted in Carnival being suspended for a number of years, but the innovation continued covertly in the yards around Laventille and east Port of Spain. By 1937, newspapers were writing about “the terrific din set up by the clanking pieces of tin.”

With a determined look, a woman decided to take over the saga of the biscuit tin. To this day, I have no memory of how she accomplished what five of us were trying to do. Maybe she was a jumbie from the biscuit-tin bands of old? Maybe she came from a lineage stretching back to Tantie Willie, Sousie Dean and the others?

Whoever she was, the Crix biscuit tin and the rest of our baggage made it onto the plane. The Carnival practitioners in England still talk about our performance/workshop.

Sadly, the poor tin eventually gave out. If we had known that production of this iconic instrument was going to be stopped, we would have kept it.

So, all that to say we need another biscuit tin. If you are willing to part with yours or know where we can get one, just one, let me know. It is time we release the spirit of the biscuit tin into other parts of the world. Is time.

Dara E Healy is a performance artist and founder of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN