Charlotteville alive for Natural Treasures Day

Charlotteville came alive on July 15 for Natural Treasures Day as part of the ongoing Tobago Heritage Festival events.

The morning started at Fort Campbellton with a ritual dance and an opening prayer which was followed by the traditions of the washing of the dead, dancing the cocoa, dirt-oven baking and the saw pit.

Cultural activist Kerron Eastman said the day’s proceeding consisted of "treasures of our community.” The washing of the dead bed he said referred to an old ritual of washing up after a death, washing away the spirit.

“Basically, when someone dies in the home, you remove all the linen – everything from the home and take it to the river and at the river the women would be there almost for the entire day talking other people’s business. What will happen is that they would wash that clothes and ensure that it is dried before they return home. When they are leaving, they walk backwards, so they will not take the spirits with them.”

Eastman said the King Cocoa (dancing of the cocoa) has grown over the years.

“This has grown tremendously over the years – we demonstrate the processing of chocolate, how it used to be done long ago, authentically. We dry the cocoa for eight days and then you dance the cocoa. You polish the beans by dancing them and when you polish the beans long ago, you get a better quality, and you get more money for it.”

Explaining the saw pit tradition, another member of the council, only known as Nedd described the saw pit process as tedious.

“It is a lot of work – you have to build the saw pit, cut wood, build it, then you get the wood to roll up, tie it up on it, then you saw. You have to measure and make sure because at that time you’re using battery to get the black of the battery and you black then line. And that is what you would use to get the line, you would get a stone to plummet.”

The day ended with entertainment by Wayne "Impulse" Modeste and Jeffrey "Prince Unique" Thomas, followed by a street party.