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Junkanoo
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- For the Baha Men album, see Junkanoo (album).
Junkanoo is a street parade with music, which occurs in many towns across the Bahamas every Boxing Day (December 26) and New Year's Day. The largest Junkanoo parade happens in Nassau, the capital.
Junkanoo groups "rush" from 12:00 AM until shortly after dawn, to the music of cowbells, in costumes made from cardboard covered in tiny shreds of colourful crepe paper competing for cash prizes.
Major musical groups involved in the Nassau Junkanoo have included The Saxons, The Valley Boys, The Roots,
One Family and as of late the Prodigal Sons. Groups of the past included the
Vikings and
Music Makers.
A Junkanoo parade is featured in sequences of the James Bond film Thunderball that occur in Nassau. The celebration was staged specifically for the movie since it was filmed at the wrong time of year, but local residents were enthusiastic, creating elaborate floats and costumes and involving hundreds of people. The parade was also featured in After the Sunset.
Junkanoo is also a fruit flavored soda produced by PepsiCo and is only available in The Bahamas.
Junkanoo is also a modernized style of music sung by Bahamian band Baha Men.
Contents
- 1 John Canoe
- 2 Sources
- 3 Gallery
- 4 External links
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John Canoe
The practice was once common in coastal
North Carolina, where it was called John Canoe, John Koonah, or John Kooner.
Historian Stephen Nissenbaum describes the ritual as it was performed in 19th-century North Carolina:
- Essentially, it involved a band of black men–generally young–who dressed themselves in ornate and often bizarre costumes. Each band was led by a man who was variously dressed in animal horns, elaborate rags, female disguise, whiteface (and wearing a gentleman's wig!), or simply his "Sunday-go-to-meeting-suit." Accompanied by music, the band marched along the roads from plantation to plantation, town to town, accosting whites along the way and sometimes even entering their houses. In the process the men performed elaborate and (to white observers) grotesque dances that were probably of African origin. And in return for this performance they always demanded money (the leader generally carried "a small bowl or tin cup" for this purpose), though whiskey was an acceptable substitute. (Nissenbaum 1997, 285)
Nissenbaum likened John Canoe to the wassailing tradition of medieval Britain, seeing in both a ritualized inversion of the established social hierarchy that provides, simultaneously, a temporary suspension and powerful reaffirmation of that hierarchy. Wassailing performed this inversion along the axis of social class, whereas the 19th-century American version of John Canoe performed it along the axis of race. Both John Canoe and wassailing bear strong resemblance to the social inversion rituals that marked the ancient Roman celebration of Saturnalia.
"John Canoe" is also the name of a track recorded by the LeBeha drummers of Belize, who perform traditional Garifuna music.
John Canoe or Junkunno is also a street parade in Jamaica at Christmas time featuring several male characters in costume playing the fife and beating drums. They include Belly Woman, Pitchy Patchy, Jack-In-Green and Horsehead. There may be a character with a cowhide whip that he cracks.
Sources
- Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.
Gallery
Parade Particpant in costume during the 2006 Parade
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Costume Sans Participant After the Parade
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Costume Shoes Sans Participant After the Parade
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