Arts on Sunday

One of the significant things to be noted about social traditions is that the ancient ones are fading and tend to be somewhat cryptic. In Guyana there are several traditions associated with Christmas that are so well known they will not bear repetition, yet they still retain a kind of perennial interest and are worth recalling or preserving because of what they may be able to tell about culture.

In Guyana, Christmas is an imported festival, originally religious and brought in by the Christian European colonial settlers. Although there has been relatively little radical change in the dominant form of the festival over the centuries, it has generated indigenous off-shoots and amendments and, to a greater extent, has adopted all the changes and developments that have accompanied the festival in Europe and, especially, North America. Guyana has brought them in wholesale and it is largely these, more than the indigenous amendments, that dominate and survive.

Although it is a Christian religious celebration, the origins of Christmas have various roots and even the religious ones are not without controversy. All of these, like the Guyanese customs, have often been written about, and need no repetition. The most interesting of the several roots are not Christian at all. They are either secular or taken from old so-called ‘pagan’ religions, with inputs over the years from Rome, Prussia and other ancient Germanic kingdoms, Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and the USA.

With all the various elements which were added to the celebration over the centuries, Christmas developed its own mythology and legends, music and literature, most of which have nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Of all festivals known to the world, it is the largest and most influential, most commercialized, most popular and most secularized for a religious celebration. In addition to all that, it is the religious ritual most celebrated by unbelievers.

Also as already mentioned, throughout the period of colonialism Guyana followed all the new trends that attached themselves to Christmas and were imported into the country, although not to the total exclusion of local customs and practices. The enslaved Africans adopted and adapted the festival under circumstances which are well known. They did so in ways which are not so well known, and may never become so since they have either disappeared completely or are now fading, and this brings us back to where we started.

Some of the local traditions are still remembered, but no longer practised, while others have survived without being very popular. The majority of them are a bit mystic and surrounded by vagueness, perhaps because of fading memory, but most definitely because they are not logical or easily explained. In most cases they share the common characteristics of oral traditions generally: no one knows the origins or the reasons, the explanations or the rationale; they are just known as things that people do. In other cases, there is a good deal of speculation about the reasons and origins.

Another interesting characteristic is the fact that so many of the traditional practices bear no relation to the Christian story or religious rites, although some are quite ritualistic. On the other hand, there are those few that developed in Guyana at Christmas along the course of history that relates to the Christian faith. The Portuguese immigrants brought the Novena which is still observed by Roman Catholics in Guyana. Different types are known, but there is the Christmas Novena, a ritual of nine prayers which begins nine days before Christmas in which an individual goes to church each morning to pray throughout the 9-day period.

That is surely not one of the more cryptic ones, and there are others whose origins and reasons might still be a bit clouded in mystery, but can be arrived at with reasonable speculation or some knowledge of Guyanese history. And there are those that can be explained. Most of them are linked to the whole Christmas season, which includes New Year, and the explanations and speculations seem to have more to do with end-of-year and New Year traditions than Christmas Day itself. Some combine both, while others adopt the original idea from Europe not only of Yule-tide feasting, but also of charity (as exemplified by the Feast of Stephen and Good King Wenceslas).

Not only must food be available on Christmas Day, but there must be enough to share with others. While the tradition is that families stay home on December 25, others who might not live with family or have a prosperous home should be invited to share on the day. On the other hand, the day for house-to-house visits and feasting is Boxing Day. There are many select food items that are still regarded as Christmas fare, but a few are of some little interest. While garlic pork was introduced by the Portuguese, there is also African pickled pork, which may be traced to slavery. The later tradition is that a pig is killed for the occasion and the meat pickled for preservation.

The New Year custom is that food must be cooked on the night of New Year’s Eve and eaten at midnight as a symbol that food will always be available throughout the year and no one will go hungry. But the selected dish is cook-up rice, with an alternative of metemgee. Both are Guyanese African dishes. While ginger beer is known as a drink of the season, there are those who say it is kept brewing through Christmas until afterwards, since it should not be consumed along with black cake or pepper-pot, which is quite strange.

Stranger still are some others, such as when cook-up is being prepared on New Year’s Eve night, “the pot must burn,” and there should be no cooking on New Year’s Day. There are other unexplained, illogical traditions as well. No reason is given, for example, as to why, in the couple of weeks or so leading up to December 25, the house must be “broken up”: all the furniture is disarranged and left like that until Christmas Eve. At that time there is much rearranging and decoration so that the house looks bright, sparkling and new, the reason for which is more apparent; however, the lengthy period of “breaking up” remains a mystery. During that period, the cabinet must be turned to the wall, and there must be the sound of nailing/hammering on Christmas Eve.

While those remain un-clear, there is a range of symbolism that may be associated with some of them. These relate to the spirit of the season and the concept of the beginning of a new year. At the season, all quarrels must be made up. The cabinet is emptied of all its wares and turned to the wall; after the “breaking-up” when the house is cleaned and re-arranged, it must look “foreign and strange” with new blinds, and the appearance must surprise everyone on Christmas Day. Others bypass Christmas Day and keep the house disarranged until the New Year.

There must be fresh plants in the house. Throughout the year the plants are groomed, but hidden away, then at Christmas they are brought out and the pots wrapped in foil paper. This custom is consistent with the symbolism of greenery: fresh, new, green plants which are symbols of life and renewal. In ancient Europe, as in the Roman civilisation, evergreen trees and plants were sacred and valued as decoration in the Saturnalia and the early Christmases, since they represented life, rebirth and renewal. The spirit of rebirth and positive change is relevant to the season and to all those customs that have to do with the New Year.