The oldsters, the repositories of Maroon drumming. - photos by Paul Williams

Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer

When the Charles Town Maroon Council celebrated Quao Day on June 23, it was to keep the memory of their cultural icon alive in the Portland community and it environs. In Safu Yard, the Mexican Ambassador to Jamaica, among others, addressed the small gathering, after a brief welcome from Colonel Frank Lumsden. There were cultural presentations from various groups.

Then the Charles Town drums exploded; it's a clash of the old and the young as they beat the goatskins in one accord. Side by side they sit, making sure that there is no break in the Maroon cultural continuum. The traditions must be maintained, the baton held tightly and so, the fanfare gives the warning. Your world is going to be rocked, back to Quao's time.

Sending message of freedom

The staccato. The rata-tat-tat. The boom! boom! The drummers are using the vocabulary of the past to send messages of freedom to the present. Expert hands slap and thump the instruments of liberation. Dancers reply by moving to the rhythms of the skins, using their bodies to heed the ancestral call to keep their spirits alive.

And as if to appease the 'spirits' in attendance, Colonel Frank Lumsden spews spirits of a different kind - white rum - into the air. The dancers are nowin a frenzy, twirling and shuffling their feet. Their gyrating bodies and expressive faces tell the story of a culture that refuses to die.

The hypnotic sounds of the drums toss an oldster to the floor. He crawls and squirms as the beats echo in his skull transporting him to another time and place.

For, through the the drum and the dance, the spirit of Quao, Maroon hero, lives on in Charles Town.

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com

Young Jermaine Spence and Kerry Bryan make sure that the Maroon heritage in dance is kept alive. Look at the position of the knees!

Young and old, side by side, preserving the Maroon culture in Charles Town, Portland.

This young man couldn't resist the pulsating sounds of the drums so he takes to the stage with Cashaine Richards, one of the Charles Town Maroon dancers.

Colonel Frank Lumsden spews white rum into the air to appease the 'spirits'.

Jermaine Spence blows the abeng. Let its sound echo through the hills; let the Maroon message of freedom and independence resonate forever.