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Of Critters and Characters short version

                                                                                                               







 by Adriana Murray 
 Online/ Social Media Version

landscape by Adriana Murray 



When is a grasshopper not just a grasshopper?



Answer: when it appears in the home just after midnight in the home of  sugar plantation worker.

When this green insect lands on your doorstep he has come to bring bad luck however the his brown counterpart suggests another prediction quite the contrary with him he brings good luck…


When is a green lizard a fortune teller

When he’s made his way into your path pregnancy is ah brewing

He suggests that a woman in the household is expecting or one of your strapping sons has given you the bounty of a bouncing baby!


Lady has come to visit no no not tramp’s lady in crime but the quintessential lady bird

What tidings does she bring?

When she’s nestled on your blouse she brings glad rags what a bounty!

What a frightful thing a thousand legs can bring the centipede?

What news does he bring?

You have an enemy my friend.

Its is said that any conversation about this biting critter will cause him to appear


Best King known of whom school children sing…


Fell in love with a girl wouldn’t leave her for all the world

Who is it…

King JaJa

A slave boy turned king exiled to the Caribbean

This Barbadian character is true to life not a figment of anyone’s imagination: of ordinary blood but of noble stature.


The cane cutter symbolizes resilience and strength. Cane carriage caused for a very regal and erect bearing. The women balancing the lengthy stems on their heads.


Men and women ascended the ladder whilst performing a grand balancing act while maintaining an erect posture and majestic bearing and all this came out of back breaking work. 

Barbados’ rich history is embedded in local characters which adorned our cultural experience. Characters like Ossiemore, King JaJa and the cane cutter are more than figments of our imagination or fanciful images that dance in our heads.  But when you may ask did these now ever-present roots surface and become visible facets of our cultural landscape?

This was a journey with to world of the mysterious and the magical.



 


I do not own the right to any content  in the videos I created

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