Jul 22, 2013
THERE is a Yoruba story that says when the earth lost its tongue and could no longer speak the heavens gave birth to the drum. In the ceremony of Junkanoo, when the goatskin drums start to beat and the brass band starts to play, the Junkanooer disappears into a deep meditation as the spirit expresses itself in movement and sound.
If Junkanoo were to exist in its most natural form, perhaps it would appear more like a masked ancestral ritual on African soil or the dance of a honugan in a Haitian Voudon ceremony. But as with much else, we are living outside of the natural order of things.
