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ROOTS IN THE WIND

I would like to suggest that the ancient Big Drum ritual songs have not ceased to appear, but are heard within an alternate domain for the pleasure of similarly enthusiastic and responsive crowds. The calypso retains great historical derivation from African type songs for though the religious supplication of the Nation songs is lost, the humor of the Frivolous songs and social commentary of the Creole songs still gird the momentum of the calypso. Though the calypso has lost the dance in concert performance, it has moved on to larger instrumental bands and its impact has increased beyond a single household. It now serves a whole nation.

I will point to a survival of formal poetics remaining constant in the calypso that celebrates its last line as the nation songs also do. The beloved practice in the early calypso of using the last line “sans humanite’ ” or “sandimanite’ ” as a choral chant survives in nation songs. In the calypso those terms gave rise to the final lines “in this colony,” “every one and all” “Britain rule the day,” each with five syllables (E. Hill 1972).

The Mighty Sparrow in writing about the United States invasion of Grenada in 1983 wrote a calypso called “Grenada” in which he used five- syllable Spanish words as a last line of the verses: “ Senor por favor,” and “ Cuba que pasa.” It all seems to go back to the ancient practice of using the choral line ending in Big Drum songs like “Salamani-o” or other African terms as “Ambala,” “Anancy-o,” “Sai Amba” which are spiritual names and also utterances of beloved place names, Dahomey, Kongo. These are roots belonging to Africa that we can hear in our world.