Maroon Expressive Culture

Music, Dance, and Songs

The Jamaican Maroons greatly contributed to the foundation of Reggae and Dancehall music, while still maintaining their unique musical traditions. Kenneth Bilby is one of the most respected anthropologists and ethnomusicologists who has studied the Jamaican Maroons, among other Maroon societies in the Americas. He has recorded and written significant works on the music of the Jamaican Maroons, particularly those of Moore Town, which are important contributions in the documentation of Maroon history, society and culture.[1] According to Bilby and Diana Baird N’Diaye, “…Maroons were able to create vibrant, distinctive and diverse artistic traditions. These expressive forms – music, dance, verbal arts, foodways, crafts, architecture, personal adornment, and others – drew upon the Maroons’ African heritage as well as Native American and European resources, but emerged as something new and unique.”[2] Sally Price, another notable scholar of Maroon societies and cultures in the Americas, would add “…folk tales, play languages, proverbs, speeches made by possessed mediums, oratory and prayer…” to this unique ensemble of Maroon verbal arts.[3]

At the heart of the Jamaican Maroon verbal arts, particularly their music and ritual complex, is what Bilby has identified as the “Kromanti Dance” or “Kromanti Play,” in which, during ceremonies that incorporate a variety of dance and musical styles, the Maroon participants are possessed by the spirits of their ancestors, an experience termed “Myal.” The purpose of the spirit possession is often to heal ailments that have been attributed to other spirits. As Bilby argues, “The music of Kromanti dance is perhaps one of the most interesting musical creations of the New World African diaspora, and provides fertile ground for comparison with other Afro-American musical traditions.”[4] In 2003, UNESCO recognized the international significance of Maroon culture by naming their musical heritage a masterpiece of the oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.[5]

In both Music of the Maroons of Jamaica and Drums of Defiance, Bilby provides extensive information and context on Jamaican Maroon music. He divides Jamaican Maroon dance and music into two main types: A “Pleasure” style called “Yanga” and a “Business” style called “Nyaba.” The “lighter” or “less powerful” categories of Kromanti music “used primarily for recreational group dancing” include songs in genres such as (1) “Jawbone,” (2) “John Thomas,” (3) “Sa Leone,” and (4) “Tambu,” which are dominated by words from English, Jamaican Creole (Patois), or the more rural and ritual version of Patois spoken by Maroons.

The drumming styles of John Thomas, Sa Leone and Tambu are similar to that of the “Kumina” drumming style of the coastal, lowland areas of the eastern parishes of Portland, St. Thomas, St. Mary, St. Catherine, and Kingston. John Thomas is also used by Windward Maroons as the name for the parish of St. Thomas.[6]

Source: Kenneth M. Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica (Liner notes for

LP record. New York: Folkways Records FE 4027, 1981), 1.

As Bilby describes it, the often “mournful themes and very moving, plaintive melodies” of Jawbone songs communicate significant historical happenings or incidences in everyday Maroon life, on an individual or community level. They are also used as work songs or “digging tunes” during the communal cultivation of farming lands. Sa Leone (named after the country of Sierra Leone) songs are normally topical in nature (like Jawbone songs), are usually referred to as “woman songs,” and the dance styles are typically performed in ring formation.

A second category of songs, which Bilby describes as “heavier” and “deeper,” incorporate a higher percentage of non-English words, that is, more African-derived words and phrases. These songs are used mainly to invoke the possession of the living dancers by Maroon ancestral spirits (this spirit-possession is termed “Myal”), and as accompaniment to the ritual specialist and guardian of the communal and ancestral knowledge and music of the community, known as the “Fete-man,” “Fete-woman” (“fight-man” or “Fight-woman”) or “dancer-man” in his spiritual work, through the dance and music. Songs in this more serious category are named after and associated with various African ethnic groups or nations, which the Maroons credit for being a part of their ethnogenesis. They include (1) “Dokose,” (2) “Ibo,” (3) “Kromanti,” (4) “Mandinga,” (5) “Mongola,” and (6) “Prapa” (also pronounced “Prapra” or “Papa”). Each category of Maroon music has a distinctive style of drumming.

Kromanti (also called “Country”) songs refers to both a specific style of music as well as to all the different genres of Maroon music. Deeply spiritual in nature, the Country style of music takes you into the spirit world, erasing temporal barriers and the separation between the world of the living and that of the ancestors. Dominated by greater use of words from the Akan Twi language from the Akan cultures of Ghana, Country is also a more intense category of songs and dances normally reserved for the more serious portion of the Kromanti Dance, which occurs later at night.

The term “Kromanti” refers to a slave port in the Gold Coast (Ghana), where slaves largely of Akan background where collected and shipped to the New World by the British. Although there is no ethnic group called “Kromanti” in Ghana, it became associated with Maroon ethnic identity, language and cosmology in Jamaica. The Ibo category is identified with the Ibo or Igbo ethnic group found in Southeastern Nigeria. Mandinga music derives from the predominantly Muslim Mandingo (otherwise known as Mandinko, Mandinka, Mandenka, Maninke, and Malinke) peoples who are largely descendants of the medieval Mali Empire. Also belonging to the largest ethnolinguistic group in West Africa known as the Mandé, Mandingo peoples are currently found in the Senegambia sub-region of Western Africa, which includes the modern countries of the Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Mauritania. Prapa music derives from the Pawpaw ethnic group, a term used by European slave traders to refer to enslaved Africans originating from the Ewe-speaking West African territories that comprise parts of the modern, neighboring countries of Ghana, Togo and Benin.

Despite the ethnic identifications of some Maroon musical and dance categories with specific West African ethnic groups such as the Ibo or Mandinga, Bilby cautions, “However, [that] this should not be taken to mean that the songs which go by this name can be traced to this specific region of Africa. The derivations of Maroon musical styles and songs are difficult to pinpoint, and in most cases they must be seen as New World creations, the end results of a unique process of musical syncretism which long ago began to blend elements from a diversity of African traditions into new styles.”[7]

Jamaican Maroons also participate in other general musical and dance traditions practiced by other rural groups in Jamaica, such as Jonkonnu and quadrille, as well as farming, grave-digging, and church songs, rooted in various Christian denominations.

The primary musical instruments in Kromanti Dance are constructed mainly from the natural materials readily found in the forest. The foremost instrument used in traditional Maroon music across Jamaica is the drum, the head of which is made with goat’s skin and beaten with the hands. Bilby identifies the musical instruments used by the Windward Maroons as a “male” and “female” pair of single-headed, long, cylindrical drums called “Printing” drums, which derives from the Twi word “Oprenteng.” The lead drum is referred to as the “cutting drum” while the interlocking supporting drum, which is larger than the lead drum, is termed the “rolling drum.” The drummer is known as the “Printing-man,” “Okrema,” or “Okrema-man,” and occupies a place of secondary significance only to the Fete-man during the Kromanti Play.

Another essential Windward Maroon musical instrument is the “Kwat,” (either derived from the English word “quarter” or an African word, as Bilby notes), which is constructed from a section of a bamboo joint and played with two pieces of sticks. A machete or pitchfork is also struck with a metallic object known as the “Adawo” or “iron,” which complements the beats of the Printing drums. The more spiritually-potent categories of songs (such as Ibo, Dokose, Mandinga, and Prapa) also incorporate the use of a special stick known as an “Abaso tick” or “Akani tick” (“tick” being the Maroon pronunciation of “stick”). A pair of shakers (pronounced “shayka”), an instrument with a calabash gourde (called a “Paki”) containing seeds, through which a stick is placed, is also used.

The most iconic Maroon Kromanti symbol is the Abeng, a side-blown cow’s horn used traditionally as a communicative instrument of war, as well as a means of communication and a musical instrument. The same word (“Abeng”) is still used in Ghana today for musical wind instruments made from the horns of cows and other animals. The Adawo has also been traditionally used as a means of communicating within the community, and likewise is a symbol of Maroon ethno-national identity. As Bilby reveals, the term “Country” is often used to denote the communicative “language” of the Abeng, similar to the Kromanti ritual and drum language. This use of Maroon music and instruments as “language” or “speech,” Bilby argues, is a unique feature of the various genres of Maroon Kromanti music, which they share with the music of their African ancestors and contemporary counterparts.

According to Bilby, in the Windward Maroon settlement of Charlestown, Kromanti practitioners also use instruments called the Kwat and the Adawa (as in Moore Town), as well as a pair of single-headed drums. The leading drum is called the “Gumbe” or “Goombay,” a two-legged “male” drum that is shaped like a rectangular bench, while the supporting drum called the “Grandy,” which is similar to the “female” Printing drum of Moore Town. Scott’s Hall, another Windward Maroon settlement, also uses the Gumbe (also called the “Saliman” drum) and the Grandy (also called the “Monkey” drum), the Kwat, and the iron.

In addition to Kromanti songs that have some relation to those of the Windward Maroon groups, the Accompong Town Maroons also have a tradition of processional music (a fusion of traditional African and older European military-style drumming), which resembles the instruments used in other Afro-Jamaican syncretic traditions such as Revival and Jonkonnu. The instruments used in this kind of music include the Abeng; a small, four-legged, stool-shaped Gumbe drum, which serves as the “cutting” drum; a large two-headed base drum, played with a padded stick; and one to two smaller two-headed “rolling” side drums, played with a pair of wooden sticks.

Given Granny Nanny’s importance, especially to the Windward Maroons, there are many songs sung by these groups, particularly in Moore Town and Charles Town, in homage to her memory and legacy. Many of the Kromanti songs and dances in all of the Maroon communities are performed during annual festivals commemorating the memory and exploits of the principal Maroon leaders; Kojo in Accompong, during their January 6 celebrations; Grandy Nanny among the Moore Town Maroons, in October; and Charles Town in July. Moreover, women usually (but not exclusively) sing the choruses in the various genres of Maroon music.

Finally, similar to the use of Schnapps (mainly Dutch Schnapps) – a clear brandy that is distilled from fermented fruits – in Akan ceremonial and ritual practices, white rum (especially Wray & Nephew White Overproof rum) is an indispensable “spirit” used by the Jamaican Maroons to pour libations to and communicate with their ancestral spirits during Kromanti Dance.[8]

[1] See, for example, Kenneth M. Bilby, Drums of Defiance: Maroon Music from the Earliest Free Black Communities of Jamaica (CD and liner notes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, SF 40412, 1992): 1 – 14; Kenneth M. Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica (LP record and liner notes. New York: Folkways Records, FE 4027, 1981), 1 – 12; and Kenneth M. Bilby, “The Kromanti Dance of the Windward Maroons of Jamaica,” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 55, nos. 1,2: 52-101. For other audio-visual and textual material on the Jamaican Maroons, See Kenneth M. Bilby, “The Kenneth M. Bilby Jamaican Maroon Collection AFC 1983/007” (Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, May 1995).

[2] Kenneth M. Bilby and Diana Baird N’Diaye, “Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Culture in the Americas,” in Festival of American Folklife, edited by Peter Seitel (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1992): 59.

[3] Sally Price, “Arts of the Suriname Maroons,” in Festival of American Folklife, edited by Peter Seitel (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1992): 68.

[4] Bilby, Music of the Maroons, liner notes, 2.

[5] See “Maroon Heritage of Moore Town,” UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/lists?RL=00053.

[6] Kumina has its roots among the Kikongo-speaking Bakongo and Bandundu peoples of the tropical rain forest region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and Angola.

[7] See Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica, liner notes, 6.

[8] See Bilby, Drums of Defiance, liner notes, 1 – 14; Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica, liner notes, 1 – 12; and Bilby, “The Kromanti Dance” 52-101.

The Jamaican Maroons greatly contributed to the foundation of Reggae and Dancehall music, while still maintaining their unique musical traditions. Kenneth Bilby is one of the most respected anthropologists and ethnomusicologists who has studied the Jamaican Maroons, among other Maroon societies in the Americas. He has recorded and written significant works on the music of the Jamaican Maroons, particularly those of Moore Town, which are important contributions in the documentation of Maroon history, society and culture.[1] According to Bilby and Diana Baird N’Diaye, “…Maroons were able to create vibrant, distinctive and diverse artistic traditions. These expressive forms – music, dance, verbal arts, foodways, crafts, architecture, personal adornment, and others – drew upon the Maroons’ African heritage as well as Native American and European resources, but emerged as something new and unique.”[2] Sally Price, another notable scholar of Maroon societies and cultures in the Americas, would add “…folk tales, play languages, proverbs, speeches made by possessed mediums, oratory and prayer…” to this unique ensemble of Maroon verbal arts.[3]

At the heart of the Jamaican Maroon verbal arts, particularly their music and ritual complex, is what Bilby has identified as the “Kromanti Dance” or “Kromanti Play,” in which, during ceremonies that incorporate a variety of dance and musical styles, the Maroon participants are possessed by the spirits of their ancestors, an experience termed “Myal.” The purpose of the spirit possession is often to heal ailments that have been attributed to other spirits. As Bilby argues, “The music of Kromanti dance is perhaps one of the most interesting musical creations of the New World African diaspora, and provides fertile ground for comparison with other Afro-American musical traditions.”[4] In 2003, UNESCO recognized the international significance of Maroon culture by naming their musical heritage a masterpiece of the oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.[5]

In both Music of the Maroons of Jamaica and Drums of Defiance, Bilby provides extensive information and context on Jamaican Maroon music. He divides Jamaican Maroon dance and music into two main types: A “Pleasure” style called “Yanga” and a “Business” style called “Nyaba.” The “lighter” or “less powerful” categories of Kromanti music “used primarily for recreational group dancing” include songs in genres such as (1) “Jawbone,” (2) “John Thomas,” (3) “Sa Leone,” and (4) “Tambu,” which are dominated by words from English, Jamaican Creole (Patois), or the more rural and ritual version of Patois spoken by Maroons.

The drumming styles of John Thomas, Sa Leone and Tambu are similar to that of the “Kumina” drumming style of the coastal, lowland areas of the eastern parishes of Portland, St. Thomas, St. Mary, St. Catherine, and Kingston. John Thomas is also used by Windward Maroons as the name for the parish of St. Thomas.[6]

As Bilby describes it, the often “mournful themes and very moving, plaintive melodies” of Jawbone songs communicate significant historical happenings or incidences in everyday Maroon life, on an individual or community level. They are also used as work songs or “digging tunes” during the communal cultivation of farming lands. Sa Leone (named after the country of Sierra Leone) songs are normally topical in nature (like Jawbone songs), are usually referred to as “woman songs,” and the dance styles are typically performed in ring formation.

A second category of songs, which Bilby describes as “heavier” and “deeper,” incorporate a higher percentage of non-English words, that is, more African-derived words and phrases. These songs are used mainly to invoke the possession of the living dancers by Maroon ancestral spirits (this spirit-possession is termed “Myal”), and as accompaniment to the ritual specialist and guardian of the communal and ancestral knowledge and music of the community, known as the “Fete-man,” “Fete-woman” (“fight-man” or “Fight-woman”) or “dancer-man” in his spiritual work, through the dance and music. Songs in this more serious category are named after and associated with various African ethnic groups or nations, which the Maroons credit for being a part of their ethnogenesis. They include (1) “Dokose,” (2) “Ibo,” (3) “Kromanti,” (4) “Mandinga,” (5) “Mongola,” and (6) “Prapa” (also pronounced “Prapra” or “Papa”). Each category of Maroon music has a distinctive style of drumming.

Kromanti (also called “Country”) songs refers to both a specific style of music as well as to all the different genres of Maroon music. Deeply spiritual in nature, the Country style of music takes you into the spirit world, erasing temporal barriers and the separation between the world of the living and that of the ancestors. Dominated by greater use of words from the Akan Twi language from the Akan cultures of Ghana, Country is also a more intense category of songs and dances normally reserved for the more serious portion of the Kromanti Dance, which occurs later at night.

The term “Kromanti” refers to a slave port in the Gold Coast (Ghana), where slaves largely of Akan background where collected and shipped to the New World by the British. Although there is no ethnic group called “Kromanti” in Ghana, it became associated with Maroon ethnic identity, language and cosmology in Jamaica. The Ibo category is identified with the Ibo or Igbo ethnic group found in Southeastern Nigeria. Mandinga music derives from the predominantly Muslim Mandingo (otherwise known as Mandinko, Mandinka, Mandenka, Maninke, and Malinke) peoples who are largely descendants of the medieval Mali Empire. Also belonging to the largest ethnolinguistic group in West Africa known as the Mandé, Mandingo peoples are currently found in the Senegambia sub-region of Western Africa, which includes the modern countries of the Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Mauritania. Prapa music derives from the Pawpaw ethnic group, a term used by European slave traders to refer to enslaved Africans originating from the Ewe-speaking West African territories that comprise parts of the modern, neighboring countries of Ghana, Togo and Benin.

Despite the ethnic identifications of some Maroon musical and dance categories with specific West African ethnic groups such as the Ibo or Mandinga, Bilby cautions, “However, [that] this should not be taken to mean that the songs which go by this name can be traced to this specific region of Africa. The derivations of Maroon musical styles and songs are difficult to pinpoint, and in most cases they must be seen as New World creations, the end results of a unique process of musical syncretism which long ago began to blend elements from a diversity of African traditions into new styles.”[7]

Jamaican Maroons also participate in other general musical and dance traditions practiced by other rural groups in Jamaica, such as Jonkonnu and quadrille, as well as farming, grave-digging, and church songs, rooted in various Christian denominations.

The primary musical instruments in Kromanti Dance are constructed mainly from the natural materials readily found in the forest. The foremost instrument used in traditional Maroon music across Jamaica is the drum, the head of which is made with goat’s skin and beaten with the hands. Bilby identifies the musical instruments used by the Windward Maroons as a “male” and “female” pair of single-headed, long, cylindrical drums called “Printing” drums, which derives from the Twi word “Oprenteng.” The lead drum is referred to as the “cutting drum” while the interlocking supporting drum, which is larger than the lead drum, is termed the “rolling drum.” The drummer is known as the “Printing-man,” “Okrema,” or “Okrema-man,” and occupies a place of secondary significance only to the Fete-man during the Kromanti Play.

Another essential Windward Maroon musical instrument is the “Kwat,” (either derived from the English word “quarter” or an African word, as Bilby notes), which is constructed from a section of a bamboo joint and played with two pieces of sticks. A machete or pitchfork is also struck with a metallic object known as the “Adawo” or “iron,” which complements the beats of the Printing drums. The more spiritually-potent categories of songs (such as Ibo, Dokose, Mandinga, and Prapa) also incorporate the use of a special stick known as an “Abaso tick” or “Akani tick” (“tick” being the Maroon pronunciation of “stick”). A pair of shakers (pronounced “shayka”), an instrument with a calabash gourde (called a “Paki”) containing seeds, through which a stick is placed, is also used.

The most iconic Maroon Kromanti symbol is the Abeng, a side-blown cow’s horn used traditionally as a communicative instrument of war, as well as a means of communication and a musical instrument. The same word (“Abeng”) is still used in Ghana today for musical wind instruments made from the horns of cows and other animals. The Adawo has also been traditionally used as a means of communicating within the community, and likewise is a symbol of Maroon ethno-national identity. As Bilby reveals, the term “Country” is often used to denote the communicative “language” of the Abeng, similar to the Kromanti ritual and drum language. This use of Maroon music and instruments as “language” or “speech,” Bilby argues, is a unique feature of the various genres of Maroon Kromanti music, which they share with the music of their African ancestors and contemporary counterparts.

According to Bilby, in the Windward Maroon settlement of Charlestown, Kromanti practitioners also use instruments called the Kwat and the Adawa (as in Moore Town), as well as a pair of single-headed drums. The leading drum is called the “Gumbe” or “Goombay,” a two-legged “male” drum that is shaped like a rectangular bench, while the supporting drum called the “Grandy,” which is similar to the “female” Printing drum of Moore Town. Scott’s Hall, another Windward Maroon settlement, also uses the Gumbe (also called the “Saliman” drum) and the Grandy (also called the “Monkey” drum), the Kwat, and the iron.

In addition to Kromanti songs that have some relation to those of the Windward Maroon groups, the Accompong Town Maroons also have a tradition of processional music (a fusion of traditional African and older European military-style drumming), which resembles the instruments used in other Afro-Jamaican syncretic traditions such as Revival and Jonkonnu. The instruments used in this kind of music include the Abeng; a small, four-legged, stool-shaped Gumbe drum, which serves as the “cutting” drum; a large two-headed base drum, played with a padded stick; and one to two smaller two-headed “rolling” side drums, played with a pair of wooden sticks.

Given Granny Nanny’s importance, especially to the Windward Maroons, there are many songs sung by these groups, particularly in Moore Town and Charles Town, in homage to her memory and legacy. Many of the Kromanti songs and dances in all of the Maroon communities are performed during annual festivals commemorating the memory and exploits of the principal Maroon leaders; Kojo in Accompong, during their January 6 celebrations; Grandy Nanny among the Moore Town Maroons, in October; and Charles Town in July. Moreover, women usually (but not exclusively) sing the choruses in the various genres of Maroon music.

Finally, similar to the use of Schnapps (mainly Dutch Schnapps) – a clear brandy that is distilled from fermented fruits – in Akan ceremonial and ritual practices, white rum (especially Wray & Nephew White Overproof rum) is an indispensable “spirit” used by the Jamaican Maroons to pour libations to and communicate with their ancestral spirits during Kromanti Dance.[8]

[1] See, for example, Kenneth M. Bilby, Drums of Defiance: Maroon Music from the Earliest Free Black Communities of Jamaica (CD and liner notes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, SF 40412, 1992): 1 – 14; Kenneth M. Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica (LP record and liner notes. New York: Folkways Records, FE 4027, 1981), 1 – 12; and Kenneth M. Bilby, “The Kromanti Dance of the Windward Maroons of Jamaica,” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 55, nos. 1,2: 52-101. For other audio-visual and textual material on the Jamaican Maroons, See Kenneth M. Bilby, “The Kenneth M. Bilby Jamaican Maroon Collection AFC 1983/007” (Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, May 1995).

[2] Kenneth M. Bilby and Diana Baird N’Diaye, “Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Culture in the Americas,” in Festival of American Folklife, edited by Peter Seitel (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1992): 59.

[3] Sally Price, “Arts of the Suriname Maroons,” in Festival of American Folklife, edited by Peter Seitel (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1992): 68.

[4] Bilby, Music of the Maroons, liner notes, 2.

[5] See “Maroon Heritage of Moore Town,” UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/lists?RL=00053.

[6] Kumina has its roots among the Kikongo-speaking Bakongo and Bandundu peoples of the tropical rain forest region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and Angola.

[7] See Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica, liner notes, 6.

[8] See Bilby, Drums of Defiance, liner notes, 1 – 14; Bilby, Music of the Maroons of Jamaica, liner notes, 1 – 12; and Bilby, “The Kromanti Dance” 52-101.