—Continued from previous page

...down the road, where we can see smoke rising from wood
fires and women in long red-and-white dresses with match-
ing headscarves “seasoning up” mutton and goat, and lug-
ging big blackened pots — cauldrons, actually — to the
fires, where they are supported on tripods of rocks.

Red and white are the colors of the St. John Spiritual
Baptist Church, which is behind the Ashton Maroon,
Masani DeFreitas tells us. “It took us a while to get our
finances in order,” she explains, which is why Ashton’s
Maroon is being held two days before June’s full moon.
(Going back to their beginnings, Maroons were scheduled

 

Main photo: The communal cooking starts early in the
day. Everything is cooked outdoors over wood fires

Inset: ‘One of our hosts positioned herself on an upturned.
crate with a drum clutched between her knees’

Above: The drumming, singing, and dancing in the after-
noon gave us a taste of the Big Drum Dance to come

that evening

Right: Building an appetite: Chuck Shipley of Tusen Takk
Il starts to descend the Pinnacle

around the full moon so there would be light for the fes-
tivities, which extend long into the night.)

We hatch a revised plan: After we conquer the Pinnacle,
we'll return to Ashton to catch the Maroon in full swing. “How
long will the cooking go on?” Chuck asks. “Until everyone on
the island has something to eat,” Masani replies. She’s not
exaggerating: Maroons are all-island feasts, and everyone
from schoolkids to their parents to our quartet of cruisers will
be given a groaning plateful, without charge. Donations are
welcome, though, and we leave Masani with a contribution
and a promise that she'll see us again later in the day.

Fast forward four hours or so. The bus from Clifton depos-
its four very tired, very sweaty cruisers back in Ashton.
Despite the absence of anything resembling a marked trail,
we'd made it to the top of the Pinnacle; Chuck climbed to the
very highest rock, while the rest of us were content to enjoy
the view (as spectacular as advertised) from a slightly lower
perch. “A good head for heights” was indeed an asset — as
was a willingness to cling goatlike to narrow ledges and
boost each other over boulders. Having a helpful bus driver
who circled around until he got us to the most advantageous
starting point (by the radio mast) didn’t hurt either.

Sleepy Ashton has come alive in the time we've been away
— it’s now filled with music, people, and mouthwatering
smells. We are immediately offered cold drinks (very wel-

 

Ems

come, after the Pinnacle), followed by heaping plates of food.
The rich sauce from the meaty stew is absorbed by mounds
of rice and balls of coo-coo (West Indian cornmeal polenta),
with provision and salad on the side. After we eat, Chuck and
I wander over to where several women are making dump-
lings, and we're immediately invited to pinch off pieces from
a mammoth mound of dough and try our hands. The Union
ladies shape smooth, perfect disks; Chuck and I produce
ragged, irregular splats. More practice is clearly needed.

Meanwhile, one of our hosts has positioned herself on an
uptumed crate with a drum clutched between her knees
and is beating out a rhythm. Other women start to sing and
dance to traditional folksongs that clearly have African
ancestry. Bodies twirl, skirts swirl, and hands clap to the
rhythm. But this is just the start.

“The Big Drum Dance come this evening,” a young
woman next to me says. “Tonight, there will be many many
drums, and many many people singing and dancing. You're
coming back tonight, aren’t you?” Unfortunately not.
Though we happily seized the day, it’s just too difficult to
seize the night from our Chatham Bay anchorage.

“Back in time,” the ancestors of the people gathered here
called on the god or goddess of rain to open the heavens for
planting season. This aspect of the Maroon, however, has
long disappeared.

Still. Let the record show it poured the next day.

For information about the 2010 Maroons on Union Island,
call the Roots Connection Culture Club, (784) 527-0207.

Ann Vanderhoof is the author of An Embarrassment of
Mangoes. Her new book, The Spice Necklace, will be
published in January.

 

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