The sun sets on Carnival Sunday,
Grenadians begin to hear the steps of the Jab Jab.
As we play mas... masquerading as his character.
As he treads the space between life and death.
The Jab is the spirit of a slave who died
In a pit of boiling molasses.
Becoming free,
In the most brutal of fashions.
The Jab is the spirit of a slave,
But the Jab is free.
He roams the streets of his masters,
Long after they have abandoned them.
Inhabits our bodies whenever we celebrate our freedom.
The overzealous and religious
call the Jab the devil
But the Jab is not your devil.
The Jab, spirit of an African slave,
Does not even believe in your devil.
He makes a mockery of him,
And the cruelty with which Christians christened his people.
When they became the devil
They accuse the Jab of being.
He knows, what it is to be dragged by shackles across oceans.
So we drag chains on the path of our choosing.
He is a symbol for all our suffering.
The Jab remembers salting the leftover cod and the discarded swine
The slaves would have to eat.
He turns them into a delicacy.
He dyes his lips with the blood of his forefathers.
How they feasted upon the fruit of our labour,
The seed of our womb.
.
It is Better
9
He knows how you represent your devil.
You see evil in his people's skin.
A dark serpent and horns,
The Jab slays the snake you fear,
Wearing it: around his neck like a nightmare trophy.
He blackens his skin with crude oil
Similar in colour to hot molasses
The colour of stolen kings from Africa.
The colour of the abrupt end of a life.
The colour of slaves closing their eyes.
So that their minds survive the countless demise of their brethren.
Only flags of love, gold and life.
Remind us that he is merely borrowing the likeness of a Grenadian.
He dances. Stains everything he touches.
With the grease on his body.
That slipped him out of his master’s clutches.
Mortally.
He makes J’ouvert morning a communion of
Liberty.
The Jab takes up a mischievous revenge on his murderers.
For he is a trickster.
After turning upstanding members of the community
Into drunkards and horna-men,
Unfaithful to their women and their responsibilities.
Rum; a bottled river of the Jab's intentions.
Turning the shards of the fragile European social construct,
Into the teeth that he laughs with.
After sinking these teeth,
Into all the saltfish in the pots that mas players have cooked for themselves.
.
After dirtying buildings, vehicles and people with the print of his hands
Hands that he owns,
It is funny that you think this makes them unclean.
After using the mouths of children to wrap their location in a cloud of lies.
So that their parents would not stop them from jumping up in the Jab Band.
With sunrise the Jab plays his greatest trick and seems to disappear.
As Grenadians return to their regular forms.
But those who know him know.
He is driven to prove how foolish we look
In emulation of our former masters' practices.
They say,
It is better to play Jab Jab
Than for the Jab to play mas with your life.
Every time you call the Jab your devil,
The Jab sees you become that which you accuse him of being.
Every time you practice the religion that sedated the minds of your ancestors,
Or turn up your nose at the dialect of your brothers,
Follow laws that encourage cultural erasure,
Read to our young a European interpretation of history.
Every time you emulate Massa’s actions.
The jab is there.
Watching.
Playing Mas with your body,
Even if you do not play his character.
So people,
Doh hurt yuh head.
Just play Jab.
R. De Riggs
.