Before Sunrise: Jab Jab, Memory, and Grenada's Spicemas

Before daylight on Grenada's Carnival Monday, Djab-Djab bands move through the streets. Some performers darken their skin with charcoal or oil. Horned headpieces, drums, conch shells and chains may be part of the performance. To a visitor the image can be startling. To the people who keep the mas, its history and the organization of a village band matter as much as its appearance.

The masquerade and its history

The Grenada National Trust traces Djab-Djab to the period of slavery. Its inventory of living cultural heritage explains that chains and shackles worn or dragged by performers can express breaking free from bondage. That meaning comes from practitioners and should not be stretched into a single, certain account of every costume choice or an unbroken origin story for every band.

Grenada's Spicemas Corporation describes the early morning J'ouvert as the time traditional Jab-Jab, or Devil Mas, bands enter the road. It records older blackening materials such as molasses, tar, grease and mud, alongside more recent variations in color. What a band uses today cannot safely be inferred from a photograph or a story about what an ancestor used. Practices have changed.

A village practice

The National Trust's interviews locate bands in communities including La Fillette in St. Andrew, villages in St. David, Willis in St. George and Sauteurs in St. Patrick. It names captains and long-serving drummers and describes a conch-shell signal used to gather band members. Those details shift attention from a generic crowd to people who teach, lead and rehearse the mas.

The same practitioners voice concern that commercial pressure and amplified music can drown out village bands and their drums. Some welcome younger players' ideas while questioning whether a change keeps faith with the reasons they play. That is a conversation within the tradition, not a verdict outsiders should settle for them.

Watching with care

A photograph catches the oil, horns and dawn, but rarely the choices behind them. A visitor can learn the band's local expectations, give performers room and ask before making someone a portrait subject. Contact with paint or oil should be by invitation. These are practical courtesies for a public celebration shared with its makers.

Djab-Djab is not only an image of defiance. It is an annual practice with named communities, leaders, instruments and disagreements about its future. Listen for the drums and the shell as carefully as you look at the costumes. They tell you that the road belongs to a group that has prepared to take it.