Interjecting

Sorry to bust in on this travelogue / narrative of the Borderliner's journey through the physical and cultural environment of the islands, which I am enjoying immensely and very much appreciate. I just thought it might be an opportune moment to interject.

I have never been to the islands, but I would love to go. Whenever my wife sees pictures of the less developed islands on TV she asks where it is, and says that it looks like Cape Coast or El Mina, coastal Ghanaian towns, and she's right. I wondered how close of a connection there may be between the islands and Mother Africa.

Anthropologists return to the sites of origination when attempting to recreate civilized situations no longer in existence. For example, the answer to the question of what happened to the Maya is that they became the Central American people of today, and there are Maya ritualistic mimes in contemporary Central American societies. The same can be said of the Romans becoming Italian, and the indigenous religions of almost anywhere becoming Christianity.

On to music. There is a traditional Highlife musician from Ghana named Nana Kwame Ampadu who is not only a bandleader, but he is also a Ghanaian music scholar. We all know that the Bantu people of sub-Saharan Africa (the linguistic groups that originated in the Niger river basin)have a common culture that spread over tropical West Africa and into Equatorial Africa. Common mimes to these societies include music as well as methods of farming and matrilineal succession. Indigenous West Africans had a six string instrument played with two hands. The name of it escapes me right now, but if you listen to the AfroPop edition of RevoFest (the Ghanaian festival of the revolution) then you will hear it played and get the name. Nana Ampadu played an example of the old "Palm Wine" style of music using the six stringed instrument. The Palm Wine style gets it name from the palm wine drinking session that ensues when the palm tree tappers return from the bush. The longer the attendants sit, the harder the palm wine becomes. It is said to be healthy but I know from experience that it can sure give you a healthy buzz, but I digress. Palm wine music lyrics are a repetition with call and response, allowing a palm wine player to improvise lyrics as he plays and allowing the audience in the circle to interact and be involved in the performance. To me, unequivocally, the instrument sounds like Mississippi John Hurt on the guitar and the lyrics sound like the island born calypsos of the early twenties.

The African ingredient in the northern mainland music became the seminal blues, the basis of rock-n-roll and hip hop and in the southern music contributed to the creation of calypso, samba, and reggae. Scholars of West African music point out that the creation of drum machines and easily fabricated rythmns and beats has stopped the evolution of popular West African music or ballads. To hear some of the old style vocal recitations from West Africa, listen to the orthodox religious chants of the True Belief sect of Christianity, which is the indigenous religion with a Christian mask.

Once again, I've run out of things to say without actually coming to a point.

Tell us, what happened after the rum cake on the boat?