Spindly and sky-high, the costumed stilt walkers crossed oceans to become a Caribbean festival fixture.
Your first time on stilts can be intimidating . Your articulatio talocruralis are stiff and strapped in ; your brain ca n’t comprehend what ’s hap . Your desire , I ’m told , has to be stronger than your fear . But once that desire wins out and you plunge yourself to your human foot , stretching up to 15 feet in the air and enclothe principal to toe in shining madras prints or Raphia chick that flutter in the farting , miracles can go on .
Now you ’re a Moko Jumbie , stomping , bending over backwards , gyrating , lifting your leg , and holding in shoes . With the addition of stilts , you ’ve transitioned from human to an shape of spirits , a soaring godlike form with roots all over the African continent consult upon to carry the mantle of ancestry . They also played a sociological role , assisting in rites of passing within the community . Using their altitude to keep a lookout and outwear mirror to guard off evil , Moko Jumbies are guardian , towering above the villages they shield with a revered omnipotence .
“ In [ African ] ghostlike ceremonies , these would be guardians , ” say Willard John , founder of the nonprofitGuardians of Culture Moko Jumbiesin St. Croix , US Virgin Islands . “ They extend their bodies entirely , because they represent a higher power . You need not see a homo . ”
Guardians of Culture Moko Jumbies
When enslaved hoi polloi were transmit from Africa and forced to toil in the Caribbean , so too come their Moko Jumbies ( some say the giants walk through the ocean ) . But for carry on the custom , they had to change their public - facing import . “ The woodlet owners did not allow the Africans to practice their endemic organized religion , ” says John . “ So the Moko Jumbie had to be camouflage , put in a different context in order for it to be acceptable . ”
The name also hail from an merger of African and West Indian refinement . In Central Africa , “ moko ” mean healer . “ Jumbie ” was added later — the West Native American term for touch or spirit , it ’s think to have roots in the Kongo language .
apparitional African Moko Jumbies thus became celebratory entities , first spotted at gatherings on grove then later on giving dimension to street festivals after emancipation . Over the hundred , their costumes grew more colorful and festive , but they never lost tidy sum of their account , their traditional plain potato sack repurposed into plumage .
Don’t forget to look up.|Macduff Everton/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images
In St. Croix , you could see Moko Jumbies at least three times a hebdomad during the holiday season . And they ’re even more prevailing when theCrucian Christmas Festival , which runs from December 26 through January 9 , kicks off , in addition to seasonaljump upsand events like the Coconut Festival in early December . You ’ll also bump them every Wednesday at 7 Prime Minister at thePalms Restaurantat the Pelican Cove hotel . Or baseball swing by the Schjang Ballpark in Estate St. John on Saturday mornings from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm , and you could watch John ’s protege , some of whom have been with him for decades from the age of 10 , practise their performance . Maybe you ’ll even be inspired to strain it yourself .
“ The first time on the stilt was one of the most exciting times of my life history , ” says John . “ scarey as well , but I sense the spiritualism . ”
At 84 or so square miles , St. Croix is the big of the Virgin Islands , a paradiseof soft livid sand , lush rain forest , and turquoise blue piss fringe with colourful coral reef . A 15 - mo escape or 2 - hour ferrying from St. Thomas , it provides an alluring air of privacy , specially for in high spirits profile visitant . You ’ll be firmly - press to find a chain hotel , it ’s the domain of stalwarts like the family - ownedBuccaneer Hotel , and dress shop establishments like the historicKing Christian Hoteland oceanfrontWaves Cane Bay . Over the year the island has been a repair for Marilyn Monroe , NBA player Tim Duncan , Danish comedian and piano player Victor Borge , and Hollywood starlet Maureen O’Hara , who publishedVirgin Islands Magazine , negociate a Caribbean commuter train plane service , and acted asJohn Wayne ’s point of contactduring his visits . And it ’s presently attract the likes ofPresident Biden , who traditionally visits during the festal holiday time of year .
The white sands of Buck Island Reef National Monument|Chris Allan/Shutterstock
Five old age after the Rockefeller Brothers Fund donate over one-half of St. John to the US government to create theUS Virgin Islands National Parkin 1956 , President Kennedy establishedBuck Island Reef National Monumentoff of St. Croix , which boasts one of thenation ’s three snorkel trailswithin its reef . ( There are underwater memorial tablet and everything . ) Along with Buck Island , interior parks on St. Croix includeChristiansted National Historic Site , which delves into the economic works of the Danish , andSalt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve , home to a bioluminescent bay with kayaking tours .
give its beaut , it ’s no wonder St. Croix has been under seven pin : Spanish , English and Dutch ( at the same time ) , French , Danish , Maltese , and finally , the US . But throughout each business , those who were take there against their will remain inviolable .
Remnants of St. Croix ’s roily past tense are visible above ground by way of defunct lettuce mills , as well as underwater in the form of shipwreck , where archeological work is being conducted by theSlave Wrecks Project at Christensted and Buck Island . The Estate Little Princess , now house to theNature Conservancy , was once a woodlet that housed the island ’s only Africans - only infirmary , as well as a space where the enslaved live , worked , raised livestock , made pottery , got married , had children , and , in curt , created lives , from 1749 until 1848 . section of the estate are nowan archeological site , where everyday items like clayware shards and Pisces bones are uncovered in an effort to reconstruct spirit once lived .
Moko Jumbies in Trinidad.|Blacqbook/Shutterstock
And then there are people likeWillard John , steward of St. Croix committed to keep the culture alert . Throughout the rest of the Caribbean , the front of Moko Jumbies fade for decades until a fierce revival bestow them back to the fore in the 1990s , but in the Virgin Islands , they never provide . Here , Moko Jumbies have ardently watched over their ward for the last 200 years .
And while most images of Moko Jumbies reflect the glittery , showy stars of world - famous carnival in places like Antigua , Trinidad , St. Vincent , St. Kitts , and Barbados , John is more interested with preserve account than invoking celebratory elan . It ’s an campaign to regenerate what he realized was never taught as a Virgin Islander attending an HBCU in Pennsylvania . “ It was an international school day — there were students from all over , peculiarly Africa , ” he recalls . “ We would sit down around and verbalize about our civilisation and history , but I did n’t know a lot about mine , because they did n’t teach me that in school . ”
When John returned home , he was determined to absorb himself in the civilization of the Virgin Islands . His cousin convinced him to join the Moko Jumbies in St. Thomas , and when he moved to St. Croix in 1979 , the stilt Walker amount with him . presently after , he began the Guardians of the Moko Jumbies to keep the bequest active , and the rest is , well , history .
“ I remember what makes me different is I ’m a traditionalist , ” he says . “ I care to remind people from whence it comes , [ and ] I seek to emphasise a lot of the Africanisms of this art sort . In other locations you might see a guy dance without even a shirt on — that ’s not uncollectible , that ’s just the path they want to do it ! ”
In contrast to those desolate - chested performers , John ’s Moko Jumbies cover their full body , including their faces , just like their African root . “ With their faces deal , you really feel the mysticism , ” he says .
But this strict adherence to custom does get some pushback , sometimes from his own young Moko Jumbies . “ My nestling , they do n’t want to wear masks , they require everybody to see who they are , ” he says . “ But I do n’t allow it — I require to ensure people infer where it comes from . ”
