Culture

Jamaica Natural

Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean archipelago are summits of a submarine string of mountains, which in prehistoric times probably formed a land bridge between modern Mexico and Venezuela. Covering about 10,982 sq. km (4,240 sq. miles), the island is approximately the size of Connecticut, yet offers a diverse landscape. It is 235km (146 miles) long; its width ranges from 35 to 93km (22-58 miles).

Millions of years ago, volcanoes thrust up from the ocean floor, forming Jamaica's mountains, which reach to 2,221m (7,402 ft.) high (loftier than any along the eastern seaboard of North America). These mountains, located in an east-to-west line in central Jamaica, contain more than 120 rivers and many waterfalls, as well as thermal springs. In the high mountains of the east, the landscape features semitropical rainforest and copses of mist-covered pines. The mountains are bordered on the north and east by a narrow coastal plain fringed with beaches. The flat, arid southern coastline reminds visitors of African savanna or Indian plains, whereas the moist, fertile North Coast slopes steeply from hills down to excellent beaches. Much of Jamaica is underlaid by limestone, dotted with dozens of caves that store large reservoirs of naturally filtered drinking water.

Almost everything grows in Jamaica, as proved by colonial British botanists who imported flowers and fruits from Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and Canada. The island contains unique orchids, ferns, bromeliads, and varieties of fruit, like the Bombay mango, that don't flourish elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Birds, insects, and other animals are also abundant.

Framing the capital of Kingston, the Blue Mountains dominate the eastern third of the island. This is the country's most panoramic area, and it's split by a network of paths, trails, and bad roads-a paradise for hikers. From this region comes Blue Mountain coffee, the most expensive in the world. Younger than the Blue Mountains, the John Crow Mountains rise at the northeastern end of the island. Only the most skilled mountain climbers or advanced hikers should attempt this rugged karstic terrain. It rains here almost daily, creating a rainforest effect.

Did You Know?

• Jamaica is the third largest of the 51 inhabited islands in the Caribbean-only Cuba and Hispaniola are bigger.
• Ackee, though cooked and used as a vegetable, is actually a fruit that is poisonous until it bursts open and its gases escape. It is part of Jamaica's national dish, ackee and salt fish.
• Blue Mountain coffee, grown on the slopes of Jamaica's loftiest mountain, is among the tastiest and most sought-after coffees in the world.
• From 1503 to 1504, Christopher Columbus spent about a year off the North Coast of Jamaica because his worm-eaten vessels weren't seaworthy.
• In the 17th century, the notorious privateer Henry Morgan presided over Jamaica's Port Royal, known as the "wickedest city on earth."
• On August 6, 1962, England's Princess Margaret and U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson watched as the British Union Jack was lowered and a new flag raised as Jamaica attained independence. The new flag featured a gold cross on a black-and-green background.
• Rastafarians, a Jamaican religious group, venerate the late Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie.
• Some Jamaicans regard ganja (marijuana) as a sacred plant and testify to its healing power.

Be Jamaican for a Week
Get to know our people and culture!

So you’re coming to Jamaica and you wonder what Jamaicans do with their time. Well, given the complexities of Jamaican society, one can spend forever learning about our people and culture, but if you have one week and would like to “be” a Jamaican, here’s what we suggest:

Attend a Religious Service.

Jamaica is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having more churches per square mile than any other country, a fact that many Jamaicans are proud of and quick to extol. In addition, we have created many fascinating forms of European and African forms of worship blended into Christianity, as well as creating unique belief systems such as Rastafari. Regardless of your own religious beliefs, attending service in Jamaica is certainly a most telling cultural experience. The options are wide and varied. There are the more formal traditional services of Christian churches such as the ones held at historic parish churches. There are also non-traditional services that take place anywhere from under huge circus-style tents, riverbanks and small one-room chapels to large modern worship halls, while Rastafarians sometimes hold large meetings to ‘chant’. Religion is a central part of the lives of most Jamaicans, and most religious-minded people here would be more than happy to have you join them in worship. If you choose to go to any meeting, be sure to inquire about etiquette, and be prepared to meet some of the most welcoming Jamaicans and witness first hand the power of belief.

Share Sunday Dinner with a Jamaican Family.

Sunday dinner is one of the most time-honoured traditions of the typical Jamaican family. Rice and peas, chicken and a salad are practically staples, but often meals include a second meat, baked sweet potato, and cooked garden vegetables. Of course, no meal is complete without fresh juice of whichever fruit is in season, and baked pastry served with ice cream or fresh fruit for dessert. Be prepared to eat all the food on your plate! Here in Jamaica we have a saying; “betta belly bus’ dan good bickle go to wase” (we’re sure you will figure that one out on your own!) Apart from delectable dishes, a big feature of Sunday dinner is the community of people – relatives and friends – that come together for it.

Watch or play a cricket match, or ‘run some ball’.

Jamaicans are passionate about their sports, and every week whole communities come out to support their local teams, or to play in spirited and highly competitive rounds. Certainly, the two most popular sports in Jamaica are cricket and football (called ‘soccer’ in the United States, and simply ‘ball’ in Jamaica). Across the country, community fields and pitches dot the land strategically located wherever there is unused open land space. Since participants in local leagues are generally men who have day jobs, most games and matches take place in the early evening or on weekends. Many matches are spontaneous, and teams grow as players arrive. With all levels of skills and talents represented, it’s not hard to join a team for one game or so, but being a spectator is an amusing experience too. While not all players are professionals, all spectators have ‘expert’ opinions to offer, sometimes highly amusing ones that keep the games light-hearted and entertaining! Learn the lingo, pick a side, and join in the fun…Howzat!

‘Reason’ or have some ‘Veranda Talk’.

As a people, Jamaicans have never been afraid to hold and defend an opinion. In fact, we enjoy being thought of as “the loudest little island in the world”! We express ourselves – clearly and eloquently – through music, art and literature, but most of all though discussion. ‘Reasoning’, the act of debating or discussing a point or idea to exhaustion, can and does take place anywhere, anytime. ‘Veranda talk’ follows the same idea, but is usually reserved for verandas, front porches, or drawing rooms, supplemented by tea or lemonade and appropriate snacks. However formal or informal the setting, Jamaicans love to exchange thoughts, and a lot of time here is devoted to talking – talking about everything – politics, art, music, sport, world events, the weather and the state of the roads. In fact, any subject worthy of a passing thought is worthy of debate, and a major part of socializing here involves…just talking!

‘Go ‘a dance’.

No visit to Jamaica can be complete without a night out on the town, Jamaican style. Whatever town you’re in, there will be at least one night in the week when everyone will ‘dress up and go sport’, at a community ‘dance’, ‘session’ or stage show. Loud sound system speaker boxes stacked high into the air belting out hit tunes to welcome patrons, who come decked out in the latest and sometimes most outrageous outfits. You can easily find out what ‘a carry the swing’, simply by walking around – brightly coloured and often amusing flyers promoting the event will be posted almost everywhere. These posters will give you all the information you need; the names (and aliases) of the promoters, the name of the sound system or dee-jays playing the music, and the date, occasion and location as well as the entry fee. Generally, the rules are the same as those around the world; women should be cautious when handling their drinks, and we suggest going in a group, preferably with a Jamaican to accompany your party. Certainly, the most important rule for attending any dance/session/stage show in Jamaica is also the easiest to adhere to: be sure to “forget your troubles…and dance!”

‘Lick two domino.’

Jamaica’s unofficial national pastime is, without a doubt, playing dominoes. The energetically loud crash of ‘cards’ onto makeshift tables is a familiar sound throughout the country, heard everywhere from the fisherman’s huts in seaside villages to the luxurious patios of palatial mountain homes. What makes this game so popular? We’re not sure. But Jamaicans do have domino playing down to a science, and are always eager to take on challengers, either as individuals or as members of two-person teams. There is much more to dominoes than just the game itself. Most encounters last six ‘hands’, leaving plenty of time to reason, tell tales or to brag. But pay attention! Most regular domino players have perfected the art of seeming preoccupied while they assess the game, and will seize any moment of distraction to deliver crushing defeat, loudly and bombastically!

‘Go ‘a Market’

The most famous produce market, Coronation Market in downtown Kingston is the island’s largest, attracting higglers from all over Jamaica. All over the island, however, each town and village has its own local market – some of the more popular ones include the Linstead Market in St Catherine, the Brown’s Town Market in St. Ann, The Savanna-La-Mar Market in Westmoreland, and the Albert George Market in Falmouth. In most markets, just about any natural produce that grows in Jamaica is available; everything from ackee to yam, from seasonal gungu peas and otaheite apples to the ever-present chocho, dasheen and breadfruit. The variety of choice is not limited to fresh fruit and vegetables, most markets in Jamaica carry a variety of healing herbs like cerasse and leaf of life, spices such as pimento, nutmeg and cinnamon and miscellaneous items such as honey, kulu kulu rum and home-made soap. A Jamaican market scene is a masterful pot-pourri of tropical scents and sounds: vendors hawking wares, children laughing and hundreds of transactions being completed.

Architecture

The obsession of Jamaican planters with contemporary British taste helped create an architectural elegance rivaled by only a handful of other British colonies, notably Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Barbados. Although the island style began with an allegiance to Georgian models, concessions were made to the heat, humidity, bugs, hurricanes, and earthquakes of the tropics. Later, after Jamaica became recognized as the leading outpost of British military power and agrarian skill in the West Indies, Jamaican architectural principles spread to other parts of the Caribbean.

Georgian-type design, manifest in Jamaica's port facilities, Customs houses, and civic buildings, was most graceful in the island's many Great Houses. Intended as centerpieces for enormous sugar plantations, these buildings include some of the finest examples of domestic architecture in the West Indies. Among common design elements are wide verandas on at least two sides, balustrades, intricate fretwork, sophisticated applications of contrasting types of lattice, deep and sometimes ornate fascia boards, and a prevalence of pineapple-shaped finials above cornices and rooflines. The first floors of Jamaican buildings were usually elevated by low stilts or pilings to allow air to circulate. This prevented rot, cooled the ground floor, and helped keep insects, rodents, and scorpions out of living quarters.

Not all of Jamaica's 18th-century buildings were designed along Georgian lines. Smaller, less pretentious houses were built in styles appropriate to the income of the owners and the demands of the sites. Jamaican vernacular architectural style was developed by tenant farms and indentured servants, many from Scotland, and by the children of freed enslaved persons. These houses usually received the prevailing trade winds, and typically were angled to prevent smoke from the kitchen from blowing into living quarters. Known for the pleasing proportions of their inner spaces, the buildings continue to surprise contemporary architectural critics by their appropriate placement and convenient interior traffic patterns.

Since the end of World War II, architecture in Jamaica has followed two distinct variations on colonial themes. Banks, civic buildings, and commercial structures have generally been inspired by the thick walls, small windows, and massive dignity of the island's 18th- and 19th-century British forts. Hotels and private dwellings, on the other hand, typically trace their inspiration to the island's Great Houses or the unpretentious wooden cottages that still dot the landscape.

Art

The bulk of Jamaican artwork has been executed since 1940, when the yearning for independence and a sense of national destiny colored many aspects of the country's life. Whereas reggae, the national musical form, is strongly influenced by a subculture (the Rastafarians), Jamaican painting is much wider-ranging and diverse.

The most easily accessible Jamaican artwork is "yard art," which rises from the concrete, litter, and poverty of the island's cities. Punctuated with solid blocks of vivid color, and sometimes interspersed with graffiti, these murals are often viewed as an authentic reflection of the Jamaican soul. Subjects include political satire, naive (or intuitive) depictions of an artist's friends and family, idealized Jamaican landscapes, and kaleidoscopic visions of heaven and hell. Examples of yard art seem to increase, along with graffiti and political slogans, before each election. Predictably, however, a flood of uninspired woodcarvings, handicrafts, and banal painting has appeared in recent years because of worldwide commercial and sociological interest in yard art. Caveat emptor.

Jamaica's leading painters include Carl Abrahams, whose recurrent theme is the Last Supper; Barrington Watson, known for a romanticized, charming view of the Jamaican people; Eugene Hyde, one of the country's first modern abstract artists; and British-born Jonathan Routh, whose illustrations of Queen Victoria during elaborate state visits to Jamaica-none of which really occurred-provoke laughter as far away as London. Also noteworthy are Christopher Gonzalez, who won a commission from the Jamaican government for a statue of reggae superstar Bob Marley; David Boxer, one of the first Jamaican surrealists; and Osmond Watson, known for his sharp-angled and absorbing depictions of the human face.

Today

Jamaica's 2.5 million people form a spectrum of types that bespeak the island's heritage. Most Jamaicans are black, but there are also people of Chinese, Asian Indian, Middle Eastern, and European background. About 75% of the people are classified as black African and about 15% as Afro-European.

Jamaicans are generally friendly, funny, opinionated, talented, and nearly impossible to forget. Their sense of humor is dry and understated, yet robust. National pride is specific-beating the British at cricket, winning gold medals in the Olympics, or attaining world boxing titles.

And Jamaica is more diverse than one might imagine. The British brought slaves from the west coast of Africa, notably the area of modern Ghana, who belonged to the Fanti and Ashanti ethnic groups. Others are descended from the Ibo and Yoruba people of present-day Nigeria. When the forced laborers were freed in 1838, most deserted the plantations and settled in the hills to cultivate small plots of land. They founded a peasantry that is still regarded as the backbone of Jamaica.

After slavery was abolished, the British brought in Chinese and East Indians to work the plantations. You can still see pockets of these immigrants here and there.

Jews are among the oldest residents of Jamaica. Jewish families have been here since the time of the earliest Spanish settlements. Though small in number (about 400), the Jewish community has been influential in government and commerce.

In 2003 the birthrate in Jamaica was about 17 per 1,000 persons, the death rate 5 per 1,000. Life expectancy at birth was 78 years for females, 76 years for males. There was a net out-migration of 6 persons per 1,000 inhabitants. The annual population growth rate was .61%.

Ganja

Marijuana use is the island's biggest open secret, and you'll no doubt encounter it during your vacation. (To be honest, it's the big draw for some visitors.) Vendors seem to hawk it at random, often through the chain-link fences surrounding popular resorts.

Ganja is viewed with differing degrees of severity in Jamaican society, but it's still officially illegal. We should warn you that being caught by the authorities with marijuana in your possession could lead to immediate imprisonment or deportation.

Marijuana and Jamaica have long endured a love-hate relationship. The plant was brought here by indentured servants from India in the mid-19th century. Revered by them as a medicinal and sacred plant, and referred to by the British as "Indian hemp," it quickly attracted the attention of the island's plantation owners because its use significantly reduced the productivity of those who ingested it. Legislation against its use quickly followed-not for moral or ethical reasons, but because it was bad for business.

During the 1930s the slow rise of Rastafarianism (whose adherents believe marijuana use is an essential part of their religion) and the occasional use of marijuana by U.S. bohemians, artists, and jazz musicians, led to growing exports of the plant to the United States. A massive increase in U.S. consumption occurred during the 1960s. Since the mid-1970s, after more stringent patrols were instituted along the U.S.-Mexico border, drug trafficking has slowed. Still, today between 75% and 95% of all marijuana grown in Jamaica is consumed in the United States.

Cultivation of the crop, when conducted on the typical large scale, is as meticulous and thorough as that of any horticulturist raising a prize species of tomato or rose. Seeds, sold illegally by the quart, must first be coaxed into seedlings in a greenhouse, then transplanted into fields at 60-centimeter (2-ft.) intervals. Popular lore claims that the most prolific seedlings are raised in Jamaica's red, bauxite-rich soil and nurtured with all-organic fertilizers such as bat dung or goat droppings. As the plants mature, tattered scarecrows, loud reggae music, fluttering strips of reel-to-reel recording tape, and slingshots manned by local laborers are used to fend off the birds that feed on the seeds.

Even more feared than natural predators, however, are the Jamaican police. The constables periodically raid fields and destroy the crop by burning it or spraying it with herbicide.

Marijuana plants reach maturity 5 to 6 months after transplanting, often with a height of about 3m (9 1/2 ft.). Stalks and stems are then pressed for hash oil; leaves are dried for smoking, baking into pastries, or use in herbal teas. Most seeds are saved for the next planting.

Various types of ganja can be grown in a single field, each identified by names like McConey, Cotton, Burr, Bush, Goat's Horn, Lamb's Breath, and Mad. Bush and Mad are the least potent of the crop, while the strongest are acknowledged to be Lamb's Breath, Cotton, and Burr. The last three are marketed in the United States under the name sinsemilla (Spanish for "without seeds"). Rastafarians typically prefer specific types of marijuana, much the way a gastronome might prefer specific types of caviar or red wine. To each his own.

Smuggling the dried and packaged final product is disconcertingly efficient. A small plane lands at any of the country's hundreds of outlaw airstrips, which are sometimes disguised immediately before and after use by huts and shacks moved into place by crews of strong-armed men. The planes then whisk away the crop, much of it to Florida. Undoubtedly, in a country with chronically low wages and constant fear of unemployment, the temptation to accept bribes runs high among government officials in both high and low positions.

Despite its widespread presence, marijuana is illegal in Jamaica and drug-sniffing dogs are employed at all airports. Our advice? Don't end your vacation in jail

Links & Sources:

• Wikipedia
• Frommers
• Rough Guides
• Lonely Planet
• Jamaica Touristboard