Falmouth 1880s - Christmas_in

Cornwall Street, Falmouth, in the 1840s

H G deLisser remembers the Christmases of his boyhood in Falmouth in the 1880s:

Yet when Christmas came round we knew how to enjoy it; we spent it right royally, getting into debt to do so, could we but find anyone willing to allow us to owe them. Christmas lasted for several days with us; and when we learnt that in Kingston the people had a habit of flocking to the seafront to listen to a band which they could not hear, we laughed scornfully at their ignorance. For us, the old ways and customs were good enough. We ate prodigiously, drank much; at groceries and "doctor shops" our planters and overseers would assemble some days before the 25th of December to order supplies, treat one another to drinks, criticise the Government and joyfully proclaim the ruin of the country. And the townsfolk would arrange John Canoe dances, and Jacks-in-the-Green, and Cows, and Kitty-Flies, just as was done in Jamaica two hundred years before.

My first memory of Christmas is associated with Kitty-fly, John Canoe, Jack-in-the-Green and Cow. I think I preferred Cow. It was a custom brought over from Africa at the very beginning of the slave trade: a man dressed himself in cow’s skin, covered his face with a mask, crowned the whole with a huge pair of horns and stuck a tail on that part of his body where, in the ages before man became man, he probably wore a tail. Accompanied by a crowd, some members of which shook a rattle and beat a drum, our Cow would parade the town, dancing to the horrible music made by his devoted followers. Kitty-fly, on the other hand, was dressed as a woman, carried a wand, wore a mask of “John Canoe face” and would also dance to the sound of drums. Kitty-fly had attending her other persons dressed somewhat like herself, and I believe that Kitty-fly was but the remnant and representative of the Set Girls that made Christmas so merry a hundred years ago. Jack-in-the Green and John Canoe I need not describe. They did not differ greatly from Cow and Kitty-fly.

Some days before Christmas these bands would go about dancing night and day. While the sun was streaming down upon the open square which then formed the market of Falmouth, while the country people squatted over their little heaps of ground provisions, their cans of wet sugar, their trays of butterdough (for which edible Falmouth was justly famous in those days): while the little shops and stores were still open, and their proprietors talking lazily to one or two friends (for nobody ever seemed to do any business in Falmouth): while in the dingy offices facing the sea the politicians of the town discussed the politics of the island (for Falmouth was always mightily political), the sound of drumming would be heard. It was Kitty-fly coming. Kitty-fly and her following, and no one saw anything incongruous in this exhibition in the daytime in a town of nineteenth century Jamaica. Cow did not make his appearance until after nightfall. At such times Cow would occasionally smoke a cigar, to the great scandal of us youngsters, who, being logical, held that it was impossible for a cow to smoke. I believe we really thought it was a real kind of cow that danced, a man cow, a man who could turn himself into a cow if he cared. I think the grown men and women of the peasant class thought so too, for whenever Cow made a dash at-the crowd, it would screamingly scatter in all directions, half pleased, half frightened. We were splendidly superstitious in those days; we firmly believed in Rolling Calves, Three-footed Horses, Old Higes and the other monsters of a terrified imagination, we were persuaded that a man could, if he wished, and had learnt how, transform himself into an animal. Hence we viewed with disfavour the smoking Cow. Cows never smoked. Our Christmas Cows, however, were usually half drunk, and so were, not always as careful of appearances as they should have been.

From house to house these dancers would go, stopping before each to prance about - they called it dancing - beat their drums, laugh, sing, shout, and make a noise generally. All this was looked upon in good part by the better classes of the

town, and no one thought of sending for a policeman. . . . These dancers - Cow. Kitty-fly and the rest - were encouraged by the gentry, who enjoyed their antics. They were given money freely. Christmas in our little northside town was a season when rich and poor came very near together, with the result that the poor enjoyed themselves as well as the rich.

butterdough