Christmas in Jamaica as portrayed in "Tom Cringle's Log"

From the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, first published in 1911.

MICHAEL SCOTT (1789-1835), British author, was born at Cowlairs, near Glasgow, on the 30th of October 1789, the son of a Glasgow merchant. In 1806 he went to Jamaica, first managing some estates, and afterwards joining a business firm in Kingston. The latter post necessitated his making frequent journeys, on the incidents of which he based his best known book, Tom Cringle's Log.

In 1822 he left Jamaica and settled in Glasgow, where he engaged in business. Tom Cringle's Log began to appear serially in Blackwood's Magazine in 1829. Scott's second story, The Cruise of the Midge, was also first published serially in Blackwood's in 1834-1835. The first

appearance in book-form of each

story was in Paris in 1834. Both

stories were originally published

anonymously, and their authorship

was not known till after Scott's

death at Glasgow, on the 7th of

November 1835.

and other early accounts

introduction

. . . and as I looked towards the piazza, which was gaily lit up, I could see it was crowded with male and female negroes in their holyday apparel, with their wholesome clear brown-black skins, not blue-black as they appear in our cold country, and beautiful white teeth, and sparkling black eyes, amongst whom were several gumbie-men and flute-players, and John Canoes, as the negro Jack Pudding is called; the latter distinguishable by wearing white false faces, and enormous shocks of horsehair, fastened on to their woolly pates. Their character hovers somewhere between that of a harlequin and a clown, as they dance about, and thread through the negro groups, quizzing the women and slapping the men; and at Christmas time, the grand negro carnival, they don't confine their practical jokes to their own colour, but take all manner of comical liberties with the whites equally with their fellow bondsmen.

This day was the first of the Negro Carnival or Christmas Holydays, and at the distance of two miles from Kingston the sound of the negro drums and horns, the barbarous music and yelling of the different African tribes, and the more mellow singing of the Set Girls, came off upon the breeze loud and strong.

When we got nearer, the wharfs and different streets, as we successively opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, women, and children, dancing and singing and shouting, and all rigged out in their best. When we landed on the agents wharf we were immediately surrounded by a group of these merry-makers, which happened to be the Butchers John Canoe party, and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was. The prominent character was, as usual, the John Canoe or Jack Pudding. He was a light, active, clean made young Creole negro, without shoes or stockings; he wore a pair of light jean small-clothes, all too wide, but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of red tape, after the manner that Malvolio would have called cross-gartering. He wore a splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old-fashioned flaps coming down over his hips, and covered with tarnished embroidery. His shirt was absent on leave, I suppose, but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or white iron frills, with loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he moved, and set off the dingy paws that were stuck through these strange manacles, like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks. His coat was an old blue artillery uniform one, with a small bell hung to the extreme points of the swallow-tailed skirts, and three tarnished epaulets; one on each shoulder, and. O ye immortal gods! O Mars omnipotent! The biggest of the three stuck at his rump, the point d'appuit for a sheep's tail. He had an enormous cocked hat on, to which was appended in front a white false-face or mask, of a most methodistical expression, while, Janus like, there was another face behind, of the most quizzical description, a sort of living Antithesis, both being garnished and overtopped with one coarse wig, made of the hair of bullocks tails, on which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of gold lace. He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a dirty handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and mowings, first wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face, (murder, what a flavour of salt fish and onions it had!) he made a smart enough pirouette, and then sprung on the back of a nondescript animal, that now advanced capering and jumping about after the most grotesque fashion that can be imagined. This was the signal for the music to begin. The performers were two gigantic men, dressed in calf-skins entire, head, four legs,

and tail. The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, the two fore-feet hung dangling down in front, one over each shoulder, while the other two legs, or hind-feet, and the tail, trailed behind on the ground; deuce another article they had on in the shape of clothing except a handkerchief, of some flaming pattern, tied round the waist. There were also two flute-players in sheepskins, looking still more outlandish from the horns on the animals heads being preserved; and three stout fellows, who were dressed in the common white frock and trowsers, who kept sounding on bullocks horns. These formed the band as it were, and might be considered John's immediate tail or following; but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, all neatly dressed-blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburgh trowsers, with their steels and knife-cases by their sides, as bright as Turkish yataghans, and they all wore clean blue and white striped aprons. I could see and tell what they were; but the Thing John Canoe had perched himself upon I could make nothing of. At length I began to comprehend the device.

The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the butcher-gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one. He was clothed in an entire bullock's hide horns, tail, and the other particulars, the whole of the skull being retained, and the effect of the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling. His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind-legs, while the arms were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind-legs, he used, in order to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders, like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then. After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute or two, it came to a stand-still, and, sticking the end of the sprit into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things in the world, a fiddle to the ox. He then shook off the John Canoe, who began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune of Guinea Corn, the following ditty:

"Massa Buccra lob for see,

Bullock caper like monkee,

Dance, and shump, and poke him toe,

Like one humane person - just so."

And hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music men, John Canoe and all, began to rampauge about, as if they had been possessed by a devil whose name was Legion:

"But Massa Buccra have white love,

soft and silken like one dove.

To brown girl - him barely shivel,

to black girl - oh, Lord, de Devil!"

Then a tremendous gallopading, in the which Tailtackle was nearly capsized over the wharf. He looked quietly over the edge of it.

"Boat keeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher," (Friend, if thou be'st not nautical, thou knowest what a rack-pin, something of the stoutest is.)

The boy did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dexter claw with tobacco juice, seized the stick with his left by the middle, and balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten the end of it into his right fist, as if he had been screwing a bolt into a socket. Having satisfied himself that his grip was secure, he let go the hold with his left hand, and crossed his arms on his breast, with the weapon projecting over his left shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe.