Jessie Catahoula (left) and Hugh Calloway won last year’s Day of the Dead costume contest at Blacktip Island’s Heritage House. The small Caribbean island’s residents will celebrate the day all day Tuesday. (photo courtesy of 5chw4r7z)
Blacktip Island residents will spend this weekend preparing for Tuesday’s island-wide Day of the Dead celebrations, the post-Halloween day of remembrance honoring loved ones who have passed away.
“It’s a-historical, but it’s become a thing here the last few years,” the former Reverend Jerrod Ephesians, Blacktip Island Ecumenical Council president, said. “It’s a combination of older Taino tribal influences, West African traditions of escaped slaves and rituals of Spanish navy deserters. They all had the same general idea, so we just mashed them together. It really pulls the community together, regardless of backgrounds.
“All the events and festivities will be in memory of our friends, family and forebearers,” Ephesians said. “The night will end with a vigil at the island cemetery. Truth be told, though, it’s also an excuse to get dead drunk. That’s why it became so popular so fast. This is Blacktip, after all.”
Residents say the remembrances go beyond friends and family.
“The two main Taino gods were the booby bird god and the land crab goddess,” Donna Requin said. “No one remembers their names, so we just call them Fred and Ethyl. During the festivities people snack on gingerbread iguanas and spun-sugar land crabs. The frigate birds get nothing. They’re a-holes.”
Numerous activities will accompany the Day of the Dead-themed food.
“There’ll be costume parades, a tall-tale-telling contest and dancing. Lots of dancing,” Doris Blenny said. “All of it centers around the idea that any of us could die any time. Like Joey Pompano did last year during the final drink-off at the cemetery.
“Folks’re encouraged to dress up like skeletons, as best they can,” Blenny said. “Peachy’s store’s already sold out of pool noodles. And garden hoses. And white paint and black cloth. It’s appropriate attire since the night ends with those still conscious getting drunk at the cemetery and passing out. To honor the dead, of course.”
Locally-produced coconut mead will be provided by monks from St. Dervil’s singing iguana monastery.
“Our coconut mead is the libation of choice on the Day of the Dead,” Father Poppy Bottoms said. “A couple of shots of that, you’ll be by-God communing with the dead. In a good way. We do encourage all celebrants to eat heartily before and during the festivities.”
The Blacktip Times 