PINKSTER By Robert J. Damm any percussionists know about the West-Central Africa; “The abundance of names er cultural activities. “During Pinkster, the hill was rich African cultural traditions that ending in ‘Congo’ and ‘Angola’ indicates that the transformed into a facsimile of an African village. were retained and disseminated for overwhelming majority of slaves composing the Preparing the holiday must have involved knowledge more than a century via the Sunday charter generation in New Netherland were of [this passed down through the generations—slaves had Mgatherings at Congo Square in New Orleans. A area]” (Dewulf, p.39). The Pinkster festival became to learn how to construct the Guinea drums, dance lesser known example of African cultural survival is infused with African cultural expressions and pro- the toto dance, and erect the African-style huts that the Pinkster festival. Despite the harsh oppression vided the opportunity for Africans to retain and pass housed commercial exchange throughout the fair- imposed on the slaves in the Dutch and English col- on many of their traditions. Pinkster Hill in Albany grounds” (Verter, p. 419). onies, and the fact that Pinkster took place only once became home to an annual bustling marketplace, The 1803 article published in the Albany Centinel a year, Africans used the occasion to celebrate and African drumming, processions, oratory, and Af- described the construction of booths and listed some pass on rich cultural traditions including singing, rican dancing. Although it is a work of historical of the items sold at the Pinkster festival: “These ar- dancing, and drumming. fiction, Fenimore Cooper’s novel Satanstoe includes bors are divided into different apartments, filled up The Dutch West India Company established New a description of a Manhattan Pinkster festival. The with seats, and stored with fruit, cakes, cheese, beer, Amsterdam (later New York) in 1624. The Dutch African tone of the gathering is emphasized: and liquors of various kinds. In the centre of this settlers brought with them Pinkster, their name for villa, and in front of the royal arbor, a sort of Amphi- Pentecost, which is a Christian celebration marking By this time, nine-tenths of the blacks of the city, and theatre is laid out, where the Guinea dance is to be the descent of the Holy Spirit on Christ’s disciples. of the whole country within thirty or forty miles, performed” (Pinkster, p. 4). Pentecost is celebrated for seven weeks (50 days) af- indeed, were collected in thousands in those fields, Market festivities during Pinkster were described ter the moveable feast of Easter. The Dutch Pinkster beating banjoes, [and] singing African songs…The in Thomas DeVoe’s The Market Book: A History of lasted three to six days and included church ser- features that distinguished a Pinkster frolic from the the Public Markets of the City of New York, which was vices, visits with neighbors, building arbors, playing usual scenes at fairs, and other merry-makings, how- published in 1862 but drew on memories of earlier, games, and eating special foods such as gingerbread ever, were of African origin…( Dewulf, p. 7). first-hand experiences. DeVoe’s list of items sold by and dyed eggs. slaves during the Pinkster holidays included “roots, With the arrival of African slaves in New Am- MARKETPLACE berries, herbs, yellow or other birds, fish, clams, sterdam, as early as 1628, Pinkster began transform- In the African village, the marketplace is a loca- oysters, etc. (344).” Verter proposed that items sold ing into a festival recognized more for its African tion for people to buy and sell goods as well as meet at the Pinkster market included roots and herbs to qualities. Specifically, the traditions were those of with friends, share news, and transact countless oth- be used for folk remedies (p. 401). Perhaps the stalls at the Pinkster festival included items related to what Figure 1 in Africa is called a fetish market. The fetish market is a supply store for the ingredients needed for tradi- tional religious practice. The tables of animal parts, plants, and herbs are used for fetishes (sometimes called talismans, charms, or gris-gris) as cures for everyday maladies, animal sacrifice for worship, protection from curses, and various rituals. Everyday objects can be activated to provide protection, chan- nel communication with gods, or ensure supernatu- ral power over others. Figure 1 is of a fetish market in Mali. The author can be seen accepting a chunk of salt from Timbuktu in one hand and holding a mon- key head in the other. AFRICAN DRUMMING African drums were assembled for use during festivals, but they were generally banned throughout the rest of the year. For example, South Carolina’s Negro Act of 1740 specified that it was absolutely necessary to restrain slaves from “using or keeping of drums, horns, or other loud instruments, which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs and purposes.” Possibly for this reason, none of the drums actually used for the New York celebrations of Pinkster (1600–1800s) exist today. There are, however, a number of detailed PERCUSSIVE NOTES 46 MAY 2018 PERCUSSIVE NOTES 47 MAY 2018 descriptions of African-style drums played during was a symmetrically formed wooden article usually beating lustily with his naked hands upon its loudly the colonial period. An anonymous letter published denominated an eel-pot [a trap with a funnel-shaped sounding head, successively repeating the ever wild, in the New York Weekly Journal in 1736 gave an ac- opening for catching eels], with a cleanly dressed though euphonic cry of Hi-a-bomba, bomba, bomba, count of an April 10 holiday somewhere outside New sheep skin drawn tightly over its wide and open in full harmony with the thumping sounds. These York City. This must have been a Pinkster festival extremity—no doubt obtained expressly for the oc- vocal sounds were readily taken up and as oft repeated due to the drums, rattles, and banjos in the ensem- casion from the celebrated Fish Slip, at the foot of the by the female portion of the spectators not otherwise ble, which accompanied the singing and dancing: Maiden’s Lane (Eights, p. 326).” Eileen Southern de- engaged in the exercises of the scene, accompanied termined that the event described by Dr. Eights took by the beating of time with their ungloved hands, in It was no small amusement to me, to see the plain place during the 1770s (p. 41). Based on available strict accordance with the eel-pot melody (Eights, p. partly covered with booths, and well crowded with historical descriptions, a replica of an African-style 326). Whites, the Negroes divided into companies, I sup- Pinkster drum was assembled by the author [see Fig- pose according to their different nations, some danc- ure 2]. The shell was a re-purposed wooden fish trap Although there seems to be no other primary ing to the hollow sound of a drum, made of the trunk [see Figure 3]. Assistance was provided by master source information about Jackey Quackenboss, of a hollow tree, others to the grating rattling noise of woodworker Dr. John Guyton and Malian master Stuckey surmised that “Jackey Quackenboss…was pebbles or shells in a small basket, others played the drummer Bassidi Kone [see Figure 4]. at the height of his powers and possibly the greatest banjer [banjo], and some knew how to join the voice From the available sources about African drum- drummer in the slave population, North or South [to] it (The Spy, p. 1). mers at Pinkster festivals, we learn the names of (p. 171).” Stuckey supported his speculation with the Jackey Quakenboss and King Charles. Quackeboss is following statement: In Satanstoe, Cooper described drums in the the drummer identified in the most frequently cited Pinkster festival: “Among other things, some were account of Pinkster drumming: Regarding drumming, it is essential to remember making music, by beating on skins drawn over the that drumming was outlawed in much of American ends of hollow logs, while others were dancing to it, Astride this rude utensil [drum] sat Jackey Quacken- slavery, so to have a source that mentions a slave in a manner to show that they felt infinite delight. boss, then in his prime of life and well known energy, drumming in the U.S., a description of how the drum This in particular, was said to be a usage of their was made, together with other slaves responding to African progenitors (Cooper, p. 70).” Another de- the beat of the drum is rather rich documentation. It scription indicated the use of a large double-headed Figure 3: Wooden Fish Trap is not the only reference to drumming during slavery drum: “The music was obtained from a huge drum- but an important one, a key source for evidence of like instrument, four or five feet long and a foot in rhythm-consciousness… (personal communication, diameter, covered at either end by a tightly stretched July 14, 2016). sheepskin (Paus and Pinkster, p. 4).” Dr. James Eights, a scientist and artist born in Al- Quackenboss was loudly calling with his drum bany, gave valuable information about drums in his and chant for all who understood to collectively essay regarding Pinkster festivals there: “The music participate in a public, yet secret, ritual. The word made use of on this occasion, was likewise singular “bomba” has been identified as Kikongo—a Bantu in the extreme. The principal instrument selected language spoken by the Kongo and Ndundu people to furnish this important portion of the ceremony living in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and Angola—and Figure 2: Pinkster Drum translated as “secret” (Frere-Jones, p.