MEMORY SONGS: COMMUNITY, FLIGHT AND CONFLICT IN THE BIG DRUM CEREMONY OF CARRIACOU, GRENADA (CARIBBEAN, RITUAL, SLAVE DANCE, BLACK, AFRICAN, MYTH, ETHNOMUSICOLOGY)

The Carriacou Big Drum had and continues to have an impact on the people's memory of national origin and kinship. As the event celebrates family reorganization (as the result of marriage or death) and changes in material status (by the launching of a new boat or house), it also teaches and reinforces folk knowledge of family lineage and tradition.;The Nation Songs of the Big Drum are categorized in national types--the historical West African origins of the people of Carriacou. The Cromanti, Igbo, Manding, Temne, Congo, Chamba, Arada, Moko, and Banda are song and dance classifications as well as cultural traditions.;Isolated African words intersperse the Patois texts of the Nation Songs. The meanings of the African words are lost, but I have found them to be Hausa or Arabic based. I conjecture that they incorporate spiritual implications and that some survive as remnants of a divine pantheon.;The implications of the infusion of Arabic in slave texts are far reaching, for they point to accommodations in slave languages and religious practices and may also demonstrate the depth of reciprocal ritual borrowings within African contexts.;Cultural information of use to the researcher is stored in the ritual practice, song texts and song/dance classifications of the Big Drum. I use the Big Drum as the basic source from which to draw conclusions on religious thought, social attitudes and family patterns of the slave and post emancipation populations on Carriacou. I trace Africanisms, decode linguistic puzzles and interpret ritual symbols and texts. This method may be termed "historical ethnomusicology," for it employs a living oral tradition to shed light on the past, just as it uses historical documents to elucidate current practices.;The three themes that make up the title of the study are major metaphors in the Big Drum: flight, conflict and community. The theme of slave flight (cosmological, physical and suicide) unify the Nation Songs. The New World myth, "The Flying Africans," is used to explain ritual symbols, dance styles and cosmological thought. Tales of interpersonal conflict survive in the women's bele songs and the intent towards the reconstruction and preservation of the community is evident throughout the 120 song repertoire of the Big Drum.