The word "Junkanoo" derived from an African slave master and trader named, "John Canoe" in the 17th century. These slaves were not allowed much freedom and would hide in the bushes when they had the chance. While in the bushes, they would dance and make music while covered in costumes that they made from various paints that they made and leaves that they found. This festival represented the slave's freedom from slavery.
Parades in Nassau are judged in various categories; A (or Major) Category, the B Category, Individual costume, and fun groups. The A category groups involved in the Nassau Junkanoo include The Shell Saxon Superstars (AKA The Saxons), The Valley Boys, The Music Makers, Roots, One Family and The Prodigal Sons (New). Groups of the past include, The Vikings and Chippie and the Boys. In the B category groups include One Love Soldiers, Clico Colours, Fancy Dancers, Fox Hill Congos, and Conquerors for Christ. Fun groups include The Pigs, Sting and Barabbas & The Tribe. The Tribe's debut was as an "A" category group, however, after years of bringing innovative techniques in music and costuming to Bay Street, they have returned to the spirit of Junkanoo, and are bringing the fun with a flair.
A Junkanoo parade is featured in sequences of the James Bond film Thunderball that occur in Nassau. The celebration was staged specifically for the movie since it was filmed at the wrong time of year, but local residents were enthusiastic, creating elaborate floats and costumes and involving hundreds of people. The parade was also featured in After the Sunset and Jaws The Revenge.
Junkanoo is also a fruit-flavoured soda produced by Pepsi-Co and is only available in The Bahamas, and also a modernized style of music produced by the Bahamian band Baha Men. This style can be found in their songs "Back To The Island" and "Mama Lay Lay Lay", among others.
Valley Boys at Practice:
Saxons at Practice:
Although much of this is unknown in many parts of the world, there has been an intense rivalry between these two bands for more than half of a century. Sometimes even pitting family members against one another, The Saxons and the Valley Boys have always been passionate in their respective pursuit of musical excellence. This has carried over into many aspects of life in the Bahamas. Almost in the same way that fraternity and sorority relations have in some cases affected employment at certain establishments, being either a Saxon or a Valley has been known to have a similar influence in The Bahamas. There is so much more I'd like to get into here but you will all just have to wait for the documentary.
In the meantime though, here is a little history on the two:
SHELL SAXONS SUPERSTARS (a Bahamian Tradition)
A group of young men are working furiously in the hot shed. Hanging in the air like a blanket is the almost unbearable heat and the smell of contact cement.
Despite the heat and closeness, the mood is light. There are jokes and loud laughter as nimble fingers manipulate shears, cardboard, glue, wire and styrofoam spread all around them. Everywhere cardboard and styrofoam are taking on lifelike shapes, then covered with multicolored paper and sparkle. Who are these people? What are they doing? They are, if you please, the brains behind the costumes of the Shell Saxon Superstars Junkanoo group.
Most of them have never had any formal art training, but are still considered among the best artists in the country. They are working on a six-month project that takes them away from their families, jobs and most social activities. They are preparing for Junkanoo.
Junkanoo is a Bahamian festival of dancing, costumes and the music of goat skin drums, cowbells, and horns. It is but a fragment of an almost forgotten African ancestry. Junkanoo is the closet most Bahamian will get to the culture of their African heritage.
The men and women of the Saxons are keeping this Junkanoo culture alive with the same unbending determination as many other Junkanoo groups in the country. But the Saxons, with membership numbering in the tens of thousands, are special for some very special reasons.
For thousands of Bahamians, the Saxons represent a culture unto themselves. Recruiting many of their numbers from Mason’s Addition and the surrounding grass root areas, the group exemplifies an identity of pride and belonging.
A typical example is veteran drummer Anthony Green Senior. Green is a long-time resident of Mason’s Addition. For him there is no social activity more important than his involvement with the Saxons. For as long as he can remember, he has been a part of the group, traveling with them living among them.
Over the years, Green has impressed upon his family the pride of belonging to the Saxons. Today at 40 something and a grandfather, Green still retains the Saxons fire; only now the fire has spread over his entire household.
For Green his wife and four children, they are a part of the Saxons and the Saxons are a part of them. Simply put, said Green “I’ve always been a Saxon and I will die a Saxon.”
This is what being a Saxon is all about, achieving great prestige as a member of a team which would likely be out of reach for the individual. Being a Saxon is as real as any other “over-the-hill” experience can get.
Over-the-hill or not the leadership and ranks of the Saxons are bulging with professionals and intellectuals. There is Dr. Philip Thompson, Chief Surgeon at the Princess Margaret Hospital. There is Jackson Burnside a gifted American trained architect, and there is Dr. Emmanuel Francis a dentist, who makes a smooth transition from the dentist office to Junkanoo dancer, and there are numerous other examples: Teachers engineers, bankers and brokers.
Professional or not, educated or not each member of the Saxons has a specific role to fill. Working side by side, the same loyalty is expected of everyone and each person is expected to carry his load.
Although the group origin is grass root, hopefuls come from all social, economic and racial backgrounds vying for a chance to “rush” with the mighty Saxons. What they discover, if they are accepted is a highly-disciplined, tightly-knit and structured organization. If a member cannot submit to the group’s codes of conduct, he is asked to leave.
Administration of the Saxons is controlled by an executive council. Council members include Jackson Burnside, Dr. Emmanuel “Manny” Francis, Dr. Philip Thompson, Arthur Gibson, Silbert Ferguson, Hubert Chipman, Trevor “Bubbles” Decosta, Willis “Koolaid” Bain and Bernard Davis.
Unchallenged as head of the Council and leader of the Saxons is Percy “Vola” Francis. Often called the King of the Saxons, Vola is a gifted artist, entrepreneur, charismatic showman and giant personality. He has lead the Saxons for almost three decades and is widely regarded as a Bahamian folk hero.
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THE VALLEY BOYS (a Historical Perspective)
There is no doubt about it. Junkanoo has evolved into our “Super Bowl” of the Bahamas. Due to the participation of all the current groups, there is no local event that matches it in terms of intense preparation, spirited competition, media hype and spectacular color and performances.
That was not always the case, for at one time Junkanoo was not widely accepted. Participation and attendance was sparse and while the costumes of long fringes and tossil hats exhibited color, there was no true artistic content.
In 1958, a visionary in the form of Winston “Gus” Cooper formed a Junkanoo group along with friends from the Centreville area of New Providence, all mere teenagers at the time. Ms. Gwen Fountain, mother of one of the members was employed with Malcolm’s Garage and obtained sponsorship for the small group in the amount of fifteen pounds for the Boxing Day parade. The group received a consolation prize.
In 1959, Gus’s recruitment efforts continued and he attracted Doyle Burrows and Edward Fritzgerald two personalities who contributed significantly to the group’s initial stability and growth. In fact Doyle’s brother Deyanza, gave the group its name The Valley Boys, as the area from which the group originated was “a valley” between three hills, Centreville, Hawkins and Sears Addition hills.
The late Mr. Lenny Bartlett was an invaluable source of ideas and design concepts for Gus. He encouraged the use of crepe rather than tissue paper cut into three strips, for costumes and also advised on construction techniques.
The structure was established for The Valley Boys and at the Boxing Day 1960 parade, the group got its first taste of many victories with its theme Scottish Highlanders. With this victory, the group had changed the face of Junkanoo forever by cementing in the minds of competitors and judges alike the theme concept in Junkanoo, the artistic nature of crepe paper, and dance and performance movements, never before witnessed on the parade route.
The Valley Boys 1960 victory attracted the attention of others. Fr. Michael Eldon of St. George’s Church in the “heart of the Valley” (now retired Bishop) took a keen interest in the group. Gus’s attendance at St. John’s College resulted in the recruitment of other young men like Brian Gibson and Winston Sherman who eventually left to form The Vikings, which was a Junkanoo power in the 1960’s. This period however marked the growing broad acceptance of Junkanoo to the general populace as the Valley Boys was a group dominated by young men, all in high school.
In the early years as the Valley Boys were developing, another powerful organization, the Pioneers Sporting Club grew out of the bowels of the Valley and St. George’s Church. This track and field club was integrally linked to The Valley Boys, in that it had some of the very same members. Gus Cooper (Pioneers captain), Doyle Burrows, Perry Christie, Tommy Robinson, Ed Mcphee, Kenneth and Garth Darrel (deceased) and the late Fr. Dunstan Burrows, to name a few. All of these young men were prominent athletes in the 1960’s and there is no question that their discipline to train, spirit to compete and will to win automatically and positively influenced their approach to Junkanoo. The motto of the Pioneers was Venimus, Vidimus, Vicimus (We came, We Saw, We Conquered). This grouping of Pioneers/Valley Boys took that same passion to Junkanoo competition, fueling a participatory and winning record for the Valley Boys that is unrivaled.
If one were to track the personal development of so much of the young men who have been “touched” by the Valley Boys, particularly in the early years, one would find that they are well adjusted responsible individuals who have attained a reasonable level of personal achievement on our society. This kind of bonding is not easy for today’s youth. The thrust of our Cultural Centre will therefore be to inject that guidance, camaraderie and discipline that once existed between young people growing up in our country’s neighborhoods.
The Valley Boy’s consistent winning performance is unmatched over the last forty years. It has either lead, influenced or enhanced all of the major artistic developments in Junkanoo, as the group reacts very quickly to the competition. In 1965 The Vikings theme, Hibiscus, introduced a design concept to Junkanoo of built-on additions to the pants and shirt. They won.
Gus Cooper was in University during those years and was unable to react to the competition with his own built-on design until 1967 with Birds and Bees. The Valley Boys won that parade and regained its prominence and the pants and shirt era had ended in Junkanoo. In 1969, with the costume Sun Gods, three members of the group, Paul “Dougie” Major, Peter “Gold” Turnquest and Montgomery “Gummy” Mackey decided to enlarge their costumes significantly over the basic design and they were put in front of the group. This was the advent of lead costume pieces. In 1978 the Valley Boys introduced a major brass section to the group, following the lead of the Music Makers Group who were so successful with it in changing the face of Junkanoo music. In the 1980’s, under the direction and creativity of Paul Knowles, the group introduced the “Showtime” concept to Bay Street, with choreographed female dancers, thus expanding the participation of women in Junkanoo. All of these innovations have made Junkanoo the colorful spectacle it is today.
The growth of Junkanoo has overtaken the infrastructure to accommodate it. There is a constant debate on whether the venue should be changed from Bay Street to another site due to the size of costumes and groups. This growth has also affected the nature of the type of costume design and construction areas (Junkanoo shacks) required by groups. The valley Boys have moved from a Junkanoo shack of a garage in 1958 to ad hoc warehouse styled locations throughout New Providence over the years. Our history now determines that we have our own “home”, to continue to enrich our Junkanoo heritage as we approach the new millennium and our fifth decade of active participation.
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