Hussay Festival, Westmoreland, Jamaica
PLACE
Hussay Festival, Westmoreland
Image from the National Library of Jamaica Photograph Collection. Permission to reproduce this image must be obtained from the National Library of Jamaica
Further Information - The Hussay Festival
The Hussay Festival is a traditional festival pronounced and sometimes
spelt as in this image's title but actually called Hosay. Hosay was
brought to the Caribbean by Indian indentured workers in the 1840s. It
is the Caribbean version of Moharram, an annual festival observed by
the Shi’a Muslims within the Islamic faith. Moharram is the Islamic
month when followers mourn the memory of the Prophet Mohammed’s
grandsons, Hosain and Hasan. Acts of piety include self-flagellation
and prayer. The bamboo and paper replicas of the tomb of Hosain being
carried through the procession of our chosen image form the focus of
the ceremony. They are called Tazias or Tadjahs and are built over
the nine days of mourning songs that take place in Hosay. On the tenth
day of Hosay the Tazia is carried through the streets and thrown in
the river or sea (or buried in a hole in the ground). Olive Senior
also notes that in the Caribbean, Hosay has lost most of its religious
significance as, in countries such as Jamaica, “Hosay features the
active participation of many different religious and ethnic groups
other than Muslims, especially non-Indian Creoles”. This can be seen
in the image here, where the people captured are more likely to be
“celebrating communal solidarity, proclaiming their ethnic identity in
public, and affirming / remembering their ancestors’ sacrifices in
coming to labour on the sugar estates.”
Senior’s Westmoreland witness to Hosay processions in the early
twentieth century remembers that “Hosay represented mystery, beauty
and violence. Non Indians, fascinated by the highly crafted Tazia,
were often driven away forcefully by those in the procession. Looking
or touching was forbidden, and dangerous. Fighting broke out…[chiefly]
from each believer’s desire to be the first to launch his own shrine
into the sea, an act which brings great blessing and good fortune…”
She adds, more prosaically, that “the police were always on the alert
during Hosay, and the Savanna-la-mar Hospital usually admitted a
number of the wounded”
A minority faith in Jamaica, Islam has been dated back to the West African slaves captured by Arab Muslims, sold to traders, and brought to Jamaica on ships. Such Muslim practice would have been secret and have faded with the loss of Islamic identity due to forced mixing of ethnic groups and the success of a Christianity-based anti-slavery process. But the advent of East Indian indentured labourers from the late nineteenth century saw a public rekindling of Islam in Jamaica. Muhammad Khan, who came to Jamaica in 1915 at the age of 15, built Masjid Ar-Rahman in Spanish Town in 1957, while Westmoreland's Masjid Hussein was built by Muhammad Golaub, who immigrated with his father at the age of 7. The 2002 International Religious Freedom Report estimated 5000 Muslims in Jamaica
Sources
Afroz, Sultana, Jamaica - The Muslim Legacy
www.geocities.com/mutmainaa/history/islam_jamaica.html
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, International Religious
Freedom Report 2002. US: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,
2002 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/
Senior, Olive, Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage. St. Andrew, Jamaica:
Twin Guinep Publishers Ltd., 2003.
Tortello, Rebecca, Pieces of the Past: a Stroll Down Jamaica's Memory
Lane. Kingston: Ian Randle, 2007
Wikipedia, Islam in Jamaica - http:
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Jamaica
![Miss Muriel Chong, assistant in her Uncle’s Bazaar, [1930]](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3263/2657056430_bcb1641e48_s.jpg)
Comments and faves
HBTM (46 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Vintage Jamaica, and we'd love to have this added to the group!