Bahamian Storytelling Chant
“Once upon a time was a ‘wery’ nice time; monkey chew tobacco and spit out lime.”
So once upon a time there was the Caribbean Homegoing Booklet, a funeral booklet perhaps like no other, an unlikely genealogical ‘talking piece’, chock-rich in legacy information.
And once upon a time in the 70s there was UWindsor's CARISA or the Caribbean Student's Association and there was a UWindsor CARISAn named Theodore “Ted” Williams who lived on Patricia at Riverside, right across from UWindsor’s Canterbury College – Beckett House where I resided - and who had such a Homegoing Booklet which says it all: Ted CARISA Homegoing Booklet.pdf. RIP, Ted.
Now let me tell you something about the Caribbean homegoing or funeral booklet:
They are usually a work of art, an all-out grand production, albeit the cost of two small second-hand Japanese cars. Folks at times could nearly come to blows for one. Time and again I myself have seen a rush on church ushers for one or two or five! Goodness Gracious, don’t let the ushers run out of the booklets - fire and brimstone! Seriously, I have observed a fresh box of booklets arrive with ensuing mad dashes all over the church for one – no lie. Adults sending children to quickly get one or two [“I need one for my Grum-mah [grandmother] who can’ walk and one for my uncle’s sister’s cat.”].
What is it about the Caribbean homegoing or funeral booklet that can cause such a frenetic grabbing at a funeral? Some Caribbean sources have their take on it:
Because preservation of legacy is paramount in African Diasporic cultures where enslaved forebears violently lost their birth names and spaces. Because it represents a grasp at prolonged memory while traditionally venerating ancestry. Because, as a few Caribbean individuals opined: No matter the outlandish cost, it’s the portion of a funeral process that family and other loved ones get to control. Putting together the last bits and bobs of a person’s life as you remember. Your point of view on the final story of the person you’re letting go of, and you want his piece of literature to live on. A legacy. You hand it to each person in attendance in hopes that they retain a piece of that legacy. Ultimate commemorative keepsake. Grand opportunity to venerate the dead in the immediate aftermath and then for years and years to come. Pedestalized. Tradition. Culture. Honouring the person in death and making sure they get a good send-off. The information, whether in physical or digital format, will live long past we do, I can assure you.
FYI: Caribbean folks from time to time include persons close to the dearly departed as “adopted” children, whether legal or not. This could get tricky, however, as the so-called adopted might very well use the homegoing or funeral booklet as inheritance evidence.
This blog also provides two personal examples with respect to the venerative Caribbean homegoing booklets, in all their grandeur: Homegoing Booklet 2.pdf and Homegoing Booklet 3.pdf.
And once upon a time there was Canterbury College at UWindsor https://www.uwindsor.ca/canterbury/, right across from where Ted the CARISAn resided.
So the following photographic installment in my “61” series continues to take you down memory lane with respect to Black Student [CARISAn] Life at UWindsor, including at Canterbury College.
with priest, following Canterbury Chapel service in early 80s
now Archivist Antoinette Seymour and now Penn State Professor Emerita
Juliette Storr
before becoming Penn State Professor Emerita Juliette Storr, Archivist Antoinette Seymour,
Scotiawealth Associate Manager Lavorn Glinton-Taylor, Accountant/VP.CFO Nikki Bowe-Thompson
and Educator, Author and Playwright Glen Nairn
Senior Education Officer who resided at Beckett House in late 70s
one a Comm Studies major and the other, an English and Classical Studies major
CARISAns: Bernie, Juliette, Jo, Randy & Reggie - all stellar UWindsor alumni
Do enjoy and share the Canterbury pics, and please email me at antoinette.seymour@uwindsor.ca if you have a Canadian or Canadian Diaspora funeral booklet which you would like as part of the Homegoing Booklet Collection at Leddy Library (re genealogical obituary), whether physical or digital. Remember, long after we are gone, the booklets on loved ones will live on.
#ArchivesMatter#Genealogy#CARISA#StudentLife
Bahamian Storytelling Chant
“Be bo ben, my ole story end.”
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Antoinette "Anto" Seymour is a proud University of Windsor alumna and professional archivist cross-appointed to Leddy Library and the University of Windsor Black Studies Institute in 2024.
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