1 00:00:00,430 --> 00:00:15,310 I think it's sort of like. 2 00:00:15,310 --> 00:00:24,760 Hello. I'm Sydney Hutchinson. I am an associate professor of musicology at Syracuse University in the state of New York. 3 00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:31,840 And I'm also a research associate at Humboldt University in Berlin, which is where I currently live. 4 00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:46,360 Yes, I am a Trump bug and I identify as an immigrant, so I should preface my talk by reporting that it's somewhat differently than printed on your 5 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:54,760 programme because my partner was to be Dora Haast and ethnomusicologist in Connecticut, 6 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:59,140 and she was going to co-write the paper with me on co-present. 7 00:00:59,140 --> 00:01:03,880 But she could do neither of these because her mother passed away a few weeks ago. 8 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:08,590 So unfortunately, you're hearing only from me today, 9 00:01:08,590 --> 00:01:20,080 and I also would like to thank the panellists and Alexa also for the organisation and the invitation, because I am very new to the area of Bermuda. 10 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:28,510 I'm a specialist in the Hispanic Caribbean and I research mainly in the Dominican Republic and amongst Latinos in the United States. 11 00:01:28,510 --> 00:01:34,210 And I came to Bermuda for the first time last year because I was invited to speak at the Gumbo 12 00:01:34,210 --> 00:01:41,200 Festival about connexions between the Gambier's and other masquerades in the Hispanic Caribbean. 13 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:47,980 Because the companies feel that their closest living masquerading relatives are the lawyers in the Dominican Republic, 14 00:01:47,980 --> 00:01:56,080 although they've never actually met in person. And I'm hoping that I can facilitate this meeting, if not this year than next. 15 00:01:56,080 --> 00:02:03,280 So thank you for welcoming me into your ranks, even though I'm very new to the area. 16 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:12,190 So my paper is titled Bermuda. I'm very reconnections. Covering and recovering indigenous Haiti in the black Atlantic, 17 00:02:12,190 --> 00:02:18,820 companies are a Christmastime masquerade with historical ties to British Isles miming traditions or folk theatre, 18 00:02:18,820 --> 00:02:23,620 as well as musical and choreographic practises with ties to Africa and the Caribbean, 19 00:02:23,620 --> 00:02:29,830 which is widely understood to be Afro Bermudian or black Gregorian on Boxing Day and New Year's 20 00:02:29,830 --> 00:02:35,140 campaigns traditionally take to the streets for parading and dance battles that highlight agility, 21 00:02:35,140 --> 00:02:43,720 acrobatics and complex rhythms. Since that conveys inclusion and the 2001 Smithsonian Festival of American Folk Life in Washington, 22 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:48,580 DC, they've been recognised as a key national symbol. 23 00:02:48,580 --> 00:02:57,340 Oh, there they are, and their image now appears everywhere, from government building displays to tourist souvenirs. 24 00:02:57,340 --> 00:03:04,030 As you can see here, and they dance in an annual festival and at Bermuda Day. 25 00:03:04,030 --> 00:03:12,460 Parallel to this process of nationalisation, companies themselves have been engaging in unofficial, transformative, transformative practises. 26 00:03:12,460 --> 00:03:15,280 One group in particular, the Warwick Companies, 27 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:22,450 have for over a decade been involved in an exchange with the Pequod Native Americans from the northeastern United States, 28 00:03:22,450 --> 00:03:24,640 to whom they're distantly related. 29 00:03:24,640 --> 00:03:33,580 This exchange has transformed company practises and identities as they recover aspects of Bermudian history typically hidden from view, 30 00:03:33,580 --> 00:03:43,750 a process one anthropologist has referred to as ethno genesis. I plan to explore how companies create new ethnic identities and recovered histories 31 00:03:43,750 --> 00:03:49,420 through performance through new research projects that's just now in an exploratory stage. 32 00:03:49,420 --> 00:03:54,250 But I am glad to report that I've just received word that I have received preamble travel 33 00:03:54,250 --> 00:03:59,620 funding from the Tucson Foundation and Germany to return to Bermuda for two more trips. 34 00:03:59,620 --> 00:04:07,180 Looking forward to this, I expect that studying the Gambia's reconfigurations of Bermudian identity will 35 00:04:07,180 --> 00:04:11,980 contribute to our understanding of Caribbean histories and masquerades more broadly. 36 00:04:11,980 --> 00:04:17,800 I also hope that this case study will broaden the notions of modernity and realisation associated with 37 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:26,920 the Black Atlantic and provide a concrete example of how identities are created through performance. 38 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:32,680 Well, companies are widely understood as Afro Bermudian and often understand themselves as such. 39 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:34,870 Their various components reveal the traditions, 40 00:04:34,870 --> 00:04:43,690 complex history of intercultural remixing and how materials from different sources converged to create new forms with overlapping meanings. 41 00:04:43,690 --> 00:04:53,080 The clothing, mask and headdress worn today evidence the influence of 20th century conditioned migrants who brought their wild Indian mass with it, 42 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:59,860 with its pinkish mesh masks, feathered headgear, tomahawks and bows and arrows and Bermuda. 43 00:04:59,860 --> 00:05:04,510 This condition practise soon overrode an earlier tradition which was more closely 44 00:05:04,510 --> 00:05:10,840 related to Jamaican Junction with its horned masks and horse shaped headdresses. 45 00:05:10,840 --> 00:05:18,220 While historic Duncan, who masquerades likely represented black Caribbean understandings of their place in the plantation economy, 46 00:05:18,220 --> 00:05:24,780 the wild Indian mass, which is similar to Caribbean black Indian traditions from Louisiana to Haiti. 47 00:05:24,780 --> 00:05:35,530 Oh, there's a slight missing right there. Hmm. Maybe it will come up later seemed to symbolise freedom and a recognition of mixed roots. 48 00:05:35,530 --> 00:05:43,030 In both cases come to symbolise marginalised communities of colour and their resistance to hegemonic Bermudian identities, 49 00:05:43,030 --> 00:05:47,470 particularly and how these relate to British colonial notions of governing. 50 00:05:47,470 --> 00:05:57,100 That Associate Association remains up to the 21st century, as can be seen in the artist Gavin Sinjar to Smith's 2003 founding of the one person, 51 00:05:57,100 --> 00:06:03,640 Gambie Liberation Party and a run for Parliament that called on The Gambia community for support. 52 00:06:03,640 --> 00:06:07,180 The GOP had little tangible effect on Bermudian politics. 53 00:06:07,180 --> 00:06:18,160 Smith got 16 votes, but it did bring attention to issues like racial tensions and neo colonial governance strategies. 54 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:23,920 As in the U.S., race in Bermuda is typically conceived along black and white lines. 55 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:28,900 The presence of mixed African native communities in the Americas and native enslavement 56 00:06:28,900 --> 00:06:33,640 in general was long covered up in the northeast United States in particular, 57 00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:35,680 outright destruction of records, 58 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:43,750 overly simplistic census categories and a generalised refusal to recognise Indian survival, especially when it came through intermarriage, 59 00:06:43,750 --> 00:06:49,870 meant that histories of Native American enslavement have been preserved mainly through oral tradition. 60 00:06:49,870 --> 00:06:55,690 But such is not enough to gain federal recognition. And so some northeastern groups like the Picard's, 61 00:06:55,690 --> 00:07:02,380 have dedicated themselves to genealogical research that would prove what they already knew that their ancestors were taken 62 00:07:02,380 --> 00:07:08,800 as slaves to the Caribbean and that their descendants descendants still live in communities like St David's Island, 63 00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:18,130 Bermuda. That's kind of too small to see, but if you don't know where St David's is at the top right of the little map there, 64 00:07:18,130 --> 00:07:24,610 it's next to the international airport as, Oh, I already read that part, OK? 65 00:07:24,610 --> 00:07:30,910 Tall Oak Sweden is a matching Typekit Pequod who discovered familial links to St David's Island. 66 00:07:30,910 --> 00:07:38,470 As a result, he brought a delegation to Bermuda to attend the island's first reconnections ceremony in 2002. 67 00:07:38,470 --> 00:07:46,240 The work gambit troop was involved with reconnection from the beginning. Troop leader Irwin Trott explained to me that he first got involved because 68 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:50,620 two of the surnames genealogical research had revealed were linked to Pequod. 69 00:07:50,620 --> 00:07:59,500 Burchill and miners belonged to his own two grandmothers. He and his troupe performed in the 2002 ceremony because and this is a quote, 70 00:07:59,500 --> 00:08:04,930 the Pequod wanted my gunboats to show the elders that their tradition wasn't all lost. 71 00:08:04,930 --> 00:08:12,610 There was enough evidence to see similarities. I believe it was six elders that came from the Pequod tribe, including the tribal chairman. 72 00:08:12,610 --> 00:08:18,430 After they saw our performance, they held a council in Bermuda and made the decision to invite the Gumbi dancers 73 00:08:18,430 --> 00:08:24,460 to Connecticut that same summer to showcase us to the rest of the tribal members. 74 00:08:24,460 --> 00:08:29,500 And those are some photographs from the reconnection ceremony. 75 00:08:29,500 --> 00:08:32,740 On the left are the Wampanoag Pekka and Narragansett. 76 00:08:32,740 --> 00:08:41,990 Visitors to St David's Island, and on the right are St David's Islanders participating in the grand entry at the powwow that was held that year. 77 00:08:41,990 --> 00:08:44,470 Trout did take his dancers to Connecticut, 78 00:08:44,470 --> 00:08:51,250 where they were treated to all expense paid stays at the hotel and welcomed like family try, explains Quote. 79 00:08:51,250 --> 00:08:57,220 When we got off the bus, they greeted us at the bus and hugged and embraced everybody and says, Welcome home cousins. 80 00:08:57,220 --> 00:09:06,970 And that was just so amazing. Wampanoag and mashed peas who were at that powwow were impressed enough to invite the gambier's to their own gatherings, 81 00:09:06,970 --> 00:09:12,280 leading to ongoing travels back and forth between Bermuda, Connecticut and Massachusetts. 82 00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:17,740 In the intervening years, both sides have had opportunity to reflect on what they might still share. 83 00:09:17,740 --> 00:09:25,000 For his part, toLook Weedon was astounded to find that Bermudian quote looks so much like us even today, after all that. 84 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:29,260 History has taken place and we look so much like them. 85 00:09:29,260 --> 00:09:35,830 Trott added that Pequod found St David's ways of cooking seafood and making fishing nets very similar. 86 00:09:35,830 --> 00:09:41,140 Dancing and drumming came to play particularly important roles in the renewal of ties. 87 00:09:41,140 --> 00:09:48,280 As St David's Islander Nevis Felice told a Boston Globe reporter when attending the Mashpee Wampanoag powwow quote, 88 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:56,980 traditional dances were the only pieces of Wampanoag culture to survive centuries of slavery and cultural repression in Bermuda, 89 00:09:56,980 --> 00:10:05,380 when while police recognised the dances had changed. She explained quote The East Coast tribe has been teaching us the culture we lost. 90 00:10:05,380 --> 00:10:14,020 The cultural exchange takes place at roughly bi annual reconnection powwows held in St David's Island since 2000 to hear gun based play the 91 00:10:14,020 --> 00:10:23,260 role of hosts inviting their distant relatives to join in discovering these connexions was a transformative experience for the war done. 92 00:10:23,260 --> 00:10:29,740 Trott reports that when his son went to university in Canada, he took courses on Native American culture and history, 93 00:10:29,740 --> 00:10:34,210 attended native student group meetings and learnt to sing powwow songs with native friends, 94 00:10:34,210 --> 00:10:38,590 something he also does with the invited drums at the Bermuda powwow. 95 00:10:38,590 --> 00:10:47,560 The work gumbo is now include visual references to Native North Americans in their outfits, their banner and felt following powwow dancers usage. 96 00:10:47,560 --> 00:10:55,090 Warragamba is now referred to those outfits as regalia and a spirit of reverence and the steady beat of their bass drum. 97 00:10:55,090 --> 00:11:01,720 They hear the power drum and then their own dance improvisations. They see a resemblance to Powell fancy dance. 98 00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:07,120 Although Fancy Dance developed centuries after enslaved New Englanders were brought to Bermuda. 99 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:13,900 Both sides see an affinity that the work troupe demonstrated and their performance at the 2018 Gumbo Festival. 100 00:11:13,900 --> 00:11:18,100 How can I click the link for a Caribbean is like me? 101 00:11:18,100 --> 00:11:26,050 The reconnection process is striking for how it's layered upon earlier forms of what one might call fictive indigenous Haiti via the condition. 102 00:11:26,050 --> 00:11:33,850 Wild Indian dance itself related to other black Indian masquerades like the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans. 103 00:11:33,850 --> 00:11:40,660 While these groups likely have an even more recent mixed heritage in the gumbo is the way they construct and present notions of indigenous. 104 00:11:40,660 --> 00:11:46,210 City is usually based more on imagination and creativity than on the practises of any specific 105 00:11:46,210 --> 00:11:51,430 indigenous group and much less on interpersonal connexions with living indigenous people. 106 00:11:51,430 --> 00:11:56,290 These facts make the companies work to connect with Native American relatives unique 107 00:11:56,290 --> 00:12:00,640 and their focus on doing so through their experience of sonic and kinetic affinities. 108 00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:05,950 Especially so, so to conclude. 109 00:12:05,950 --> 00:12:13,330 We just want to argues that Bermuda's colonial government circulates colonial and paternalistic narratives about Bermudian history 110 00:12:13,330 --> 00:12:20,200 that depict the island as racially harmonious and eliminate mention of black Bermuda and struggles from educational curricula. 111 00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:27,670 This has resulted in the discrediting of black activism and prevents identification with other struggles around the black Atlantic, he says. 112 00:12:27,670 --> 00:12:30,130 For some black Bermudian, including Gomez, 113 00:12:30,130 --> 00:12:38,050 the situation has led to a design gentrification with Bermuda overall and a choice to identify as something else, such as simply African. 114 00:12:38,050 --> 00:12:42,190 The new drive to identify as Native American may be another manifestation, 115 00:12:42,190 --> 00:12:46,960 but it also points out a potential problem in the conception of the Black Atlantic. 116 00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:51,580 Bermudian says British subjects may be engaged in the striving to be both European and black. 117 00:12:51,580 --> 00:12:56,380 That Gilroy describes as not necessitating specific forms of double consciousness 118 00:12:56,380 --> 00:13:00,880 because of how nation building projects make these identities appear to be mutually, 119 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:06,160 mutually exclusive. In contrast, Gilroy highlights what he calls stereophonic, 120 00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:14,050 bilingual or bifocal cultural forms as typical of black cultures and modernity itself conveys indigenous affinities, 121 00:13:14,050 --> 00:13:20,470 complicate Gilroy's view of black Atlantic culture, and striving to perform their links to other parts of the global south. 122 00:13:20,470 --> 00:13:22,690 Companies make visible the others left out. 123 00:13:22,690 --> 00:13:31,480 Even of this history of mutual othering, revealing forms that are multilingual multifocal not only stereophonic but conceived in surround sound. 124 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:36,640 This identity is based not on genetics, as results from genetic studies have been ambiguous. 125 00:13:36,640 --> 00:13:41,410 Instead, it's based on performance created and activated through drumming and dancing. 126 00:13:41,410 --> 00:13:56,452 And it's this performed identity and the political work it does that I want to investigate moving forward.