“The darkness seemed extra dark and every noise made your heartbeat faster!” Welcome to Caribbean Folklore Month

BY PAUL JUNOR

As the Caribbean Books Foundation celebrates the second anniversary of Caribbean Folklore Month in October, it is looking forward to many exciting planned events.

It is an international platform that connects the Caribbean community and its diaspora through literature. It plays an essential role in promoting authors from the Caribbean and their stories. Founder Marsha Gomes-Mckie teamed up with Nicketa Gomes to celebrate and rejuvenate the folklore of the Caribbean islands.

On Friday, September 30^th, 2022 the Caribbean Books Foundation launched a press release to highlight important events for Caribbean Folklore Month. It notes, “We have a month of social media interactions geared towards highlighting our intriguing folklore characters. This year we will highlight eight new character features, we’ll give information on each character, how they can be stopped, and provide inspiring graphics to go along with them.”

On Saturday, October 1^st, author Marsha Gomes-McKie launched an event titled, “30 Caribbean Folklore Legends,” Marsha revealed that she worked on the book for one year with preliminary research and then performed illustrations for each design to bring the book together as a whole. She notes that the book, “Explores 30 popular folklore myths and characters throughout the Caribbean, what they are known for, how to protect yourself against them, and what they look like.”

The book highlights characters such as Papa Bois, Mama D’leau, Bucks, the Heartmen, and the Lusca. She notes that the book presents well-known characters as well as others. The affirmation of cultural values in the book serves an empowering and enriching purpose to the readers. She states, “When you see your culture and beliefs in written form, it validates it more and you know that it matters, and you matter.”

Marsha believes that folklore plays a significant role as the embodiment of creativity within the Caribbean culture. She states in the press release, “Caribbean mythology may not be new, but it’s revolutionary paranormal fiction, and there is so much potential to make our unique literature an international brand. I can remember staying up late at night, listening to folklore stories, and then wondering if they were real. The darkness seemed extra dark and every noise made your heartbeat faster.” This illustrates the all-encompassing influence of Caribbean folklore on the imagination of young Black kids.

The press release amplifies that it is an entire childhood mood; a genre of imagery, spellbinding mystery, irrational fear and memories that lasts a lifetime.

On Sunday, October 9^th during the night of the full moon, there will be a JUMBEE NIGHT event. On its Facebook page, it states, “Jumbee Night comes early this year! How will you be celebrating your country’s folk history on the brightest night of the month?”

The press goes further to describe the importance of the month of October.

It notes, “Caribbean Books has dedicated October, which is a traditional spooky month, to celebrating authors from the Caribbean whose work centres around our own mythology. We would like to invite everyone to celebrate Caribbean Folklore Month by sharing their stories with each other and online, and by sharing their: artwork, memories, poems, spoken word, and performances on social media using these hashtags.

#CaribbeanFolkloreMonth

#CaribbeanFolkloreOctober

#CaribbeanStories

#JumbieNight

Anyone interested in learning about the Caribbean Books Foundation can check:

Website: https://caribbeanauthors.wordpress.com/caribbeanfolkoremonth

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/caribbeanbooksfoundation

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caribbeanbooksfoundation/

Twitter: @BooksCaribbean