Wordsworth McAndrew: Nine-night celebrations for Mac

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Nine-night celebrations for Mac

From Vibert Cambridge, camp Georgetown...

Greetings and best wishes from GT. The "9 Nights" for MAC held last night at the Umana Yana was a success. Terry Holder and Allan Fenty were responsible for a memorable and participatory evening. There were testimonials, poetry, short stories, proverbs, humor, a chutney performance, dances from the National Dance Company, drumming, and a Kwe Kwe finale. Francis Ferrier (read "Ole Higue" and a short story), Henry Rodney (lead the Kwe Kwe session with Eze Rockcliffe), D'Ivan (sang the "Typee" calypso) were there also. The evening ended with refreshments--Mauby, pone, channa, barra, etc. The feeling was that Mac would have approved of the evening.

The Minister of Culture was there. An announcement was made about the 2008 Folk Festival Symposium (August 15 & 16) and Festival of Folk Games (August 17) to celebrate Mac's life. These are now seen as pre-Carifesta events. The formal Call for Participation will be issued over the weekend.

It was pleasant to see many of the McAndrew awardees there and to hear the many positive references to the Guyana Cultural Association/Guyana Folk Festival.

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The Antilles - weblog of the Caribbean Review of Books

Saturday, 26 April 2008

R.I.P. Wordsworth McAndrew, 1936-2008

The Guyanese writer, folklorist, and broadcaster Wordsworth McAndrew--"one of the most influential advocates for the collection, preservation and celebration of Guyanese folk life", as today's Stabroek News puts it, in some ways the Guyanese equivalent of Louise Bennett--died yesterday in New Jersey, at the age of 72. The Signifyin' Guyana blog has posted a tribute to McAndrew by his friend and colleague John Rickford:

I learned a lot from Mac over the years. He had an absolute love for Guyanese "culchuh" as he put it--and an infinite interest in every variant of every tradition (queh queh, obeah, cumfa), song, story, game, way of cooking, eating, celebrating, and so on that Guyanese and West Indian peoples of every ethnic group had inherited and transformed. I learned a lot from him about how to do fieldwork well. For instance, if someone said they played a game called "Airy Dory," and asked if he'd ever heard of it, he'd either say "No," (although I knew he had heard several accounts of it already) or otherwise indicate that he wanted to hear this particular person's version. Invariably, some new detail, some local variant would emerge in the course of the narration, and his understanding of the full range and complexity (and perhaps history) of that cultural institution would be enriched in the process.

PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana pays tribute to Mac

The President of Guyana, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, in extending a CARIFESTA tribute for Wordsworth McAndrew, has said that the government will pay special homage to the folklorist during the staging of the tenth Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts (CARIFESTA) this August.

“I express profound sadness at his death and extend deepest sympathies to his family, relatives, friends and to all those who share in his bereavement,” the President said in a statement yesterday.

The President said McAndrew’s passing was ill-timed given the preparations for CARIFESTA, but said “a special homage” will be paid during the festival to the contributions of “this exemplary Guyanese.”

“Wordsworth McAndrew was a trailblazer in the study and understanding of local folklore. Through his explorations of this subject, he helped us to celebrate our common roots. Through his work on oral traditions, literature, music and on radio, he has grounded us in our rich and diverse cultural history,” the President said.

The foundation that he laid in the field of local folklore is of inestimable value; his work timeless, standing not only for his own generation but for all times, the President added.

“For helping to define those common threads that form part of the fabric in which we are all adorned, Wordsworth McAndrew will remain an example for all, showing the importance of folk culture in the quest for national identity and cohesiveness.”

Pritha Singh on Mac

Wordsworth McAndrew, in his abundance of joy, optimism and courage, has left an indelible mark on those who knew him and had the privilidge of being alive when he "owned" the streets at the birth of our nation - Guyana . As a youth in the 70s, I remember him in visiting Rajkumari in the "writers salon". In New York, when he lived in Richmond Hill, my brother Gora, myself and the whole troupe walked through the streets as "de after party", making up songs about the people and things we saw along the way. I called him "Words" - He made everyone feel special by his attentive warmth, enthusiasm and zest for life, even though he was carrying a lot of pain and disappointment inside. I offer this lotus to you, Words, from all of us with love and shantih!
Pritha Singh, Executive/Artistic Director
E: rajkumari@verizon.net P: 718.846.5431

John Rickford on Mac

A Tribute by John Rickford

(L-John Rickford, R-Wordsworth McAndrew, May 2003)

I got to know Mac quite well from about 1974 when I returned to Guyana to teach at UG and do fieldwork in Better Hope and other rural areas. He accompanied me on several occasions, joining in the interviewing about language, folklore, folk life and culture with great interest and delight, and branching into other areas (like the Kali Mai Puja ceremonies held weekly at the house of Dora, a Better Hope/East coast legend). Some of that material found its way into his radio show, "What Else?" and into the slim but informative "Ooiy!" magazine he published.

He also participated in the "Festival of Guyanese Words" conference that we held in Georgetown, featuring research presentations by students and faculty and others, but with valuable feedback from non-academics whose expertise as farmers, stevedores, or just a native Guyanese qualified them to extend and challenge our findings. He contributed a paper on Guyanese folksongs, with a short example from each "chapter" of the folksong book, as he put it ("Representational," "Congo," "Queh-Queh," "Pork-Knocker," "Ring Play," "Cumfa" and "East Indian Rhyming Song," which he described repeatedly as the newest chapter in the folk-song book, and the one that was being augmented most extensively). And he helped immeasurably with proof-reading, the word-index, and other aspects of the publication that resulted from that conference, and he even stood with us on street corners to sell the publication. (Thanks in part to his street smarts, the first edition of 500 sold out in one week.)

I learned a lot from Mac over the years. He had an absolute love for Guyanese "culchuh" as he put it--and an infinite interest in every variant of every tradition (queh queh, obeah, cumfa), song, story, game, way of cooking, eating, celebrating, and so on that Guyanese and West Indian peoples of every ethnic group had inherited and transformed. I learned a lot from him about how to do fieldwork well. For instance, if someone said they played a game called "Airy Dory," and asked if he'd ever heard of it, he'd either say "No," (although I knew he had heard several accounts of it already) or otherwise indicate that he wanted to hear this particular person's version. Invariably, some new detail, some local variant would emerge in the course of the narration, and his understanding of the full range and complexity (and perhaps history) of that cultural institution would be enriched in the process.

I also learned, from observation and practice, the importance of lavishing time and attention to people in the course of fieldwork--taking time not only to ask them about the particular things you were interested in, but just to "lime" with them, take a drink and eat some food with them, show them that you cared about them as human beings. I contrast this, when I teach my own fieldwork course, with the experience the author Studs Terkel reports in one of his books in which an interviewee asked him to stay and shoot the breeze after he'd conducted an interview. Because he had another interview across town, he said he couldn't stay, But the interviewee rebuked him: "Hey, how's it gonna sound--this guy, Studs, comes to my house, gets my whole life on tape, and says he's gotta run?" As Terkel put it, afterwards, he cancelled his other appointments and spent a memorable evening at the guy's home. But in retrospect, he wondered how he could have been so thoughtless. Wordsworth, who thoroughly enjoyed human interaction (even when it involved arguing about something, for the sheer love of argument) helped me avoid that kind of mistake. I always thought his name was well suited to his love of words, and wrote "Words worth it!" on the title page when I gave him a book of mine one year.

I could go on and on about Mac's other skills as a folklorist and culturologist and radio broadcaster and personality and his power as a poet and performer (anyone who has ever read his "Ole Higue" poem or heard him perform it will know whereof I speak), and about my other experiences with him (like the memorable "Turn back the clock" party he held in the late 70's when Burnham decided to change Guyana's time).

I hope someone will establish a website soon on which we can trade and exchange our stories about Mac and what he meant to Guyana and to us. There will undoubtedly be other occasions for us to reflect on his significance and celebrate his life orally and in print. I also hope that some of his recordings and notes and articles will find their way into the University of Guyana or a similar library or archives for future generations of Guyanese scholars to study and future generations of Guyanese to enjoy. For the moment, and for a start, I merely wanted to share some of my thoughts on the passing of Guyana's greatest folklorist.

Walk good, my friend, or as our Surinamese neighbours say, Waka bunu.

Wordsworth McAndrew