Junkanoo/Jankunú

Abstract

The festal art forms of The Bahamas and Belize have procured a confluence of variegated spellings. This chapter charts the Bahamian Junkanoo tradition’s autonomous rise from the early “grotesque” masqueraders’ appearances on Christmas Day in cheap materials such as crocus sacks and banana leaves to its present-day morphing into a “breathtaking art” for Boxing Day. In Belize, its Jankunú principally unfolds in Dangriga, the home and the cultural center of the Garifuna (or Garinagu) people. Christmas Day boasts its wanáragua processions with Boxing Day traditionally preserved for Charikanari with more spontaneous appearances embracing a festive art form dependent on crossdressing males.