Watt Town Revival pilgrimage nominated for UNESCO inscription
“AS WE celebrate the mounting of this exhibition, Im a pleased to announce that with the support of key players in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport and the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank (ACIJ/JMB) and other institutions, Jamaica recently nominated the Pilgrimage to Watt Town, Jamaica for inscription on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
“This inscription would indeed be monumental not only for Revivalists but for Jamaicans and the diaspora who value and recognise the Revival religion as an important element in the development of the history and identity of this country,” Jo-Anne Archibald, principal director for culture in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, said as he delivered Minister Olivia Grange’s address at the launch of the Journeying Revival Iconography exhibition at the ACIJ/JMB on Friday, December 15, last year.
Watt Town in St Ann is where the Zion Headquarters Jerusalem Spiritual Schoolroom is situated on the top of a huge, rocky hillock. Three times a year, Revivalists from all over Jamaica journey there for various reasons. This religious pilgrimage has been going on for over a century, and as such, is a historical shrine. The institution is said to have been founded in 1869 by Henry Downer, who died at age 105. Various people have led this mission site, and beside the church there is a cemetery, the final resting place for some of the former leaders.
“This adds to the integrity of this site. According to authors Jacob Climo and Maria Cattel, ‘To those whose identities are centred in distant homelands, the ecemetery is memory space, a diasporic bridge, which is a reflection of their homeland and an expression of collective experience’. Certainly, Watt Town is one of the oldest Revival sites in Jamaica. This institution has been sustained over the years not by any act of Parliament or grants from any overseas governing body, but by humble peasant folk, people from all across Jamaica,” Dr Maria A. Robinson-Smith, Revival researcher/scholar, writes in her book, Revivalism Representing an Afro-Jamaican Identity.
The pilgrimage is a confluence of people, colours, icons, messages, and spirits. It has s no parallel in any other Christian denomination in Jamaica. Dr Robinson-Smith says, in the opening paragraph of Chapter 6 – Watt Town an iconic space, “At Watt Town, the processes that facilitate the retention of African patterns are documented through selected icons that span the Revival landscape. It shows how people, through the use of your own cultural elements, can develop an identity of difference.” And then there is the ancestral element.
The pilgrimage is on the first Thursday of each quarter as Thursday is regarded as Earth Day or Mourning Day for the Asante people. “On Mourning Day, one honours and gives reverence to one’s ancestors. It is also a special day for the Congo people. One could interpret the practice of worship on Mourning Thursdays as a possible connection with the Akan heritage in Jamaica. The red, gold, and green flag on the top of the hill highly suggests a connection between the rituals of Watt Town and the nations of Africa,” Dr RobinsonSmith explains.
Red, gold, and green are just a few of the colours of attire in which the pilgrims encase themselves. It is a ritual that is as spectacular as spectacular gets. It is orderly and purposeful from start to finish in an unwritten programme that lasted for the entire day. It seems festive with an abundance of food for various purposes. “The preparation and representation of self and community have all the necessary ingredients of a grand home-coming,” Dr Robinson-Smith writes.
“The singing and the dancing and the waving of flags and staffs make excellent theatre for the onlooker. The mystique behind the opening and closing all the seals heightens the drama and speaks to the springs of energy and ancestral wisdom that can be accessed by those who, according to Bishop Bourne, understand the ‘notes and numbers’.”
Embedded withing the pomp, pageantry, and iconography, there is the message, the Watt Town message, which the bands will take back from whence they had come. Dr Robinson-Smith quotes a Bishop Guthrie as saying, “People come to Watt Town to pick up their portion to build up themselves.
“Watt Town message is not an evangelical message. It is a portion message where people come to pick up their numbers and their orders from the angels. In order to carry ‘portion message’, you have to be able to respond to the key with the right numbers. When you touch the key, someone will get touched. If you do not have a key, you cannot open the door. It is the letters that give the leadership.”
Dr Robinson-Smith calls the pilgrimage an “ontological journey” because “this journey is so important to the people, their sense of being and their worldview”. There are seven portions of the journey, she says, and each of the seven takes place in a different space, except portions two and five, which take place on the same seal but at a different time of day. The seven portions are the preparation, the signing, working the Order, the revelation, the meeting of the powers, the blessing, and the working of the message.
The sending and the receiving of messages in Revivalism are a major part of what Revivalists do, and Watt Town is a fertile ground for such, thus the quarterly treks, which researchers believe are intangible parts of the Jamaican heritage.
“The Watt Town pilgrimage provides an occasion for people who share the same worldview to celebrate life and their ancestors through rituals, music, and dance in a manner that to them is aesthetically pleasing and in response to the question, ‘Who am I?’,” Dr Robinson-Smith told
Family and Religion. The case for Watt Town’s inscription on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is strong. Time and the spirits will tell.