Guyanese Online

Christmastime with Mr Stick-Um and Bam-Bam Sally – by Francis Quamina Farrier

Francis Quamina Farrier

I’m always grateful to my Parents for my upbringing; born of a Grenadian father and a Guyanese mother. Experiencing life in the city, the rural areas, the intermediate savannahs, the mountains and also the southern savannahs of my homeland, Guyana, all before I reached my twentieth year of life.

Growing up in McDoom village, on the East Bank of Demerara, which was not a part of the city of Georgetown, in colonial British Guiana, I can share with you, some of the enjoyments of the Christmas Season activities in pre-Independent rural British Guiana.   

The experiences of Older Guyanese have many similar experiences of the Christmas Season in British Guiana of seventy and more years ago.

Masquerade Band – 1970

Let’s start with Mr Stick-Um and Bam-Bam Sally, (one and the same person), who was based in my boyhood McDoom Village. Think of this elderly gentleman who is of medium built, dressed as a woman in a very colourful out-fit and wearing a very pregnant tummy and extra protruding posterior. He is one of the fixed traditions of the Christmas season on the lower East Bank Demerara. A one-man (woman, if you will), going around the villages  – Meadowbank, Houston, McDoom, Agricola, Eccles, Bagotstown and Peter’s Hall – singing a monotonous rhyme, “Ah woh fo’ happen, leh he happen one time” (English Translation; What’s to happen, let it happen now)

Mr Stick-Um and his character Bam-Bam Sally collectively, was a figure of fun, especially for the young boys in the villages. They would run up to him (her) and hurdle taunts. However, the greatest interaction with Mr Stick-Um and his Bam-Bam Sally, for the boys, was to get a touch of her over-size ‘bam-bam’. In the real world of 2017, that would be regarded as inappropriate touching of a female.

Doing his rounds, Mr Stick-Um collected money for his performance. Some of the boys would go to him with their cents and pennies, and while slowly handing them over, other boys would take the opportunity to take a firm grab at Bam-Bam Sally’s ‘bam-bam’, much to the enjoyment of on-lookers, and the pretended anger of Mr Stick-Um. It was a performance between Actor and Audience in a mobile open-air theatre, depicting the Christmas story with a Folk bias.

As children, we had no idea what that chant by Mr Stick-Um was all about; “Ah woh fo’ happen, leh he happen one time.”: However, in life much later on, with the gathering of a few of us reminiscing on Christmases of yore in the village, we came up with the following interpretation; Bam-Bam Sally, was very pregnant. She represented the Virgin Mary, who was on her way, along with her husband Joseph, from Nazareth to Jerusalem, where she gave birth to Jesus in a humble stable. Mr. Stick-Um’s act, therefore, was portraying the pregnant Virgin Mary, who was anxious to give birth to Jesus, Emmanuel, the Savoir of Mankind. “Ah woh fo’ happen, leh he happen one time.”

Now just in case you are of the view that only the female anatomy was the butt (pun intended) of boys of the colonial era Christmas time, I am pleased to let you know that the most tender part of the male anatomy was fair game at Christmas time;  I refer to the smallest attachment of the Mad Bull. In masquerade bands of yore, the Mad Bull was the principal attraction of the young boys. Well, to be more precise, that dangling little ‘ding-dong’ at the rear end of the ‘animal’.

As you know, the ‘Mad Cow’ or ‘Mad Bull’ in the Masquerade Bands, was almost the size of a real bull. The rider or dancer of the bull, was strong and agile and would dance for hours twirling and twisting for hours on end. There was no let up. In fact, the bull would give chase to on-lookers, much to the fun of everyone. But that bull was not the only aggressor. Some of the young boys were. In fact, it was a bit of the bravado of the Run of the Bulls which is so popular in Spain.

The groups of young boys, who were usually good friends, would challenge each other as to who could make the first swift dash and get a grab of the dangling ‘ding-dong’ of the bull. To achieve such a dangerous feat, one had to be very bold and very agile. Since such daring was done with the collaboration of friends, the aggressor had a little of the operation in his favour. His friends operated as decoys to distract the “Mad Cow” dancer.

The other Masquaraders would be doing their thing; the Stilt dancer, the Mother Sally, the drummers. The flute man, et al. “Christmas comes but once a year”, one would commence the chant, “and every man must have his share, even Willie in de jail, drinking sour ginger beer. “MUSIC”! The masquerade flouncers would begin their dancing. So, too, Mother Sally and the Stilt Dancers. But for the young boys, the Mad Cow was their main interest as it ran up and down and twirled this and that way. Then it was time for action by one or two of the brave boys. Objective being to rush in at the back and have a grab of the mad Bull’s little dangling ‘ding-dong’.

That was not easy as the Mad Cow was very active, moving here, there and everywhere; very swiftly. So the boy who was to make the grab of the ‘ding-dong’, had to be very good at timing. One false move. One slip, could result in disaster, with the Mad Cow dancer turning and ramming the horns of the bull into the unfortunate boy. That could be very painful, and also embarrassing for the victim, who would be immediately hauled away by laughing friends, and if needs be, taken home and given medical folk treatment such as a massage and a cup of sugar water.

However, many were the successes by the boys, myself included. The successful boy would be regarded as a hero, and the Mad Cow Dancer pretending to be very angry, would chase other ‘innocent’ boys who happen to be near-by.

But why was there this interest in getting a snatch of that extension of the Mad Cow’s anatomy? I am not too sure, save to say, that it was there. It was dangling. And it attracted attention. That is so with the famous Wall Street Bull in downtown Manhattan, New York City, which I observed many years later. Just a little larger than a real life bull, that statue located in the middle of the street in the New York Financial District, which was installed in December 1989, attracts hundreds of tourists every day. Many take photographs standing by its side, riding on it, or rubbing its ‘ding-dong’; for good luck, I’m told.

I’ve seem many tourists, both men and women, rubbing that small part of the statue’s anatomy. I’ve examined it closely and can conclude that it must have been rubbed millions of times over the years, since the colour of that part of that bronze bull is lighter than the close surrounding areas.

Well, even though Bam-Bam Sally and the Guyanese masquerade Mad Cow are a little over two thousand five hundred miles away from the Wall Street Bull, there are certain similarities about how humanity connects with the special areas of their anatomies, especially at Christmastime.

With a similar interest in the anatomy of Bam-Bam Sally, a female, and the Mad Bull, a male, it would be safe to say that charges of inappropriate touching of the human and animal anatomy, can be leveled by both females and males as well, not only at Christmas time, but all year round. The bigger issue is whether this “touching of private parts of objects such as Bam-Bam Sally and the Mad Cow, could be responsible for inappropriate sexual harassment of women and girls by Boys grown to Men, in Guyana and around the world, and which is a BIG HOT TOPIC in America at this time, in which quite a number of powerful men have, like Humpty Dumpty, come tumbling down.

Francis Quamina Farrier pictured with the Wall Street
Bull in the Downtown Manhattan Financial District of New York City.

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