Take yourself back several years. It’s Thursday morning of the Easter feast. Around 6 am the animal sacrifice begins. Like many ancient religious traditions, the Greeks, Hebrews, Romans and Aztecs, the Rada sacrifice animals. For Easter it’s usually chickens, calf and goats. The animals are killed for consumption and enjoyed by the family and wider community. That’s why many of us refer to the ceremony as a feast or sacrifice. Sheep and pigs were never killed nor eaten by our forefathers.
A few of the women are pictured here cleaning the chickens.
Empress above. Patsy, Veronica and Onika below.
The drums, singing and dancing start around 6 am and finish around 9 am. Then the men and women begin to prepare for the midday and evening meals. One can enjoy cookoo, callaloo and ochroes among other dishes with the meat. The drumming, singing and dancing resume around 7 pm and ends at 10 pm.
The feast continues on Friday and the end is marked on Friday night with the singing of the Kwemi (song of thanksgiving) with just the chac chacs and iron (gan). We kneel while singing the Kwemi, once the song is finished we all leave and the tent is closed. The next feast will be in August.
The drums are laid to rest at the end of the evening.
Cleaning chicken is the only part of feast I did not like.
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