Great Grandmother Was A Guinea Woman

Lorna Goodison states in her poem “Guinea Woman”, “Great Grandmother was a guinea woman”(Goodison). This statement can be interpreted in many ways as guinea has multiple connotations. For example, Guinea is a country in West Africa, but it is also an ancient coin and name for a witch or wise-woman. Creolization, as a term, also has multiple meanings. These meanings are based on different aspects of the mixing of cultures. This can be a mixing or change in religion, music, food, and skin color. The latter being the one most often adjoined with the term creolization or Creole. Lorna Goodison outlines features and the story of her great grandmother and grandmother as a way to show creolization. Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s piece Creolization in Jamaica
show his view on what creolization is in terms of examining the Jamaican history and culture. Through analysis of these writings a definition for the term creolization can be determined and be used in further understanding of the history and cultures of the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, the term creolization is most often used to describe the mixing of races. This comes from a time when slaves were brought to the Caribbean and they began to have relationships with white european slave owners. The resulting children would then have a mixture of phenotypic traits. Goodison’s depiction of her grandmother shows this. She states, “...the evidence my blue-eyed grandmother, the first Mulatta”(Goodison). Mulatta being a woman of mixed descent, usually having one white and one black parent. The mixing of races also challenged and changed the standard or rule of law over time. In Jamaica, Brathwaite outlines the impact by stating, “But it was in the intimate area of sexual relationships that the greatest damage was done to white Creole apartheid policy and where the most significant—and lasting—inter-cultural creolization took place”(Brathwaite, p.203). Though the mixing of races is a major part of creolization in the Caribbean, there is one major component that both these writers note. This part being the mixture of cultures or taking on another’s culture whether voluntarily or having it forced upon you as a people. Creolization, in terms of the blending of cultures, is looked at as a combination of cultural aspects.
This can be the combination of two religions, the resulting music and food from the meeting of two cultures, and many other cultural aspects. An aspect that does not get noticed as often as it should is the way creolized people behave, talk, and view themselves. Creolization is usually a long process brought about because of the meeting of two different cultures. In the case of the Caribbean, many of these peoples were forced to move to a new location and get used to the climate, food, and way of life. Often times slaves changed their walk of life in order to please their masters or to alleviate themselves from getting beaten. Brathwaite outlines the slaves motivation for change by giving an example, “For the docile there was also the persuasion of the whip and the fear of punishment; for the venal, there was the bribe of gift or compliment or the offer of a better position, and for the curious and self-seeking, the imitation of the master”(Brathwaite, p.203). Goodison outlines as well the changes in her own great grandmother, “They forbade great grandmother’s guinea woman presence. They washed away her scent of cinnamon and escallions controlled the child’s antelope walk…”(Goodison). The importance of these changes whether physical or cultural should not be overlooked when analyzing history and current cultures of the Caribbean
today.
Creolization, in the Caribbean, can be defined as the mixing of two peoples and the resulting cultural aspects and physical aspects in relation to our view today. Creolization will always be viewed differently by each group of people or even each person within a community or within the academic setting. The cultures of today, even in the Caribbean, had many different ways of getting to the point they are at currently. Whether it be forced into a situation of assimilation or a gradual change in people over time, Creolization will always be a defining point for many cultures today. In the academic realm, scholars must use the information on this process as a way to understand recent conflicts or even just understand the ideals and cultures of the people of the past and present.