a begining

Guinea John[1] went to the East Coast of Trinidad and climbed up a cliff in Manzanilla. He put 2 corn cobs under his arms and flew back to Africa; leaving behind his children and grandchildren to fend for themselves. It wasn’t that   Guinea John did not care about his descendents, but he knew that they had eaten too much salt on the island; and that they were too heavy to fly back to Africa. So rather than burden them with the wisdom of flight and levitation that they could never use, he took it back with him to Africa, leaving them now bound to Trinidad. Two hundred years ago Gang Gang Sarah tried to fly home too. She was a witch who was blown from her home in Africa to Trinidad. She had a long life in Trinidad where she became known for her kindness to the villagers. When her husband died, she climbed to the top of the tallest silk cotton tree[2] in Tobago to try to fly back to Africa.  Gang Gang Sarah fell to her death when she jumped from the branches – too heavy with salt to fly home. So now Totoben and Maisie[3] have become Trinidadian and their fractured history, a part of their reconstructed reality.

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[1] From the novel Salt by Earl Lovelace, pg 3.

[2] The silk cotton tree is known locally as a tree in which spirits reside. It is supposedly difficult to find someone who will cut one down. This particular tree, relevant in this myth still stands today.

[3] Totoben and Maisie; main personas in the publication Caribana: African Roots and Continuities, by Nourbese Philips