The grounds of Miss Lassie’s home in South Sound were transformed into scenes reminiscent of the ‘olden days’, as part of the Cayman National Cultural Foundation’s annual ‘Christmas of Yesteryear’ being held 7-9 Dec.
CNCF staff and volunteers, dressed in traditional Caymanian attire, offered residents, students and visitors educational tours and talks on Christmas in Cayman, Caymanian culture and heritage, stories, and demonstrations of rope- and plait-making.
The cultural offering also featured the traditional preparations of Christmas in Cayman. It included sand backing in thatch baskets, the laying of conch shells, and the spreading and sweeping of freshly sanded yards with rosemary brooms and rakes.
Students from across the island tried their hands at backing sand, rope making, and sweeping the yard with the rosemary brooms. Seniors present were heard laughing and exchanging their favourite childhood memories.
Rhoda Ruth Smith remembered smelling apples in the house, a favourite memory during Christmas of yesteryear. “It was the only time that they came to the island, Christmas, and it was a special treat that I shared among my eight siblings.” Apples, grapes, pork and beef were also treats that were only available at Christmas.
Smith, who grew up in both West Bay and North Side, said if you don’t know where you’re coming from, you won’t know where you’re going, adding, “I sits down and talk sometimes and talks to my children, two boys and a girl, and I tell them about the days of walking barefoot through the beach because the white sand was cooler than the grey roads. There wasn’t any paved road back then.”
Smith said it’s her first time attending the CNCF event, noting, “It’s important to keep these offerings alive.”
Attendees got lost in the making of rope, demonstrated by William ‘Billy’ Banker. He said his love for rope-making started when he was a young boy. “I’ve been doing this from school holidays, school weekends. The material is very scarce now. It’s very important to teach the younger generation all of this history, to keep it going.”
John Gray High School student Jaylen Washington, 16, said he’s learned a lot from people like Banker. “I’ve learned how they made thatch using this three-pronged wooden machine. You’d twist and turn until they’d became tight.”
Silver-thatch-rope-making artisan Rose May Ebanks told the Compass her favourite part of Christmas, “was going and backing the sand. Sweeping my mother’s yard and going to church.”
Ebanks has been teaching the craft for many years and has enjoyed learning something new through other people’s experiences of Cayman history.
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