This is Part I of a three part series on the Jamaican character/symbol "John Crow". This post provides information about the meaning of "John Crow".
Part II of this series features two Jamaican mento songs that mention "John crow". Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/09/two-jamaican-mento-songs-that-mention.html for that post.
Part III of this series features the Jimmy Cliff song "John Crow".
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/09/jimmy-cliff-john-crow-lyrics-video.html for that post.
The content of this post is presented for historical & folkloric purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
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INFORMATION ABOUT JOHN CROW
From From http://www.golocaljamaica.com/readarticle.php?ArticleID=784
The John Crow - Graceful or Disgraceful Bird-snip-
(Apr-22-2003)
John Crow, the common Jamaican vulture, was once widely known as a carrion crow or turkey vulture. In towns and throughout the countryside, these birds can be seen tearing at carcasses in the streets. Sometimes they circle in the sky or simply perch in trees or on housetops, often with outspread wings.
Many stories abound as to how the name John Crow came about...
[Frederic G. Cassidy and R.B. Lapage indicate that] the first record of the bird being called John Crow was 1826. In a later book Dictionary of Jamaican English by Mr. Cassidy and R.B. Lapage it is stated that the origin of the name John Crow may be linked to Jim Crow, the American term. There is however no evidence to show that they are linked. Whatever the story behind the name John Crow, it is deeply embedded in Jamaican folk life.
The John Crow is a bird of great symbolic importance. In the Jamaican setting it is associated with ugliness, blackness, evil and disgrace. In abusive arguments people will call each other names such as "dirty John Crow, black John Crow or heng man John Crow". The John Crow is also an omen of death. It is believed that if the John Crow perches on a housetop, someone inside will die. It is also believed that if a John Crow appears in an individual's dream, it signifies death or some other form of destruction in the person's family.
The name John Crow appears in a few Jamaican proverbs. "Every John Crow tink him pickney white". This means that everyone thinks that his own children or his possessions are the best in the world. "John Crow seh him a dandy man but same time him hab so-so feather". Here the John Crow is a symbol of someone who is being very vain and pretentious. "John Crow a roast plantain fi yuh" depicting someone who is very meager and emaciated who may soon die. "If yuh fly wid John Crow yuh wi nyam dead meat" expresses the idea that a person is capable of doing the things that are done in the company that he or she keeps. Two popular folksongs also exist which speak about the John Crow. They are "Peel head John Crow" and "John Crow Seh".
Whatever the John Crow represents or however the name originated, it is one of the most significant birds underlining the culture.
Source: Jamaica: The Fairest Isle by Phillip Sherlock and Barbara Preston (1992) Plants, Spirits and the Meaning of John in Jamaica: Article Written in Jamaica Journal by John Rashford (May 1984)
[Italics added by me to highlight that statement.]
For the record, "Jump Jim Crow is a song and dance from 1828 that was done in blackface by white comedian Thomas Dartmouth (T.D.) "Daddy" Rice."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_Jim_Crow. Thus the earliest documentation of "John Crow" predates "jim crow" by two years and the cultural meanings of these two symbols are quite different. In the USA, "jim crow" is a term used to describe a system of racial segregation that discriminated against Black people. "John Crow" doesn't have that meaning.
It's my position that the main reason why the male names "Jim" and "John" were used for the terms "Jim Crow" and "John Crow" is that "Jimmy" was used for centuries in Britain & its territories for the "crowbar" tool. "Jim" is a nickname for "James" and not "John" but some people may have considered that the two names are related. Click http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090505044409AAEFfdV response by d_r_siva
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From http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090517/arts/arts1.html Extracts from the 'Jamaica Journal' - Plants, Spirits and the meaning of 'John' in Jamaica ; Published: Sunday | May 17, 2009
John Rashford, Contributor
“The word 'John' appears 33 times in the Dictionary of Jamaican English as a generic term in the compound common names of people, birds, plants and other objects. This paper will show that objects named 'John' are often associated in Jamaica with the world of spirits.
I will focus on the vine Abrus precatorious, which Jamaicans call John Crow Bead, and it links - by virtue of John as a generic term - to the Christmas dancing in Jamaica called John Canoe ( also spelled Jonkonnu) and to the vulture called John Crow (Cathartes aura). This paper suggests that the dance, the bird and the plant all have the name John because of their relationship to the world of spirits and spirit possession.
Practice of obeah
It shows that John Canoe, who is the chief dancer of a troupe of dancers, is the spirit person or obeahman (variously described as a witch doctor, magician, jumbie-man or sorcerer) and both the John Crow and the John Crow Bead are associated with death and with materials used in the practice of obeah...
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