Third Ingredient: Tradition and Customs

Ingredient three: Tradition and Customs

Miss callaloo here, adding another ingredient to this amazing pot of callaloo.

Tradition and customs🎵🏰👳.

Traditions and customs gives each and every Caribbean an identity that sustains any social group over the course of historic changes. The customs that have been passed down from generations finds a way to come into society, things  like entertainment, arts and crafts, rituals and festivals are some attachments that stems from ancestors and is succeeded generation after generation.

This is despite the indisputable relationships the islands have with the countries that colonized them, which has led each island to try to preserve its language, artistic forms and customs. The climate of the Caribbean archipelago may be one of the decisive factors that have molded cultural expressions such as the music, social customs.(Caribbean Traditions and Customs - Caribbean | EnciclopediaPR, 2020)

At the same time, language is an integral part of any culture and its forms shape the outlines of a country’s traditions. For example, there have been efforts of various kinds to prevent the disappearance of Creole which arrived with the African slaves and grew from a combination of African and European languages in the face of official languages such as French.

Awareness of the Creole language, however, has penetrated literary trends, linguistics and university specializations in places such as Martinique which has kept the language vibrant among those who speak it. French Creole is used in places such as Haiti, Guadeloupe, Dominica and St. Lucia. It remains alive even as its particular variations are spoken as distinctive elements  of Caribbean traditions.(Caribbean Traditions and Customs - Caribbean | EnciclopediaPR, 2020)

Although in Caribbean countries they observe their own  traditions and customs with everyone, 

families choose to have their own private tradition and customs that have been carried on by their ancestors and passed on from generation.

Traditions like fasting for a month in respect for their ancestors, or preparing a day worth of meals hand prepared by the entire family. These are just some of the practices families do to follow their own tradition and customs, another one would be developing their own values and mores as they believe that certain things shouldn't be followed in their household or whatever it may be they might turn away from.

                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Image by Marry Caribbean

Image by Caribbean National Weekly