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Appendix A: Glossary of Maroon Terms
Excerpted from APPENDIX D: GLOSSARY OF MAROON TERMS in Kenneth M. Bilby's Master's Thesis, Partisan Spirits: Ritual Interaction and Maroon Identity in Eastern Jamaica.
- abeng - signalling horn of West African derivation used by the Maroons.
- afana - machete, cutlass.
- African - a descendant of the Liberated Africans who came to Jamaica during the nineteenth century; a member of the Kumina cult (sometimes called "Bongo nation").
- asafo house - structure where Maroons used to hold public Kromanti dance ceremonies.
- asikere - mixed sugar and water, used in giving Maroon oath.
- bakra - white person.
- bigiman - a Maroon ancestral spirit.
- Bongo - synonym for African.
- Business dance - a Kromanti dance held for serious purposes, involving the invocation of ancestral spirits; outsiders are barred from attendance, except under special circumstances.
- busubrandi - a set of ritual motions used by Maroons in Kromanti dance (also sometimes used to refer to the gestures of threat made toward outsiders in Kromanti dance).
- clean-yeye - not in a state of spirit possession; normal state of consciousness.
- Country - ritual language (either Maroon or African) with magical or invocational power.
- dancer-man - Maroon ritual specialist.
- dodging - the Maroon practice of conscious evasion or trickery, used to protect the secrecy of Maroon supernatural knowledge.
- duppy - ghost, spirit.
- fete-man - Maroon ritual specialist; central figure at Kromanti dance.
- granfa - a Maroon possessed by a male ancestral spirit; also, the term used to address such a person (female form, grandy).
- jege - object used by a fete-man for divination.
- jijifo - Maroon term, meaning "to dodge."
- John Thomas - the term used in the Maroon "spirit language" to refer to St. Thomas parish; also, a Maroon drumming style considered to be close to Kumina drumming.
- jumbie - ghost, spirit.
- Kromanti dance - a traditional Maroon ceremony in which Maroon ancestors take possession of living participants, and offer their aid; it is held most often for the healing of spirit-caused ailments.
- Kromanti Play - same as Kromanti dance.
- kumfu-man - same as fete-man, or Science-man.
- Kumina - an Afro-Jamaican religious cult; the ceremonial dance done by members of this cult.
- kwatamassa (quartermaster) - ritual assistant who attends to the granfa or grandy at Kromanti Play.
- myal - possession by the spirit of an ancestor (either Maroon or African).
- niega - classificatory term used by Maroons to refer to non-Maroon Afro-Jamaicans.
- obeah - power over spirits (Maroons most often associate the term with outsiders, and claim that it refers to evil workings).
- obroni - a non-Maroon person; a person with no Maroon blood (synonymous with "Stranger").
- pakit - a personal spirit owned and used by a Maroon fete-man; the main source of a fete-man's power.
- pikin ("child") - term with which a granfa addresses the clean-yeye persons in his presence.
- Pleasure dance - a Kromanti dance held solely for purposes of recreation, in which ancestral spirits are not purposefully invoked.
- salo - private Maroon ritual similar to Kromanti Play, but without drumming or spirit possession ("salo" is sometimes used by Maroons interchangeably with "Science").
- Science - power over spirits.
- Tamboo - a Maroon drumming style, similar to Kumina drumming.
- titai-man - same as fete-man, or Science-man.
- trim - to ritually prepare oneself for a potentially dangerous encounter.
- White-a-miggle - a part-Maroon person; a person of mixed parentage.
- work-man - same as fete-man, or Science-man.
- yarefo - a sick or dying person; also, a corpse (in Maroon Country).
- yenkunkun - a "true-born" Maroon; a full-blooded Maroon.
- yoyo - a "true-born" Maroon; a descendant of Nanny.