DJab DJab

Photo credit: Alexis Riel, ICH-Photo Competitor (Youth)

DJab-DJab is Grenada’s most unique J’ouvert masquerade and for which it is well known. It derives from the Jab-Molassi (“Molasses Devil”) Mas that dates to slavery or soon thereafter. Jab-Jab began as small groups of men and boys parading through the streets of the rural parishes daubed in “old oil,” but today, large groups of people with glistening black skin, some wearing helmets with protruding cows’ horns and other unlikely adornments, parade through the streets beating drums and pans and singing songs. Their grotesque appearance is meant to shock and scare. It is Spicemas at its best! Ou lay ou lambé, ou lay ou la!  

DJab-DJab

Photo credit: Proud of my Heritage - ICH Team/Zone No.3

During Carnival in Grenada (August 2022) this well recognized ICH-element was documented by the ICH-teams in different communities by interviewing some practitioners as Colin Dowe, Glenn Forsyth, Clary Joseph & Vaughn Thomas, La Fillete.

Photo Credit (Painting): Joachim McMillan, 2021